I simply love Maltese women. If anyone of them will not take my word for it, then I most certainly encourage them to contact me for more concrete – well at my age shall we say semi-concrete, proof.

I say this because in spite of my keen attraction towards our many luscious and mouthwatering specimens, I have been married twice, but never to a Maltese woman. The first was French, the second Russian, and who knows what the future may hold…

I must have a nondescript international face, as wherever I have lived or traveled to, everyone always automatically assumes that I am from that same country. With my current Russian wife, everyone seems to think that I too am Russian. When I lived in France, not one single person ever thought I might not be French. Trust my luck to be whorish and easy not only in nature, but also in looks.

But with my present wife we speak English, so people only believe that I am Russian until I open my big mouth, which is admittedly rarely shut. So although the illusion is common, it is always short-lived.

With my first wife, on the other hand, we always spoke French, so everyone always assumed I was French, more so when we were living in Malta together.

Now the Maltese have so many qualities that I cannot even remember any of them right now, so I will focus on their defects, which somehow are always so much easier to recall. One of them, which has thankfully abated but not totally disappeared, in recent years, is the extraordinarily dumb habit of certain local neanderthals to throw in seemingly imperceptible swear words and insults in Maltese, within sentences otherwise in English, when talking to foreigners, simply for their own dimwit amusement.

Back then this was even commonplace and as may be imagined I was the target of such pathetic practices many a time, when out and about with my wife and audibly speaking in French. A few of the more amusing examples spring to mind.

During her first year here we played a lot at tourist, which didn’t help, as we ended up in typical locations frequented by tourists where we were even more target to such linguistic abuse. Naturally, in my typical fashion, I don’t only give as good as I get, but usually give much more and happily and skilfully take it a few levels further!

Once in one of the prehistoric temples, we approached the ticket booth talking in French and when it was our turn, this elderly sour looking man looked at my wife and said “Hello, zejza how many?” (boob) to which I immediately replied “zejziet tnejn ghandha imma daqqa ta’ ponn go mohhok wahda intik” (she has two boobs but I’ll only need to give you one punch in the head”. He slithered down all the way in his chair mumbling obscenities to himself as he handed us our tickets with greatly trembling hands.

On another occasion I decided to take her to the Good Friday procession in Rabat. This can get rather crowded and a very young and rather short couple were squashed directly behind us, unable to get a good view of proceedings. They went on to call us all kinds of names in Maltese of course, such as bloody foreigners, why don’t we cut our fat heads off so they could see, we should have remained in our country rather than coming to Malta and spoiling their view, they should have stayed in their native Qormi rather than coming to Rabat to stand behind two dirty tourists, etc, etc.

I purposely let it go on for some time, just to let them really and truly put their massive foot into their ghastly mouths. Then after perhaps half an hour of them amusing themselves entirely at our expense, I turned around calmly, looked them straight in the eye and told them in Maltese “I am from Rabat, I am not going anywhere, I am not cutting my head off, next time you stay in Qormi and kiss my ass”. Which of course in Maltese has the added advantage of rhyming. I turned around calmly and continued chatting with my wife. As many know, the Good Friday procession is long and tedious, very long actually. For the several hours that ensued they didn’t utter one single word. Nothing not one, probably still reeling in shock.

On yet another such pleasant occasion, we were dining in a mess of a restaurant disguised as a high class establishment, which thankfully no longer exists. We had a terrible meal all round from beginning to end. I very rightly complained throughout, but to no avail, as things just continued to deteriorate throughout the evening.

At the end of the meal, this scruffy, dirty looking chef shuffles clumsily out of the kitchen, busy foraging deep into his nose as he approached one of the waiters who was standing right next to us, and asked, pointing towards us “Are these the idiots who complained?”. And without even waiting for a reply, especially the most important one that I was actually Maltese rather than French, which the waiter knew perfectly well, but the chef didn’t, he continued by telling the waiter “Ara kif ser nitnejjek bih” (watch how I’m going to fuck around with him). So he came up to us and said “Good Evening mur tnejjek, was everything alright?” To which I just let out a calm and eloquent monologue which simply never ended, in Maltese, while I literally saw his face changing colours as I spoke, glaring deeply into his eyes. It went something like this. “We have never eaten in such a pigsty in our lives, you gave us your worst table, although you are half empty, the service was totally shit, we were served the wrong wine twice, the food was disgusting, we couldn’t eat the starters as they were vile, the fish was definitely not fresh, the potatoes and vegetables never arrived, the gateaux were still frozen, the coffees were cold, the wine decanter is chipped and I suggest that you go and fuck around with your mother or you’ll be wearing it soon” (u ahjar tmur titnejjek m’ommok ghax sa nlibbisulek).

