Rhodes

I haven’t been able to send out something for Monday as we’ve been on holiday in Rhodes. The usual things - culture, international tobacco speculation, relaxation and perhaps some anthropological studies. All objectives achieved so it was a successful holiday, apart from one embarrassing incident.

Our hotel put on evening entertainment and on Saturday it was the Starlight dance troupe. This consisted of three teenage girls whose idea of dancing was to wear skimpy outfits and see how high they could kick their legs. Our little group gathered to watch as anything was better than the resident pianist, as Georgina put it, he needed winding up as he played so slowly.

The three girls got into their routines and I couldn’t help but notice that the one on the right nearest us was a bit of a porker. Unfortunately I didn’t think deep enough about what I was going to do and made the mistake of pointing this out. Kath immediately sprung to her defence. “ it’s simply because she’s not as skinny as the other two”.

I took this rebuke in good spirit and in the interests of group harmony refrained from pointing out that her comment was not politically correct either. Anyway David agreed with me while old Alan carried on photographing the girls as they did their high kicks towards us. Unfortunately Alan had forgotten the flash attachment for his camera so whenever he photographed whatever they were flashing the result looked like someone giving a three fingered salute in a darkened room.

As I watched this young girl keeping up with her slimmer mates I realised that she would be expending vastly more energy than the pair of them as she defied gravity with her kicks and twirls. Because I felt guilty about my remark and was amazed that she could do all this at all I applauded her more than the others and I think she noticed as she smiled more in our direction. Unfortunately she must have thought I was applauding her for artistic impression when actually I was giving her 8 out of 10 for effort.

The outfits got skimpier and eventually they were down to a sort of bright green spandex hot pants and matching boob tube for what was clearly a tribute to Busby Berkley. Now when ladies are choosing an outfit the key question is “does my bum look big in this?” Green spandex hot pants will do it every time, her bum did look big, very big. Of course the other two looked OK in them which is why they probably outvoted her on the choice of outfit.

So the routine went on, shimmy then a kick to the left, another shimmy and a kick to the right toward us. Each time she went left the other two disappeared behind her bum. Because we had been so appreciative of her she was also putting more effort into the shimmy and kick towards us. After a couple of these I noticed something else as she came to the right. Another kick to right and I was fairly sure about what I’d seen, yet another confirmed it, she had developed a camels foot.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and after my previous faux pas decided not to mention it, I suspect the others could see it as well but like me they were too middle class to point it out. As she swung away from us my brain hurriedly concocted an explanation to save embarrassment.

Since she was such a big girl and I suspect bright green spandex hot pants only came in the size the others were wearing this girl’s mother must have got two pairs of normal ones and joined them up to make a pair for her, so what I’d seen was her seam.

Fortunately the routine finished as I was rationalising this explanation and they trotted off. As she went I saw that I’d got it wrong, there was no matching seam at the back. Obviously her Mum had done it a different way, perhaps by letting in another piece fabric to widen them. Clearly I’d just spent a couple of minutes staring at her gusset, I hoped this hadn’t been misunderstood.

When they came back on they’d put on less skimpy outfits so there was now no way of getting to the bottom of the issue. Not that I dared look at anything below waist level now. This also brought to light that she was “better developed” than the other two and that she seemed to be the only one who thought the room was a bit chilly. Happily I can report that their final routine was a cancan and it really was very good.

Also as they left the hotel after the performance she brushed against me. I think we’ll be going back to Rhodes again.

Paul