Benidorm ER – Five

BENIDORM is one of Spain’s most popular resorts. In Europe, only London and Paris have more hotel rooms. Not for nothing is it known as the Filey of the Costa Blanca.

Most visitors come here to catch the sun. Yes, they occasionally catch something else, but that’s what happens when you get too friendly with a stag party from Gateshead.

Holidays generally pass with nought more than a minor case of sunburn (never lie on your front in a thong). However, a small minority will always require the attentions of the Clinica Benidorm, a bit like Holby City but with elegant and olive-skinned medical staff rather than Nigel from EastEnders.

First in this week was Hannah who had a nasty cut to her scalp.“I rolled over in bed,” she said, “and hit my head right on the corner of the bedside cabinet.” Why there isn’t a Public Information Film about that kind of think I‘ll never know.

For Hannah the incident had put the tin hat on what had clearly, right from the start, been a nightmare holiday. “We arrived,” she said, “and for three hours we were looking for a McDonald’s.” The hardships some people have to suffer. It’s like Touching The Void.

Hannah had to be held down by a pal, possibly a Klondike Kate tribute, while she had the wound stapled. The bad news was she was in a grotesque amount of pain. The good news was it reminded me I needed to go to Ryman’s in the morning.

“My head is on fire,” she caterwauled. “It feels like it’s exploded.” I’m just hoping she never pops up on One Born Every Minute.

Elsewhere, Freda (always nice when parents name their child after the Blue Peter tortoise) was cradling a ‘very painful finger’ after an accident in a nightspot. “I went to the toilet,” she said, “and as I turned to lock the door I trapped my finger.” You’d be right in thinking it’s hardly the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan.

“I think it might be broken,” she added, “because I could hear it crack.” Either that or a big girl had bust the seat in the next door cubicle.

In a scene with all the drama and tension of a peculiarly underwhelming episode of Peppa Pig, Freda was called into the doctor’s room to hear the X-Ray result. “No break,” said the doc, her svelte beauty intensified by the venereal disease poster on the wall, “just soft tissue damage.”

We can all sleep easy tonight.