Cannes 2-3

It is not difficult to scratch below the sun tanned surface and see the cracks beginning to show. Private beeches charging up to £20 a day to park your derrière on sand are filled with balding men approaching middle age, whose stomachs are bursting with years of decadent three course dining, accompanied by long legged girls who look a good deal younger and sound as though their entire education consisted of beauty at the local college. Whether this is a long term meeting of soul mates or the girls came as a bonus for frequent users I am unsure.

Silver haired ladies who are still striving for a golden tan long past their sell by date line the public beaches. Placing an accurate age on this particular group is almost impossible, sun damage has reduced the texture of their skin to a bulk buy box of rubber bands. What is so wrong with being pale and interesting? It is as if there was a town rule passed some time ago which stated no one is allowed to be white. You can be caramel, bright orange, the colour or tomato soup or raw meat, but never any colour that can be seen in nature without some serious genetically modified intervention.

Small white square elastoplasts kept appearing like a twisted dot to dot puzzle across the backs, arms and faces of glamorous thirty something’s. Despite my French being mainly limited to ordering alcohol, getting rid of French men and explaining medical emergencies thanks to my colourful snow boarding history I managed to piece together the puzzle by over hearing beachside conversations. The word malignant manages to cross languages, it would seem the recurring theme was mole removal due to skin cancer, but despite the obvious dangers to health, like junkies craving one more hit, these willing victims still lined up ready for their next fix of ultra violet, risking their youthful looks, elasticity of skin and even their lives. This was the first time I considered tanning to be a kind of addiction. Burroughs recollection of addiction...
“I had not taken a bath in a year nor changed my clothes or removed them except to stick a needle every hour in the fibrous grey wooden flesh of heroin addiction. I did absolutely nothing”

When tanning becomes a necessity and daily occurrence, it can no longer be a leisure activity, or possibly I am just ever so slightly bitter and enviously that my leisure activities constitute someone else’s daily life.

Cannes Day 1

First stop Cannes…

Cannes is in the Côte d'Azur region of France about 15 miles from Nice. In the summer the twisty roads are nose to tail blocked with convertibles in an array of colours and fashion, all costing a similar amount to my flat. For many the main promenade, Boulevard de la Croisette, with the beach on one side and luxury hotels, shops and boutiques on the other sums up the area. The bourgeois flock to the area and expect to have an unending supply of what ever they demand. In the words of Baudrillard, “Seduction is not that which is opposed to production. It is that which seduces production”

During the day, the focus is on the fine white sands and the azure blue of the warm Mediterranean. It is a place to be seen strolling in heals high enough to be classed as a weapon of mediocre destruction when placed in unethical hands. The emphasis is on pleasure seeking and spending a lot of money pursuing it, while simultaneously ensuring everyone is else is transfixed by you, behind Dolce & Gabbanna glasses. No one converses they merely look, judge and walk away, I can’t really think of anything worse deliberately avoiding eye contact with strangers while they rate my behind in a bikini, or attempting to look graceful while walking in heals in sand. I have never been able to perfect the in vogue and aloof look.

I’m lying on the beach in my Primark bikini and “Vintage” Oxfam glasses and I am suddenly faced with blind panic as hope to God I never become that self obsessed. I must shame facedly admit that I have gone to absurd lengths for my own personal amusement which include dislocating my neck snow boarding, applying to be the director general of the BBC, on the basis that I was hung over, the Hollyoakes Omnibus was proving to be just as monotonous as the first time round and I was a fan of East Enders and Neighbours. I also wanted to earn £105,000 per annum so I could increase my shoe collection. Although all this pales in to insignificance compared to the pinnacle of my self indulgence which required me to have my broken arm re-plastered as I got it soaking wet playing with myself in the bath. I also enjoy therapy and first dates as I can devote my time and energy to talking about myself, but I would like to believe my verbal diarrhoea is deemed to be more entertaining.