I am a nice, gentle, even loving person in my normal state, but don’t try to take the mickey out of me because Mr Hyde is never far away.

But just seeing his face was priceless and I just couldn’t stop laughing compulsively all the way home. I even remember having laughing fits for most of the night, that at some point my poor wife simply gave up trying to sleep next to me and went to sleep in the spare bedroom.

But I must admit that nobody is above such childish nonsense. No nobody, not even me. We were once at St. Lukes Hospital for an outpatients visit and had to take the lift. And just after us walked in this extremely scruffy woman, dressed like a secondhand scarecrow. I don’t know what the hell got into to, it could have been some form of stress therapy or self-preservation reaction to our miserable surroundings, but I looked at my wife and let out as many derogatory and vulgar expletives against this poor woman, in French, as could come to mind. To the tune of “Look at this dirty slut, what a fat slob she is, I wouldn’t fuck her if I were blind drunk and she gave me a million bucks”. The doors opened half way up to our desired destination, and this poor woman looked at me coldly with a glint of hatred in her eyes and told me in perfect French “Excusez moi monsieur, je voudrais sortir malgre que ca ne soit pas mon etage” (excuse me sir, I would like to leave, although this isn’t my floor).

I didn’t laugh then. Oh no and nor did my wife either. Although she did sleep in the spare bedroom again that night, but for entirely different reasons.

But perhaps my favourite memory of the sort was when I took my wife on a Comino Cruise with one of the better known cruise companies from Sliema. It was one of those red boats, named after a well known rum, whose name starts with the military rank which lies between Lieutenant and Major and finishes with the word for morning in German, but I’d rather not make it too obvious now.

There was a small bar on the boat form where you could purchase different drinks and which was manned by two middle aged orang utan lookalikes, both from their physical appearance as well as their total deficiency of intellect. I turned around towards my wife and asked her in French what she would like to drink. One of the primates ambled on his knuckles towards me, gave a quick naughty grin to his pen mate, gave me his best crocodile smile and uttered “Yes demel”, to which I immediately retorted “Hopleaf hara”. Demel being manure and hara being shit. But the funniest thing of all was that in this case it was he who was upset at me and scolded me for not having warned him beforehand that I was Maltese. Do not even try to figure this one out.

I sometimes miss being insulted in such endearing ways by my fellow compatriots. I can speak a bit of Russian and should really make an effort with my current wife not to speak English when out in public. Such wit and instant repartee should not be reserved for Facebook chats alone.

We all have our crosses to bear and one of my most recent ones came in the form of a business contact with whom I have in vain been trying to conclude some form of deal, in the few weeks since I have met her.

So far it has proved to be simply impossible to pin her down either businesswise or otherwise, as her mind seems to flit aimlessly from one idea to the next, often sprinkled with a bit of uncalled for sarcasm and vitriolic remarks, which come out of nowhere.

So she called me late yesterday evening, because she feels like she owns me, and as she must have been in one of her foul evening moods, she suddenly and for no apparent reason, lashed out at me and called me all sorts of unkind names, just to vent her bitterness. I was on my mobile and even broke out into a sweat and what must have happened was that my sweat trickled inside the mobile, rendering it inactive. I was so upset at the whole episode that I went to bed very early, sulking and planning to get it fixed the next morning.

