To Paxos, Homer’s inspiration they say, for Circe’s Isle. These days, there’s still enchantment, albeit of a less carnal kind. Skies are azure, waters pellucid and the days fall quickly into the most indolent of rhythms. Breakfast, swim, book. Drink, lunch, sleep. Swim, book, drink. Dinner, then bed. Sometimes, though, it seems that great swathes of West London and Wiltshire have decamped to the island, gathering in the main port of Gaios. A glut of Panamas, pink faces and pastel linen. Along with much anxious talk – over platters of fried calamari and icy bottles of Santorini white – about Keir Starmer and his proposed private school VAT ‘raid’. No wonder some wag has renamed the island ‘Paxons Green’.
I just about remember the days where you left the office for your annual jaunt – and that was it, for two whole weeks
The teens, however, have their minds on more cerebral affairs. Beer-swigging boys strut and swagger, while girls – wearing enough make-up to make Aunt Sally seem the very essence of the natural look – pretend to ignore them. Walking past my daughter on the way home, and going to kiss her goodnight, I’m waved off. ‘You’re embarrassing me,’ she hisses. It was always thus. Swap the mullet for floppy fringe and the Depop tank tops for Ken Market T-shirts, and they could be us, 30 years back.
But our childhood holidays were spent, not in Cassioppi, or Vale do Lobo (the late 1980s equivalent of Gaios), but on Ischia, a small island off Naples. Despite the palpable lack of public school girls, it was bliss. Doughnuts on the beach, crazy golf, a shared bottle of Coke, before antipasti and vast bowls of spaghetti bolognese. We learnt to water-ski in the shadow of the castello, dragged behind a gleaming Riva; collected sea urchins in our bidet (they died, then stunk) and spent many hours at war with fellow hotel guests, and sworn enemies, a trio of German children.
Ben, my cousin, and I – aged about ten, and giddy on a surfeit of Commando comics and repeat viewings of Escape to Victory – would engage in the usual juvenile skirmishes with das kinder; humming the Dam Busters theme as they walked past, jollied up with the occasional chorus of ‘Two world wars and one World Cup’. They gave it back, twice as hard. One morning though, we went too far. Having expertly landed a paper aeroplane on to the balcony of our adversaries, containing a not-so-secret message, it fell into their father’s hands. Achtung! The manager was called, our parents summoned, and apologies issued. A stern punishment was promised. At this point, our grandfather – a kind and wonderful man, who was twice awarded the Military Cross in the second world war – stepped in and said, with a face like an artillery barrage, that he would deal with us. We marched in trepidatious silence for a minute, until out of earshot. ‘Now boys,’ he said, ‘apparently you wrote that “Hitler only had one ball…”’ We nodded, sheepishly awaiting our fate. He paused dramatically. ‘The other,’ he went on, his face entirely straight, ‘being in the Albert Hall.’ Then took us for gelato in town.
Back then, though, holiday meant holiday. I just about remember the days where you left the office for your annual jaunt – and that was it, for two whole weeks. Bonsoir old thing, cheerio, chin chin. But now damned technology means we’re never, ever out of reach. Copy must be filed, and lotus eating be damned. Still, there are worse places to write a Spectator diary than under an umbrella, gazing out over the Ionian Sea. It also makes me feel that I’ve earned that extra bottle of wine.
One place technology has no place is books. Sure, a Kindle allows you to carry the Bodleian in your pocket. But nothing beats the heft, the smell, the sheer tangible joy of the real thing. Books never run out of batteries. You can read them in the pool. And with their splodges of sun cream, splashes of seawater and errant peanut crumbs, they provide a well-thumbed record of every escape.
Technology does have its upsides. Being able to watch the first game of the new Premiership season on your iPhone, for one. Tottenham Hotspur were taking on Brentford and it ended in a (pretty dramatic) draw. I’ve been a Spurs fan for 35 years and, as I explained to my son, it’s pretty similar to following England. Brief moments of utter jubilation (FA Cup Semi Final and Final in 1991, and the second leg of the Champions League vs PSV Eindhoven in, er, 2019), followed by long periods of predictable gloom. We’ve lost Harry Kane to Munich. And we all wish the great man well. But can Ange Postecoglou start stocking our cupboard with silver? We can but dream.
And while skies are cloudless here, the rain buckets down in London. But rather than gloat, I feel delight that my tomato and chilli plants are getting a good drink. Anyway, coming home is always my favourite part of any holiday. After a couple of weeks, even paradise start to bore. Give me grey skies, drizzle and the eternal comfort of one’s own bed.
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