Postcards used to be a nuisance. To be honest, I used to love getting them, the lewder the better but writing them was a frigging chore. It was like a more expensive version of Christmas and a bigger case of one-upmanship. How could a card from Skegness possibly compare to one from Egypt? Then there was the chore of having to write the same thing to about 10 disinterested people. Having a lovely time, wish you were here, the weather is hot, food is great and went on a trip to a cathedral/ market/ chicken plucking production line. The secret was to either write big or big yourself up. If you were stuck in some boring hellhole like Britain or on a yawnsome sounding driving holiday of the Benelux, the only way out of the boring postcard trap was to send a filthy one. British tack shops are excellent at producing filth, whereas our European counterparts usually sell rubbish cards like two flea ridden donkeys at it or a Greek god airbrushed to make it look like a Bel Ami cast member. I had a hissy fit in Dubai when I found that there were no obscene cards whatsoever. No innuendo relating to humping a camel. What a disgrace. I remember half a day's holiday was wasted looking for cards, composing a nice long story, looking for a post office, arguing about the price of stamps then going to your hotel reception where they would give you a cheaper price of stamps only to bin your cards.
Souvenir shopping was like Christmas shopping- fun at first then only to become such a chore. Thank God for tight-arse luggage allowances and bans on liquid. Remember when you had to buy everyone some shite Greek firewater that they obviously didn't like and it would reappear at Xmas? Remember when you had to buy the brats in your family massive lollipops in the hope they would choke or some local toy covered in lead paint? It was like turkey on Boxing Day, nobody wants it but if you didn't get it, you'd moan. Holiday presents were exactly the same. It was worse than Secret Fucking Santa as you knew who'd get what. The family show off would always buy some knock off designer goods to prove they'd been to Turkey when it was still exotic (now they just bring back an STD and a toyboy's debt). The boring gits who holidayed in the UK would buy bog-standard chocolate from Tesco's plus a keyring with Cleethorpes written on. The chavs who'd never been abroad before would usually spend the most and get a Spanish doll/ Sombrero and accidentally on purpose leave the receipt in foreign in the bag to prove 'YES THEY HAVE ALLOWED ME TO GET A PASSPORT!' The poor kids would always be disappointed. What is a 5 year old going to do with a bottle opener with Costa Del Sol written on? How can a toddler play with an ornamental woman in Flamenco gear and a 'Channel Number 4' T-shirt from a lucky lucky man? Why on earth did people waste their cash and a day of a holiday on searching for rubbish gifts that went straight in the charity shop? And don't get me started on the booze- nets of liqueurs in colourful bottles, brandy in a bottle shaped as a guitar, that bottle of tequila with the plastic hat as a lid. Oh and there were the Canaries Cunts too- those people who upgraded from Benidorm to Puerto del Carmen and let on they were going on an African voyage only to admit it was the Canaries, then spend all their money in the tax free shops buying electrical goods and discontinued perfumes they didn't need or even like.
I'd also like to give my thanks at this point to whoever came up with the bright idea to invent the single currency. By eliminating the need to 'get rid of your foreign' on the last day of the holiday, this clever person has caused a partial collapse of the souvenir shop industry. I no longer have to say 'Oh you SHOULDN'T have!!' when I am forced to display an ornamental plate of a Greek house in my kitchen.
To summarise:
1. Postcards were worse than Facebook for blagging about your fab life/holiday etc
2. Those T-Shirts they sell in Turkey aren't real designer labels
3. If you holiday in the UK, you are a boring tool who probably goes on trips to Black Pudding factories and empathises with Roy Cropper's character in Corrie.