When I woke up I found a load of very friendly messages from her, which although not quite an apology, where obviously over-friendly, which meant roughly the same thing. I never ever hold a grudge against anyone, so I chatted away happily with her, when again all of a sudden, just because I was being nice, she suddenly lashed out at me telling me that I should learn my place. I chose to ignore her then, I mean how much can you take? But I later found out that the reason for her bitchiness and acting like a drama queen was mainly based on her sexual frustrations. At least that is what she hinted to me in a very discreet and indirect manner. It seems to bring out the worst part of the Maltese in her.

So I took my phone to be fixed in Gzira, left it there and went to briefly meet my mini monster to continue discussing business at a cafe. She was calm and friendly, even quite endearing. Except when several large drops of condensation from my beer glass fell onto my shorts and right at the wrong place, she couldn’t help saying that I would now feel virile, sporting such marks on my shorts. I really cannot say what motivated her to say that, but my guess would be that she herself was dying to get into them…

Suddenly noticing the time, I rushed back to Gzira to pick up my mobile, but shoot they were now closed! And I had two and a half hours to kill, which with today’s traffic really didn’t make it worth while driving all the way home and back again. So I walked down to the seafront, bought a large beer, found a comfy bench on the water’s edge, lay down totally in a horizontal position on the bench and fell fast asleep beer in hand. I don’t usually play at tramp, but frankly as with virtually anything else these days, I really don’t care.

Without my mobile I couldn’t call, I couldn’t answer calls, I couldn’t SMS, or chat, or go online, or check my diary, or even tell the time. So when I woke up I asked the time to a passing little cutie with immensely tight shorts, who most definitely was a bactrian and not a dromedary… And wow, it was exactly reopening time for the mobile repair shop.

So I get there, walk in and have an instant shock! Standing there at the counter was this big imposing man with whom I have had sexual relations. Well, not really I suppose, as in Bill Clinton’s words we only had oral sex. And to go a step further, I will also point out that he had oral sex with me and not vice versa.

Until this moment in my narrative I really had no intention to go into detail about this rather extraordinary sexperience. But now that I blurted it out, as I always tend to do, I suppose that I really owe you all an explanation. So here goes.

We have loads of gay friends. Overall we find them great company, good fun and they certainly know how to party, often making straight couples pale in comparison. Yes they can be a pain and a tad bitchy and drama queens, but so can my very Maltese female pseudo-client-perhaps-one-day-to-be. So both my wife and I love mixing with our gay friends and going to their fantastic parties and also frequenting gay establishments form time to time.

Many years ago there was a gay club in Paceville which also held drag shows, which was a total scream. We occasionally went there for a fun night out and always had a great time. I must admit however that I always ensured that my wife was there with me, purely for protection purposes.

So on one of these visits the place was absolutely packed solid and heaving with people of all forms, shapes and sizes. There was a show going on performed mainly by a tall and large man-cum-woman-cum-everywhere sort of queen. And trust my effing luck, right after the show s/he ends up right next to me at the bar. Now I very very (very) rarely flirt, in fact it is such a rare move on my part that I even flirt with gay guys without even being gay! Now how’s that for being a compulsive flirt. But like most of my other countless defects, at least I admit it and most importantly of all, I wear it well.

Besides Danny la Rue, I also had a couple of other keen suitors around me, compelling me to constantly look around to ensure that my wife was never far away, in case things get a bit ‘sticky’.

At a certain point I really needed to go the bathroom, so I excuse myself and push through the many bodies and groping hands, most of which aimed to perfection… I get into the loo and much to my horror I realise that the door lock had been removed. How more gay club than that can you get! So I quickly start doing my business when suddenly the door bursts open and there barges in Madame Frigging Butterfly. In a flash and before I could say I’m happily married and really don’t want my penis in your mouth, he was on his knees with my anatomy exactly where he wanted it. Although I was horrified, I must admit that somewhere deep inside me, there was also a slight tinge of remorse, because the manner he immediately leapt down on his knees, flipped me around and caught me – or should I say ‘him’, exactly in between his heavy lipsticked awaiting lips, just from its natural swing, was ample proof that he must have pulled this stunt so many times before, making me feel that little bit less special.

