Author Book Presentation - Mark Shearman

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Flip Flop Flamenco

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Expats Spain

Release date - October 20th

 

No bulls were harmed in the making of this book or any other animals, punctuation may have been strained, grammar rules broken, that is not the author's fault, but the school he was sent to. A great place to learn how to fight or talk your way out of a fight, watch the teachers spend the majority of their time organising strikes for more pay and better students. Consequently, there wasn't much to do apart from throwing snow balls at buses and date opinionated school girls - who wanted so much more...

I found music and a sense of fashion, unfortunately no one else agreed, hence the constant invitations to rendezvous after school at the gates, confusing, as we didn't have any school gates. Some students found if you wore Margaret Thatcher badges it upset the militant teachers and some actually broke down and cried when the Tories won the elections. School days seem to brighten, the teachers in the last year of school started teaching, just before most of us braced for the road ahead, which had UB40 singing about 1 in 10 being unemployed. My last school report from head of house simply read: 'I found mark to be admirable - nuff said!!!'

Questions that go unanswered - Anecdotes about living in Spain - All based on real events.

Is Tough Enough?

July saw the finals of the women's world cup football with the UK coming in a respectable third as they played off against our favourite rivals Germany and the Americans, who still feel the need to call the game soccer, won over Japan - kudos. Certain things that stood out again, not only the level of skill proving every bit entertaining as their male counter parts, yet again proving just how tough these female athletes are some journalists comparing them to the men. Close up camera shots of multi-million Euro players like, Renaldo being palmed on the chest and dropping to the floor like a bad actor missing his cue and then making an embarrassing meal of it. Subjecting paying punters to a few minutes of rolling around on the ground holding his face and screaming for his mama. 

Whereas American rugby seven's players Georgia Page broke her nose, jumped up and made a crucial try-saving tackle, her face smeared in claret with a come-on-let's-get-the-game on attitude - that's rugby tough.

You will see some male players take a hit and wince in pain and bypass the Oscar performance and chin through. Watching the women’s' world cup last month you saw a lot more chinning through than grass hugging and the aggression level was on a par with the blokes.

Living with the female of the species for over thirty years, admittedly spread over three or four, they all had one thing in common. They never seemed to get jungle flu. The kind that drops you into a stupefying, thumb-sucking, mummies boy grasping your last will and testament while flicking through the medical books on rare fatal diseases. They simply had colds and soldier on hardly showing symptoms and seem to recover fast – often saying: "If men had to go through the excruciating pain of childbirth the human race would have become extinct long ago," or as they say in the Midlands men are just mardie.

So why is it that woman seem to be tougher than men at least mentally?

Tests have been conducted, well to be honest - hold it - I could fill this space with brain scan info and impress you with research into this and that, but there isn't anything conclusive because pain in my opinion is down to the individual person those who have had a lot of it know what to expect.

Losing the love of your life is painful it's a longer emotional pain and again down to the individual.

When I was younger, and without really knowing, I had something inside me that automatically blocked out emotional pain; often being accused I could have watched my family being butchered on a Sunday and be at work Monday morning embarrassed at everyone giving their condolences. I used to treat my relationships like it. I was there I loved them, if they disappointed me I would leave.

Bottling everything up works well in groups of men who admire your resolve whilst moving in formation through a jungle armed and programmed. Fighting so certain western powers can sustain its oil thirst. It's a short lived grenade waiting to explode and one day it will happen sat in a car looking out to a grey sea whilst singing along to Coldplay's Yellow, holding a recommissioned service revolver you bought from some short, thick-eyebrow geezer in Nottingham. You are faced with unhelpful self-talk, "come on, you're this far - have you got the minerals - end the pain."

Something happens, you drop the bottle of Jack Daniels, Coldplay's song stops and you actually start feeling sorry for yourself remembering what the old man said when you used to cry as a boy and hate his cold reaction. You then miss the old bastard and burst out crying. You can't believe you're actually crying because being macho you've always said the last time you cried was when the midwife smacked your backside, so you accompany it with laughter - it's too late, you are crying like a fat girl on hearing the doctor say “no more chocolate young lady” and you can't stop.

You let it go, years and years' worth - you shout, "okay I'm a woman with emotions I don’t care, it feels so good oh-my-god it feels good." It's liberating. The pain doesn't stop there you realise what a complete ass you have been the past ten years and think, if I was a women what would I do now? To which you realise a woman would say - fuck it, now you have defragged your brain, move on. Unwrap the chocolate bar, find a bottle of white wine, worry about your thighs tomorrow and stop crying you lightweight!

We can talk about men being physically stronger, that has nothing to do with pain thresholds because we are all different and whilst having a high pain threshold can get you through a lot of after time pub fights it doesn't serve you well when your body is crying out for you to see the doctor because something is seriously wrong.

My old man used to say: 'It's all in the mind' - when he would tweezer out a splinter in my six year old finger, suggesting I was moaning like a spoiled rich girl who and had her shoe allowance stopped - take the pain, put yourself in a happy place and eventually I got it.

The next week when he was pulling out another splinter he'd said you didn’t bat an eyelid son where did you go? I said I was buying high heel shoes that seem to disturb the old steeplejack now who was wincing like a chocolate starved girl.