Coming home – and a short rant about product placement in novels

The holiday is drawing to a close. I have passed through various states of exhaustion, rest, contentment, even gratitude, to a vague state of lazy ennui. I have slept and slept, lain around semi and almost entirely naked, had midday sex, twice; taken mild, half-hearted exercise and gorged on melon, ham, cheese, wine, beer, ice  cream. Yesterday I fell into a bread coma after a long overdue appointment with the best part of a pain rustic and wound up with a yeast infection. I have dropped ten years and gained ten pounds. I am considering going on a yogurt fast.

We’ve run the gamut of sea swimming, snorkeling, inflatables, sunbathing, tan lines, aloe vera squeezed directly out of plants growing beach side; good books, trashy novels, cards games: Uno, rummy, whist and yesterday, dominoes, played for the first time by the proper rules. I’ve shopped for cheap jewellery in a smart boutique and expensive trinkets in a two bit gift shop; got caught in a sandstom, taken an icy dip under a mountain, ridden a pony very fucking slowly and cleaned up two actual episodes of mountain road induced car sick. I’m just about ready to come home.

Trapped in an apartment that is approximately ten ft by ten, we’re all going a little ster-crazy. Jonah has lost his initial joy of being able to swim whenever he wants (and his haphazard style is rapidly being improved upon by his little sister who swan five whole lengths in a snorkel yesterday.) He has turned into a sulkier version of teenaged me, absorbed only by his book. When he’s not reading, the kids are playing My Tom on the iPad, an addictive free app that requires near constant attention, allowing them to dress and furnish a cat in unusual garb in exchange for “money” earned playing kiddie-gambling games. I hate it. I wish they’d go outside and run around like other kids. But I guess  other kids are on their consoles too  these days. I wish they’d never seen a console in their lives. But then I might have to get up off my lazy arse and interact with them instead of lying around and reading some of the more appalling books I’ve ever had the misfortune to get left alone in a holiday apartment with.

What annoys me most is the product placement. I’ve come across it before in books but never so aggressively. In Tasmina Perry’s perfectly dreadful (though quite a pacey, if totally vacuous read if I’m honest) Perfect Strangers, several characters appear to have Starbucks addictions. In Santa Montefiore’s insipid Irish romance, Secret’s of The Lighthouse (neither of which I’d voluntarily have picked up at WH Smith) it’s a particular brand of fags. In both, it comes across as clunky, shoehorning the brand in at unnatural angles – a little slice of the British high street in an otherwise unlikely setting. It comes across as perfectly insidious. I can imagine shady meetings between beleaguered publishers and pushy brand representatives, hashing out a deal to get some reluctant author a tiny advance, tempted by the promise of big bucks. I mean, never say never, if someone ever offered me, say, a million quid to plug something in one of my as yet unwritten novels, I can’t say I’d turn it down,  yet every fiber of my being objects to being sold to in my holiday novel, so I’d have some serious objections, not least in maintaining a shred of credibility.

Having said that, in my inbox yesterday, I leaped at the chance of a free try out day at a new local kickboxing center in Stoke Newington when a PR offered it to me for the kids, next Saturday.

Jonah’s initial reaction was, typically, NOOOOO uttered in  tone of utter contempt, like Harry Enfields’ Kevin The Teenager, followed by the kids’ new verbal tick… “No way Jose”. But Ava seems to be up for it – anything as long as it doesn’t involve leotards and diaphanous skirts – football, karate, wall climbing, Ava’s up or it. But it’s Jonah who could do with learning a little self-defence, growing up in East London. Muggings of teen boys is rife, and Jonah will be an easy target, so it had been in the back of mind to try and organise a martial art class, so when this fell in my lap it seemed like the perfect opportunity, although in practice, I’d always recommend just giving up one’s phone rather than taking a chance against a flick knife…

But, anyway, the boy’s barely moved for the last three days, so he, like me, could do with a bit of exercise. Suffice it to say, I’m beginning to look forward to coming home, despite the fact I’m straight back to work, and I’m still waking up in the night, if only to blog without guilt, rather than watch Tom tut his way through another card game, the washing up, unloading a towel wash, or all the other things his does uncomplainingly so I can spill my heart out on here.