TERRITORIAL PISSINGS

Spade in hand, that afternoon we ventured to new Zealand’s only Hot Water Beach, a geothermal spot on dark muddy sand. Hot springs under the beach permeate upwards through the sand for two hours either side of low tide. Like Roman invaders from Aquae Sulis we started our own Bath Spa. I dug a little close to an elderly man’s wall which collapsed a tiny bit so he complained a little too vociferously, telling us to get our own spa as that was his…

In a Teutonic accent, of course.

As kids screamed and frolicked in the sand and surf, I half expected this old-timer to pull a German flag from his beach bag and plant it in the sand.

He looked like a gumby underneath his knotted handkerchief and huffed and tutted until I asked where he was from “You’re German I guess?”
I’ve always called a spade a spade, not that he was black, just his cold evil eyes.
He hissed a reply “Yesss”
“Thought so”

“English?”
“Yup!”

Dig in, I thought - trench warfare was about to return to the country that invented it.

I set about reconstructing his wall with the enthusiasm of half a million blond-haired, blue-eyed boys at a 1936 rally. Two and a half minutes later I was finished. An eight foot wall separated us so I pointed out in a loud English voice that if he wanted to get through Checkpoint Charlie was at this end.

I had even sculptured a tiny Reichstag at the other, ready to be burnt down.

There was no love lost here, there would be no Christmas Day football ceasefire, no pipes of peace and definitely no Paul McCartney songs.

He muttered something in his mother tongue to his wife.
“Genau. Genau” I shouted over my wall.

We dug further with hands and spade to find a few hotspots, but nothing overwhelming. A nice Kiwi man offered for us to come join him in his, showing a sense of community.

Ze German stood, grey pubes in a race to escape his black thong, he leant over and in a show of solidarity announced they were leaving and that we could have his hot pool. I think he was a little embarrassed by his actions.

No need for that mustard gas after all.

Much as it loathes me to admit it, his pool was much better than ours. It must have been seventy degrees Celsius in there. Bubbles popped on the surface and the temperature burnt the back of my already sunburnt legs. It was too hot for Frankie and I, but we all loved it. Volcanic activity on the beach; my idea of heaven.

Upon our return to the same hostel in Thames I chatted to a nice German girl Frieda about her book “Lord of the Flies” while Simon lampooned me by pulling handicapped faces and performing pelvic thrusts in the doorway behind her. A few minutes later there was a commotion inside so I went to investigate. Two guys were chatting to Simon about the fact that they were meant to be in our room not us. We said we would wait for yummy mummy Kim to arrive and sort it all out from there.

We had placed our bags in the empty room for four that we had been in two nights before, but they insisted that the two of them wanted the room for four. After the day’s territorial pissings it was funny that these two guys wanted to lay a claim to land they didn’t need and that wasn’t theirs.

Can you guess which country they were from?

If you said Germany, you’re allowed one more guess…

That’s right.

Israel.