More Ketchup than Salsa
More Ketchup than Salsa is a humorous account of swapping a career in fish entrails on Bolton market for a life abroad as a British bar owner.
It focuses on the peculiar culture of ‘the Brit abroad’ - the eccentricities, the ups and downs of living abroad, and life behind the sun block of an expat community.
Published by Summersdale, the book is available at all major book sellers (travel section) and online at Amazon.co.uk, priced £8.99
In Tenerife, the book is available at The English Bookshop in Puerto de la Cruz or The Bookswops in Los Cristianos and Puerto Colon.
Copies can also be obtained by contacting the author directly. (If he’s in a good mood, he might even sign it).
Extracts
It was while holding aloft a not altogether pleasant-smelling mackerel that the decision was made. Blood dripping from a rabbit dangling overhead tinted the cold water from the fish and rolled down a white sleeve. The March rain hammered on the rotting tin roof high above the stall, and where there was more rot than metal, columns of water plunged onto the shuffling shoppers below. Their faces were drawn and bleak like a funeral cortège following the last remains of hope. From life they expected nothing – save a nice piece of cod at a knockdown price. Northern England in March. Northern England for most of the year, in fact. I was 28. There had to be more. I lowered the fish to eye level, ‘Is this my life?’
The fish said nothing but I already knew the answer.
Sandra worked alone on the shellfish ‘department’ slotted at right angles to the fish and chicken stall. She was allowed to run it how she pleased and was a particular favourite of Pat’s. This was just as well as the slightest hint of a reprimand would make her reach for the Kleenex. Today, however, wasn’t a good day even for Sandra.
Occasionally, apart from the run-of-the-mill fish like cod, halibut and hake, Pat would take delivery of some unusual marine life. This was partly to show off to the other fishmongers in the market and partly to keep the attention of his regular customers.
One morning, emerging from the cold, dark, hush of Ashburner Street, I was still deep in thought about warm quilts and soft pillows, hands burrowed in my donkey jacket, collar turned up in defence against the biting chill, when suddenly I was eye to eye with what appeared to be a large shark, grinning at me from atop a trestle table in the middle of the market hall. The heart-stopping apparition was indeed a 3-metre shark, Pat’s latest ‘attention-grabber’. It had certainly grabbed mine. Pat’s beam matched the shark’s as he noticed my shock. ‘Think you can sell that?’ he asked.
‘It’s a shark,’ I said.
‘Top marks, Einstein. I can see education’s not been wasted on you.’
But this morning it was fauna of a different kind that was destined to draw the gapes of Bolton’s plastic bag brigade. A fresh delivery of live crabs had arrived and Sandra had carefully arranged a dozen of them on their backs, little legs cycling in unison between the cockles and mussels.
Unfortunately, a sympathetic pensioner had noticed they were upside down and had turned them back the right way while Sandra was off chasing a young boy who had helped himself to a fistful of crabsticks.
Sandra returned to find a man in a cloth cap and a woman with no teeth hopping youthfully in front of the stall. The upright crabs, having sensed a window of opportunity, had hurled themselves off the edge of the stall and were scuttling for their crusty lives between wellies and moon boots in a bid for freedom. The good people of Bolton, unaccustomed to such crustaceous attacks, had also fled. Pat quickly sanctioned an emergency plan of four trays for a fiver plus a free bag of tandoori chicken in a bid to woo the fleeing shoppers.
Being served alcohol in your seat is one of the few redeeming factors about flying. This aside, it seems that the comfort of passengers is well down on the list of priorities for most charter airlines, just below making sure there are ample miniatures available for the cabin crew to take home, and checking that the captain has credit on his Visa in case the plane runs out of fuel.
Seating arrangements are absurdly inadequate unless you’re awarded the privilege of a fire exit seat, and with it the responsibility of fathoming out the sequence of lever-yanking necessary to operate the exit door following an unscheduled freefall. I was also the victim of an incessant recliner. The only way I could read the in-flight magazine was to rest it on the bald pate of the man in front who had reclined so much that I managed to pass a good few minutes counting the moles on his head.
The joys of having someone inconsiderate in front can only be equalled by having an oblivious individual behind and I had scored in both directions. Every twenty minutes or so, the incontinent man grabbed my seat to lever himself up, catapulting my head as he battled to clamber over his neighbours on numerous scurries to the toilet.
This made reading impossible and, for want of anything better to do, I paid a visit to the toilet myself. I have to admit to having a fascination with these sites of sensory overload. They’re like giant Fisher Price Activity Centres. The combined aroma of cleaning fluids, cheap soap and a dozen lingering perfumes confuse your sense of smell, while the unfamiliar sounds of droning engines, creaking plastic and ‘whoosh’ of water being magically whisked away lead to disorientation. A barrage of notices add to the chaos, warning of dire consequences for disposing of paper products in the waste disposal unit or waste products in the paper disposal unit. Wipe round to clean. Lift up to drain. Push down to flush. Press in to call. Slide across to close. Pull out to open. In a state of increasing panic I struggled to fulfil all my obligations and with one hand hastily trying to hitch up my trousers, the other unwittingly resting on the call button, the door flew open.
‘Can I help you sir?’ enquired the stewardess, holding the door open a bit wider and for just a little longer than I deemed necessary.