Oh, I do hate to be beside the seaside
‘Let’s all go to the beach’, friends and family jubilantly cry at the first hint of summer. ‘Fuck off’, I less-than-jubilantly reply. Well, at least that’s what I say in my mind. But to appear normal, I swallow it in and reluctantly pitch in to the agonising sensory waterfront terror that awaits. But it’s nice to be beside the seaside, right? Wrong. It’s a theatre of misery, with sand as public enemy number one. Sand is glorified grit, working its way insidiously into every orifice and anything it comes into contact with. Try as hard as you like to stop it, but it will get on you, sticking to your epidermis like napalmed shrapnel. Pebble and shingle beaches are no better, with their stony edges pressing painfully into delicate feet and bottoms. And people willingly choose to relax on this surface! They even take time off work for it, some laying on it for hours at a time. What kind of madness is this? Even with a towel separating me from the surface, I’m reminded of those anci...