However I can assure you that the terrifying feelings of shock, alarm and fright were at least a few millions times stronger than my remorse. And I can assure all the lucky men who have not yet succumbed to this experience – as if I could ever use another word in this context to that!!, that even with your eyes closed, the rubbing of very distinctive male facial stubble on your parts, coupled with very deep voiced moans, does not quite do it for you, if you are not into that sort of thing.

My biggest problem was that this bastard was a very big man and also exceptionally strong. He had managed to pin me right in the corner, very romantically wedged between the filthiest WC and a grotty chipped sink. I pushed and pushed with all my force to get his unshaved head off my petrified penis, but all my efforts were in vain.

I was literally starting to panic, and within seconds I really couldn’t take it any more. I let out the loudest possible girl-being-raped-scream in the history of sexual abuse. Now image a heaving club, packed full of people, music so loud you can’t even hear yourself being blown, oops sorry I meant – think. And the toilets were literally at the other end of the club. This is the sort of place where you literally had to place your lips firmly onto someones ear and scream at the top of your voice, if you wanted to stand any chance of being heard.

This is all true, and then there is being raped!

I somehow screamed so bloody loud, that somehow Maria managed to hear me from the other end of the club!! So she marched in my direction, savagely punching gays, kicking lesbians, karateing bisexuals and unveiling transexuals, on her epic journey towards my dying dick’s salvation.

Suddenly that door was kicked open, and there stands my amazing Amazon in defiant rage. I had really used all my force to save my weeping willy, but this guy was like a rock – yes a regular Rock Hudson. No matter how much I pushed with all my force, he simply wouldn’t budge. But this was one of the most extraordinary moments of my life, when I saw Maria literally lift this hulk off his feet, swing him round and hurl him out of the bathroom. It was fucking awesome! Just amazing! Where she suddenly found such amazing superhuman strength from is still a huge mystery for me until today.

I felt so good, so protected. It was great that my strong wife had managed to save me and ironically I suddenly felt so so gay tongue emoticon So she grabbed me determinedly by the arm and marched me triumphantly out of there.

So basically this is who this guy was at the mobile repair shop. As Maria wasn’t around, I hid in a corner, face down, until he left. Then finally I got my mobile back, which cost me a total of €120 to fix, just cause of my friendly little chat with Princess Grace the night before!!

Hey and this is Gzira, with €120 I could have got at least ten blowjobs!

Come to me my love. Come and hold my hand which is always open and which will never close, unless yours is in it.

Come and fill my heart with joy and with that rare passion which only you can bring. Let me hold you in my arms and hug you. Let me show you my innermost feelings which shine from deep within.

I love you.

I am not afraid of pain and sorrow. I will not limit my feelings and restrain my love. I will love you if you love me back, or if you don’t. I will devote my thoughts and feelings entirely to your existence. I will sacrifice my mental freedom for you. I will not think of flowery meadows, of sunny days, endless horizons or shimmering seas. Only of your gorgeous face, your graceful features, your inner beauty, which spills constantly from your eyes.

I will never hold back my emotions. I will tell you over and over again how much I love you. It matters little what you respond. I do not love you to be loved back. I love you because I do. I love you because you are.

You have enormous qualities, kindness and generosity. You exude goodness beyond belief. And that is why I love you. You also have many faults and defects which characterise you. You aren’t perfect, just like anyone else. And that is why I love you. I love you more for your faults and weaknesses, for your moods good and bad, for this is how I can tell that it is true love I have toward you.

You fill my mind with mystery. Your image evokes wondrous thoughts of strength and warmth and happiness. I cannot disassociate you with good with joy with everything great and spiritual.

I love you.

I do not wish to live if I could ever die for you. For death will come to me as it always does to everyone. And I want to die for you, again and again…

Your presence in my thoughts is overwhelming. It exceeds the reality around me. It gives my aimless life scope and direction. It fulfils my every dream and provides a reason for my existence.

I love you but my obsession is not perverse. It is one which only breeds joy and relief. It is one of satisfaction. I need your love to exist and to survive. You will never take it away from me no matter what you do and how much you try.

It is not important for you to understand. I myself do not even wish to understand it. I only want to accept it and embrace it, no matter its purpose and its origin.

For I will always love you more than anything else on earth and more than the earth itself. More than life.

