Mel looked out the window. “Speedo weather,” he said to himself with delight. He was an expat, which meant life was now a continuous holiday. He was heavily tanned. It was a tan that screamed ten hours a day sitting outside a bar drinking lager and eyeballing disinterested, European women. Some would call him a pervert, but he didn’t see it that way. He saw himself as an expat. It was a term that made him feel proud. It gave him a clear sense of purpose as he sat there doing nothing other than smoking, gawking and drinking. He felt like a representative of the British Empire abroad.

His dog, Tony Blair, was sat on the bed, glaring at its naked owner. If Tony Blair could have thought like a human, he would have thought, “How did I end up with an owner such as this?” It’s fair to say, Mel had made a misanthrope of Tony Blair.

Mel stretched his arms into the air. It was an unpleasant slight. He looked like a magnet for cancer. He pulled on his Speedos. They were painted on. Looking at this was more dangerous than looking directly at the sun.

He picked up his copy of the rag, exited his apartment and waddled onto the promenade. First things he saw: the ocean and EU tits. Breathing in the air, he smiled. Time for first drink ‘o day. It was half nine in the morning. It was a beautiful thing. He called the locals “señor”. The locals called him ‘English swine’. It wasn’t affectionate.

As he sank into a faded, red, plastic seat in the sun – in front of the only bar he ever drank at – the owner, who was also an expat, greeted him. “Morning Mel.”

“What’s the weather like in Coventry today?” Mel fired back with a grin.

“Fuck if I know!”

Mel chuckled. This same morning interaction had occurred word for word for the past nine years.

It would have continued for the next nine too had Mel not been eaten in his sleep by Tony Blair the following night. Like all mammals, dogs have a breaking point and it’s not unheard of for them to dine on their owners.

Liberated, Tony Blair trotted along the promenade, trotting off the calories off his magnificent feast. It would take a while to burn through the calories of that English swine, but he was in no rush. To be a dog, he thought. Not so bad. To be a human; better, he thought. Two days later he was spotted on his hind legs, chatting up two Spanish beauties, and donning the Speedos.