With twenty four in our group, the only sensible option for transporting us to the golf club each day, was a coach.  Which we duly hired in advance, like any sensible northern European.

Now, the thing about Spanish coach companies is that they tend to supply coaches driven by Spanish drivers.  After picking us up on time, we arrived at our destination and I went about confirming the pick up time with him.

“WE WILL NEED PICKING UP AT SEVEN THIRTY, OK?” I articulated, perfectly clearly.

“No hablo inglés.” he replied, with a shrug of the shoulders.

This was disappointing.  There were twenty four of us, and only one of him.  It would have been much easier for him to learn our language than for all of us to learn his, twenty-four times easier in fact, but he had selfishly decided to stick with a language that had served his country well across the millennia.

Luckily enough, I vaguely recalled seeing a series of instructional business videos with John Cleese early in my career, so I knew how to handle the situation.  I remembered one particular lesson where he struggled to get his point across to a small Spanish waiter.

“LOOK.  SEVEN THIRTY?  CI?  NINETEEN THIRTY?  CI?  I WILL WRITE IT DOWN HERE ON THIS PIECE OF PAPER.  CI?”

His cab was slightly elevated so I could not reinforce the instruction with a clip to the back of the head as Mr. Cleese had suggested.   Still, he smiled and implied he had understood.

Later that evening, as eight-thirty rapidly approached and we were still stood outside the golf course, and with twenty three angry holiday makers moaning in my ears, I vowed to follow Mr Cleese’s intructions to the letter for the rest of the week.

coaches · john cleese · spain