It is a spiritual love. And a mental love. A logical and illogical love. It is a carnal love. It is love beyond control and beyond belief. And it is not important in itself. It is simply a state of being. It is a form of love which encompasses all others.

You may one day decide to leave me, to abandon me, or to stop loving me, or even to hate me. But I will always love you so I don’t even care. Do what you wish and what you may, for my love won’t waiver. It won’t bend to your whims and fancies. It is much stronger than your or anyone’s resolve. It lives on its own outside your realm of influence. You have absolutely no power over it. You cannot subdue or kill it, for it will always be there, shining through every argument, every mistake, every heavy darkened cloud. It is far stronger than you or me.

I love you.

Come now, come to me. Let me hold you tight and feel your pulse. Let me embrace you strongly and press your body hard against mine. I don’t even care if I hurt you. You will stop me and push me away when I press too hard, but meanwhile I would have expressed my strongest emotions that little bit further.

Let me kiss you firmly on your lips and take your breath away and suffocate you until you pull away frantically gasping for breath. Let me take you firmly by the neck and choke you. Until you are bright red and on the edge of consciousness.

For my love knows no bounds and the only way it will supersede you is by killing you.

Come to me my love, come let me take your precious life away. For only in this way will we always be one.

I love you.

For I am already dead and waiting. Waiting for you to be with me once again.

Come to me my love come.

I love you.

I drove that stake savagely straight through its heart again and again, with all my force. It screeched madly in a shrill and deafening way, banging its ugly head on the ground and lashing it’s scaly tail frantically from side to side.

Its forked tongue hissed in anguish, slipping in and out of its horrid putrid mouth. As more and more of the repulsive grey and brown puss seeped out of its evil heart, I aimed at its beady eyeballs and stabbed at them repeatedly until they were no more than a bloody mess.

She doesn’t care, she doesn’t need you or me. Accomplished, sexy, avant garde, outspoken and above all established, she can choose how she wishes to be.

Some sort of concentrate, the essence itself of sensuality and femininity. She exudes the exotic and brims with all that is erotic.

I wonder if I will have any friends left after writing this piece. I certainly hope not. Not the type I am referring to at least. But truth be said that I have been meaning to write this for ages, so anyone who has been very recently invited to our house need not feel particularly targeted, well at least not any more so than anyone else.

Truth of the matter be however, that many people are cheapskates, even to the extent of not even caring to be openly seen as such.

Those who know me well know that I anything but snobbish or pretentious, and this firmly includes matters concerning wine. I do know just a tiny little bit about wines, and I am not being overly modest I promise. As I always like to say on the topic, I really only know just the basics, but these I know well. However my knowledge on wines greatly pales in comparison even with many people I myself know personally.

What I certainly know about wine is that you must be an ignoramus to drink cheap plonk yourself, and an even bigger one to offer such a bottle of the nasty stuff to your friends when invited to their house.

I am not some hoity-toity conceited prick, who only drinks the very best. On the contrary, much of what I drink is plain old simple inexpensive wine, but this doesn’t necessarily have to be the very cheapest. I rarely allow myself the enormous pleasure of drinking very expensive wines, but this neither means that I am on some sort of death-wish to source the very cheapest and vilest plonk on the planet.

There are other gifts and tokens of appreciation you may offer to your gracious hosts when being invited. These may include flowers, in which case I doubt that you would nick them off the closest grave at your local cemetery, on your way to your friends’ house. Or pull out a couple on nondescript wild flowers which would be as wilted as your willie, when you will be ashamedly pressing that doubtful doorbell.

And if you intend taking chocolates, yet another standard gift, I doubt that you will be turning up with a mini Mars bar, being the very cheapest confectionary item you have been able to source.

So why on earth do so many people insist on offering the worse, most disgusting and cheapest wines around? Do they really think that their hosts never go to supermarkets to see these same wines marked at €3.00? Cannot they imagine that if, like me, their host happens to know even the tiniest bit about wines, even if they have brought this wine from abroad, or if for whatever reason it is not commonly available, its rough cost, and more importantly its overall quality, will still be more than obvious?

