Mad dogs and the Rastas
Man . (taken from the Noel Coward song Mad Dogs and Englishmen song) Go Out In
The Midday Sun.



Well, we went to Orient Beach again (on the French side of
the Island) and had a very eventful day. This time instead of going to our usual
place with the orange umbrellas, decided to try another section further down
called Bikini Beach. The morning passed quite 
uneventfully as you might expect, and then we went for lunch in the
Bikini Beach Bar Restaurant. It was not particularly full, and being a 'people
watcher' I noticed an American tourist had pulled the leg of his swimming trunks
up and was showing his friend something on his upper thigh. And didn’t think
anymore about it at all except they were deep in conversation studying his upper
thigh. Kinky or what? Lunch was served. Excellent food on the French side. Suddenly
a huge commotion. And when I say huge, I really mean huge. A tall (about 6 foot
two inches) thin, lithe Rasta man wearing longish baggy green shorts to below
his knees; a white vest top, no shoes and his hair in the usual thick dreadlocks
bunched neatly down his back was leaping up and down screaming . Up and down he
went screaming, arms flailing and it looked like he was dancing as he continued
jumping. "You’re fookin dog....... your
fookin dog...... he just bite me! He
bite me!" pulling up the front of his green shorts revealing his upper
thigh. With another huge leap up into the air and the offending dog now well
out the way, “I bite him!...... I keeel
him....... I come back and bite him back............ I keeeeel him......... Your
fookin dog....... Where he is?.......” looking round trying to see where
the dog was. I was really keen to see how he was going to chase and catch the mongrel
and then bite him right through his tough skin. It was getting better by the
second. We were getting ready for the off..... The Rasta chasing the dog through,
round and beneath all the chairs and tables. (click on the picture to get a
bigger view of the restaurant). He picked up a chair and raised it above his
head; he was going to chase the dog with chair in hand..... making it even more
exciting and very very interesting. And then, (if he was able to) having caught
the dog bitten the offending animal who had a real penchant for ‘male upper
thighs’, he was going to Keeeel heeem . Anyway, I sat with my legs tightly closed.
Just in case!!!!..... you never know what may happen in such volatile circumstances.
The Rasta continued his loud ranting and left the restaurant looking for the
dog on the beach. The animal knew he’d done something wrong and was now hiding
beneath a table. The owner of the restaurant quickly caught him, put a leash on
him and spirited him from the scene and out of harm’s way.

Back came the Rasta. In
full cry. “where da fookin dog!....... I bite heem!........ I keel heem!......
By now, he had worked himself up into such a lather. What a state, almost
foaming at the mouth. With eyes wide, and speeding through the restaurant;
looking under the tables, “fookin dog I keel you!” And here I have to make up
words for him. He was totally uncalmable... 
he was totally unplacable.....he was becoming more and more unintelligible;
it was all quite unbelievable. We loved every second of it. He began showing
where the dog had bitten him to all that would look . I declined. Then it became
a farce. Only in the movies can you imagine this happening...... two of the
young good looking female waitresses sat down at a table to have their lunch.
This was just toooooo much for him. He leapt up and down still yelling stuff
about the fooking dog right in front of their table. Now either there is an
invisibility pill that I’ve never heard of, or... a pill that takes you away
from where you are to a place a million miles from the scene. Either way, they just
ignored his screaming, raving antics, and simply continued their conversation
over lunch as he were not there at all. Quite unbelievable. This made him even
more madder; leaping higher and shouting louder. Well, the louder he shouted,
the calmer the two waitresses became. Talk of Laurel and Hardy, it was
fantastic. Eventually he went to sit in the bar area telling all and sundry how
he was going to keeel the dog. Finally we left and went back to a humdrum sort
of afternoon on the beach. Except we were in for chapter two. Sorry about no
pics or video . Where is the camera when you need it.

 

The pied piper was
strolling through the shallows in about a metre of water. A happy fellow.
Whistling and calling to the fish. (Bloody nutter.) Holding a plastic bag of
bread crumbs and looking over his shoulder from time to time and throwing bits
of bread into the clear blue water. I really had my doubts about the beach we’d
come to. No really I had. What with the
lunch episode of the Rasta and the dog. And now this? He had an entire shoal of
fish following him; glistening and glinting in the sunlight as they darted
about at the surface. Every so often he would stop, turn round, talk to them, (told
you he was a nutcase), and now comes the incredible bit. Lowering his hands
into the water caught one; lovingly talking to it and holding it to his chest.
Lifting it higher actually kissed it, (ugh!) before lowering his hands and
releasing it to swim away quite unharmed. Just when you think you’ve seen
everything; something like this happens. Click on the picture which will turn
into a video and watch. Quite unbelievable.

And then Reality
struck. A tall elderly Rasta with all the tools of his trade about him. Yes,
his name really was Reality. I really mean it. He was walking down the beach
wearing a plaited hat he’d made and a long palm leaf he’d cut from a tree. And
since Dyana had wanted something like this I called him over and he sat on the
sand making us a palm basket. Please click on the picture (which then become a
short video) because you can see him actually weaving it. Now we have it
sitting proudly on the kitchen top.

What a day.

If you think this is
strange, just wait till the next blog. We are going to the strangest beauty
contest ever!

If you want to send us a message about this, all you
have to do is click on the ‘send a message’ just beneath the picture of Dyana
& I walking on the beach which is on the right hand side of the page.