The Foreign Office, no doubt reeling from the shock that someone actually used its ‘travel alert’ function for something other than a passive-aggressive email about suncream, has confirmed the tragic demise of a British gentleman in Spain. He was killed, sources say, while paragliding. In Spain.
In August. Which, if you’ve ever been to a Spanish beach in August, is tantamount to flinging yourself into a paella paddy whirlpool of sangria and sandflies. The man, whose name has been withheld presumably until his next of kin can be found in whichever Wetherspoon he was last seen in, apparently mistook the air currents for a friendly handshake from the Costa del Sol.
Instead, the sky gave him a firm shove into the ground. The Foreign Office, in a gesture of profound importance, has issued an ‘urgent travel alert’ which translates roughly to: ‘don’t do that, but if you must, please forward your next of kin details to our automated processing centre.’ One imagines the Spanish emergency services, long accustomed to British tourists confusing ‘cerveza’ for a complete hydration strategy, were not entirely surprised.
‘Another one down,’ muttered the Guardia Civil, as they rolled up the mangled paraglider like a discarded chip wrapper. The real question is: will this deter the legion of middle managers from embarking on their midlife crisis adventures? I suspect not.
After all, nothing screams ‘I am a vital cog in the machine of modern capitalism’ quite like plummeting from a great height in a foreign country, after signing a waiver written in a language you don’t understand. The gin is particularly sharp today.