I can tell a crap wine from when our guests are still parking their car down the road, with it still being wrapped up in several bags and firmly wedged in the boot, under their shopping bags and car tool kit.

I am very tempted to say that it would be better not to take anything at all, rather than a cheap nasty wine – but I won’t. No, I won’t, because that is about the vilest and most dreadful thing you could ever do. I have been invited to exactly 12,650,432 meals and parties at friends’ houses, and yes I just counted them all right now! And not once, really never ever, have I turned up with empty hands. And ‘never’ only has one distinct meaning. In the same way that I have never turned up stark naked (unless it wasn’t incidental…) and never forgot to put on my clothes before turning up at a friend’s house, I have never ever forgotten to bear a gift upon arrival.

Admittedly, unlike clothing, there have been several times I have left home without a gift, but guess what, there are shops on the way. And don’t come say that it’s a Sunday and everything was closed, unless you like a heavy door slammed straight into your face. Virtually everything is open now, Sundays included. And if we did forget and were running very late, then I would deposit my wife, whose fault it very probably was in the first place, at our friends’ house, as a temporary token of sorts, while I would desperately go find something in the vicinity. Anything, wine, spirits, cakes, can of baked beans, in which case I only buy Heinz which is the best, but I will NOT arrive empty-handed. If on the other hand you are alone and are in this terrible plight, just take that small rectangular thing which you are probably holding in your hands right now to read this, and you make a call or send a message telling your hosts why you are further delayed. If it is a matter of buying them a gift I am sure that they won’t mind.

But never ever turn up with nothing in hand, you look like a dimwitted imbecile who has never been invited out before and who has less finesse and social skills than a floating turd bobbing aimlessly in a shitpool. Oh and this applies to everyone and in every occasion, if you think that you have been elevated to such social stature that bearing gifts is actually beneath you, then you simply look like a much larger turd in an infinitely more putrid shitpool.

So back to the wine. The vast array of wine available today at ridiculously inexpensive prices, leaves absolutely no excuse for anyone to turn up with a bottle of el cheapo. Crap wines are purchased at €2, €3 and possibly €4. If only you ‘invest’ the astronomical additional sum of say €3 you will actually elevate yourself from disgusting cheapskate or at best total dunce in matters of wine, to normal human being who graciously brought us a gift which does not mock us in our face.

Yes, that is all it takes – €3! Mark my words. And for those wiseguys who might say that a wine’s quality is not reflected by its price, I really have no intention of going into that intricate argument right here and now. This may apply to say a certain €50 bottle of wine which might be superior to another particular €60 bottle of wine. But I can guarantee that the chances of a €2.50 bottle of wine being better than a €6 bottle are very very slim.

I understand that unfortunately there are many who are still very slowly developing their wine appreciation skills and drowning themselves constantly in the cheapest wines available is not doing them any favours. Many are really under the false impression that these dirt cheap wines are much better than the dirt they truly are. I am not saying that a couple are not perhaps just about palatable enough to pass as your third or forth drunken bottle at a ten hour long party, but then again so would mild vinegar with a fancy label.

We never tend to scout around for the very worst and cheapest food. On the contrary, we by far prefer quality food even if this will cost a little bit more. There is absolutely no difference between wine and food. They both go into your mouth, are savoured on their way down, before they settle in there to give you joy and satisfaction or heartburn, indigestion, headaches and diarrhea.

So learn to truly appreciate wine. There is much more to it than simply getting drunk. Fortunately they all do that, no matter their quality and actually the good stuff is often the most potent and has the highest alcoholic content. But the flavours, the aromas, the taste, the overall pleasure and more so the aftereffects, are very very different. So if you are still at the abysmal level of drinking cooking wine, you really need to start evolving into a civilised human being.

Stop drinking crap wine! If you wear the tattiest clothes, drive the worst car, live in the dirtiest dump and only frequent the cheapest workers bars if and when you go out, then this would be perhaps acceptable. Tramps are unfortunately not the best advised and the most worldly individuals. If on the other hand you are slightly more elevated than this, then you really need to stop the terrible habit of insisting on the worst and cheapest wines around. For those are what the tramps should drink….

