Posted on Tuesday, 3 April 2018

We don't like to pigeonhole people, but if you've been on holiday a few times you're sure to have spotted some of these characters. They're basically the same people you work with, or catch the bus to work with, or avoid in the street - but this time they're wearing a Kiss-Me-Quick hat and have drunk a bit too much.

The expert on local culture

This man, occasionally a woman, will provide you with a lot of info about local customs, culture, politics and transportation systems - much of which you really have no interest in. If you deliver your own observation on the destination ("the locals seem quite friendly"), the cultural expert will rubbish your point in a wide-ranging lecture that will take an hour and involve an overview of the various local tyrants, dictators and misanthropes who have infected the psyche of the populous. Perhaps.

The-so-much-in-lovers

OK, we get it, you really like each other, evidenced by your faces being suckered together at the bar, at the pool, at the restaurant, at the ancient UNESCO World Heritage Site...

The 24 hour drinkers

These ones, usually affable red-faced British people, can be found begging the night porter for something to drink at 4am, even if it's just the cooking wine from the kitchen. They usually tip handsomely, though.

The teenager who'd rather be elsewhere

There's that time in a young person's life when they're not quite old enough (or well financed enough) to go on holiday with their friends, so instead they get dragged off to Spain or Greece by their parents, there to spend most of their time on their phone or being told to look after their little brother.

Boys on holiday

There will be excessive drinking, there will be a lot of noise, there will be long, hot nights in Spanish police stations, trying to explain why your mates tied you to a lamppost in the bad end of Benidorm with not even a pair of castanets to cover your dignity.

Girls on holiday

This group will pose similar challenges to the Spanish authorities, but may be substantially more frightening in their demeanour than any group of lads.

The whinger

This one, usually a bloke, is comparable to the 'expert on local culture', but with far fewer facts to hand. He will instead complain about the lumpy bed, the poor service, the excessive heat, the icy air-conditioning, the locals, the tourists, his pina colada being two degrees too warm...anything in fact. This guy will make even the most polite person roughly interject in order to excuse themselves and escape his boring clutches.

The attractive barman

This handsome young chap can't be getting paid much to mix cocktails and pull lagers - and we wonder - surely he could do something more lucrative, perhaps get a job in finance or something? As he's surrounded by dozens of inebriated, eyelid-batting blonde girls, we decide to give him a free careers advice pep-talk and explain why he needs to get out of here immediately...

The mysterious older lady

These Agatha Christie types can be found on cruise ship decks or at tables with good vantage points. While able to dispose of innumerable G&Ts in an afternoon, she will still be the most compos mentis person in a given area, able to give the police a full account of any nearby misdemeanours - or at least write a page-turning novel about them later on.

The person with insanely bright, pink skin

Presumably, the decades of skin cancer prevention ads and saucy Nivea commercials have had no impact on this person. Even the fact that they got terribly sunburnt IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY LAST YEAR, was not enough for them to invest £8 in a bottle of sunscreen, or even £5 for a Kiss-Me-Quick hat. Sadly, in every one of us there is a person with insanely bright, pink skin trying to get out.

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