The Spray Tan

I remember one night in 2012, we were watching Have I Got for News for You, and my mother warned me that I’d “end up like Berlusconi”. I assumed she meant that I would become a lying womaniser, or at least that’s what I’d hoped. It turns out that I’ve ended up orange, because on Friday afternoon I had a spray tan. I was going to have it on Thursday, but I had a date that night, so I postponed it. I thought turning up on a date essentially blacked up might send out the wrong signal. I was warned to exfoliate and shower before the tan, which I didn’t know how to do. (Exfoliate I mean, I know how to shower. In fact, I’d say it was one of the few areas in life that I am absolutely world class. I nail it every time. EVERY TIME.)

I had to buy some exfoliating body-scrub from Boots, which took ages because there are a million different sorts. It’s like buying hair wax, which is getting ridiculous now: the choice is absurd. You can get wax, gel, putty, paste, spray, clay; it’s voluminizing, just got out of bed look, wet-look, extreme style, rapist. All the brands are called stupid things like “Fudge”, or “Fish Fingers”, or “Old Man’s Jizz”. Only one of those is made up: “Fudge”. A lot of people think “Old Man’s Jizz” is made up, but you can actually get that: my granddad sells it. You can’t buy it in shops mind, he sells it door to door or at festivals from a van. He doesn’t call it “Old Man’s Jizz” though, obviously, no-one would buy it. He calls it “yoghurt”, because who doesn’t like yoghurt? (His customers, mainly.)

I arrived at the tanning salon. On the way in I walked past a woman who looked like an orang-utan’s ball-bag. The girl behind the counter said I could have “dark or dark dark”, so I asked her what the difference was. “Do you want to look like Enrique Iglesias or Denzel Washington?” she said. I went for “dark”. Kayleigh was very chatty, asking me lots of questions, “So are you having this before you go on holiday or is it just a treat for your boyfriend?”

She showed me to the tanning booth. I had assumed that the process would be basically me stood naked against a wall whilst I was hosed down with orange paint. That’s what I’d heard anyway. However, I was actually shown to an electronic spray-tanning booth, a bit like the Tardis but 4000% more gay. The electronic voice of a woman who sounded like the Tom Tom lady talked me through the whole process. All I had to do was take my clothes off and put a blue fish-net cap on my head. I looked like a Greggs employee who'd had a breakdown.

I had my front done first, ensuring I lifted up my penis for full coverage, before turning around for an even covering. The spray feels cold, like deodorant, and smells like a cross between chocolate and low self-esteem. Fifteen minutes later it was all finished. I wasn’t that brown, which annoyed me for some reason even though I had initially dreaded the whole idea of a fake tan. However, Kayleigh reassured me that the tan would really develop in about eight hours’ time.

Eight hours later I was at the Bloomsbury Theatre watching a show. There were three intervals, and every time I came back from one I was a different race. After the third interval the bloke sat next to me actually said “Sorry mate, someone’s sitting there”. On the tube home I could feel people’s eyes on me, people were staring and then unsubtly whispering things to their friends and giggling. I felt embarrassed and compelled to bury myself in my Evening Standard, but I resisted because embarrassment is kind of the point. My date asked me on Thursday night what I'd learnt from my Groupon adventure, and I told her the biggest thing is that I've been so marinated in humiliation that dignity is not something I feel I need anymore, which is oddly empowering. I mean, six months ago I don't think I would have had the plums to take a date to Weatherspoons on a 50% off voucher. We had two burgers and a bottle of wine for 30p. 

When I got home from the theater I had a shower, which the fake tan turned into some sort of diarrhea theme-park. A day later the colour has mellowed and I’ve got to say I look absolutely gorgeous. I can see why people get addicted to these. But it does seem like a huge amount of expense and hassle to look 10% better than other people in the beauty arms race. I feel sorry for women who are culturally pressured into this sort of thing. They should get government tax-breaks, because a female health and beauty regime is so much more expensive than a man’s. Although that’s changing: I know at least three men who use hair straighteners now. To be fair one of them uses it to make toasties, and another one uses it to punish his neighbour’s cat, but still.

A lot of you are probably wondering what I look like. Here’s a photo taken that night at the Bloomsbury:

Alpaca Trekking

On Sunday afternoon I went on an alpaca trek on a farm near the Kent coast. I spent a couple of hours with my alpaca Hershey, who frankly wasn’t over the moon about the whole arrangement. It was like a very awkward first date.

I'm on the right. Daft Punk on the left.

Here’s another pic, more close up this time. He looks like a fat boy who’s walked through a snow storm:

Hershey was aggressively ambivalent to me the whole time we were together, only feigning any sort of affection when I gave him carrots, the little whore.

The Alapaca trek is obviously a hot ticket in Kent, because I found this car in a ditch on the road into the farm:

 These guys obviously couldn't wait to get to the alpacas, and had taken the bend too fast. I checked in the car to make sure nobody was in it, but there was only some travel sweets and eight quid in cash. Which was handy because there was a farm shop.

The alpaca trek experience is aimed at children predominantly, and the other people on the trek were a mother and her young daughter, but why should kids have all the fun? A point I made vociferously to the girl’s mother when I refused to give her any of the communal carrots.

I subjected our guide Lara to a relentless barrage of questions, notably “Do you ever shampoo the alpacas?” (No). Which is a real shame because that would be very therapeutic I think, getting them all lathered up. Good therapy for the recently bereaved I suggested,  but she disagreed. “What’s the weirdest thing you could make an alpaca breed with?” I asked. She said she didn't understand the question, so I rephrased it “Like, could an alpaca ever mate with a lion?” (No). She mainly spoke to the little girl from this point.

Alpacas are from the camel family, and they are pretty much Llamas in a onesie. That’s their raison d’etre: their famously thick and soft fleece. The thing is, alpacas don’t like you touching their fleece. In fact they don’t like you at all. They are prey animals, meaning that everything is trying to eat them. Which makes them really jumpy: any sort of noise and they bolt. (When I farted Hershey almost took my arm off). They’re also very hierarchical animals, and walk together in a straight line like a woolly conga. If anyone tries get above their station and jump the line they get spat at. Yes: literally spat at. Alpacas have two stomachs (like cows), and they regurgitate green bile from the first chamber and gob it at you. They’re like sheep with ASBOs basically.

Alpacas really are prima-donnas, and what with their hair, it’s like hanging out with a high-maintenance 80s pop band:

Because alpacas can be psychos, farmers often get a few of them to scare off dogs and foxes, like a security guard made out of cushions. Alpacas hate dogs, and if they corner one they jump on it until it dies, like canine bubble wrap. Not so cute now are they? When the little girl heard that her face dropped, as if she had just walked in on her Barbie taking heroin.

We walked around the Romney Marshes for an hour and then returned to the farm to collect our certificates:

 Lara, our guide, asked the young girl and her mother if they would like to be put on the same certificate or have their own. She said the reason she asked was on the last trek she put a married couple on the same certificate and the woman said “No, I want my own certificate just in case we get divorced”. Because that’s the big issue with a divorce isn’t it? Who gets custody of the alpaca certificate? “You can keep the kids! I can have more of the pricks! But there’s only one alpaca diploma!”

Anyway, I had a lovely time. No idea why, but I did. And Hershley and I still text a bit.

NEXT TIME: BIRD OF PREY EXPERIENCE