There is always a bright side to everything in life. Ours is that all this has greatly improved our cooking, as many of the wines we get offered end up in the pot, although admittedly some don’t even qualify for that. NOT joking! And again having some basic human pride, we wouldn’t dream of recycling plonk by passing it on to someone else as our gift to their party. We haven’t stooped to that level yet and very much never intend to either. Plonk is plonk and recycling it makes you an even bigger plonker.

When we are invited, I don’t exactly get out the calculator or take notes of the exact wines I take, but roughly this is how I function. First of all there is the smart dinner type of occasion, in which case you really do not have to take wine, as often other gifts are much more appropriate. Yes most people are stuck on wine while any other personalised gift would often be so much nicer. Also flowers, yes flowers! make an excellent gift, as they do the world over and are so often forgotten. And don’t turn up with a bloody potted plant, no, cut fresh flowers is what I am talking about. And if some idiot says that they are a waste as they will soon die, I can only say that I hope you die a little bit before them!

So back to the wine. Let us say that wine it is to a small,smart seated dinner type function. Then I would probably go for a nice red, probably priced in the region of €10. Everyone can afford €10 and with that price today you can get a very nice wine. With more informal events a €6 or €7 wine would still be very acceptable and would still not break the bank. And at the very other end of the spectrum, say at a large beach party which will last for hours on end, I would take three or four bottles of €5 wine for the two of us that is, although often I end up taking a box of six. You can find palatable cheap and cheerful wine at €5, but very rarely at less. And if there are two of us scoffing it down all afternoon and evening, taking just one or two bottles along is also an insult to the organisers. If you find that taking so many bottles is beyond your budget, then drink beer, or water, or nothing at all, or leave early, but do have the decency of not drinking up everybody else’s stock of booze.

It is funny how so many don’t mind being seen and labelled as cheap and tightfisted and mean and devoid of class, simply to save €2 or €3. They must either largely underestimate their hosts’ basic observational skills, or they have transformed themselves into such miserable, stingy bastards that they really don’t realise their own obviously wretched state.

I have purposely focused on wine here, however there are so many other equally disgusting behaviours which also merit a quick mention. I have seen some take either food or beverage items as their offering and contribution to a meal, only to ask for the leftovers back, to return with them back home. These troglodytes often come up with the dumbest and most obviously lying pile of untrue crap as an excuse, in the form of “oh it’s just that I hate waste”. Well then you must really hate yourself, you poor excuse for a wasted human being! Unless the hosts themselves are shoving it back in your face and explicitly telling you that yes, you are being treated as a trashcan, and the stuff is being given back to you rather than throwing it away, then don’t act like a trashcan yourself!

The only worst vermin on earth are those who actually ask to take home a takeaway of sorts, of stuff which they didn’t even bring themselves. Yes they too exist! Can you imagine being told that they won’t have their dessert at your place, so could you please wrap it up to go, as this would save them preparing food at home!

I, who am known for my more than dubious behaviour, who would do literally anything for a laugh, who really and truly have no sense of shyness or embarrassment, just cringe to think that some people do these things not for a giant laugh, but in the most serious of manners.

In the end I really and honestly don’t care how much people spend, that is not the real question. If they can somehow bring along something enjoyable which cost them absolutely nothing, or which they managed to purchase for 10 cents, then that is perfectly fine with me. I am using price as this is most definitely the best and most efficient indicator of quality in this particular case. I don’t want people to spend, I just don’t want to receive crap gifts which are totally useless and unsavoury and which I would never dream of purchasing myself.

A gift is something the person receiving should enjoy. If you are really that hard up that even those couple of extra Euros will hurt you, then there are still countless options. You could find a nice gift from your personal belongings. You can go fetch a peeble from the beech and paint a heart on it. You can write a little poem on the back of a card. You can print out a personalised photograph and put in the cheapest of frames. Use a bit of imagination and show your friends some love and respect.

But that horrible wine you shove down your throat every evening – you can keep that thanks. I already spend more in antacid pills than you spend on wine. And very soon we will be publishing a 500 page book called Cooking with Wine!

I wonder if I have any friends left….