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Sober Life
by Sinclair Newton

IRONING


 
Sober Life

You'd better watch out because the extreme ironers are bound to be coming to an Island near us this summer!

I don't mean people with an advanced level of sarcasm.

These people carry their creased shirts and, for all I know, their freshly laundered underpants with them wherever they go and they mean sharp business.

Vedra? No problem. If necessary, they'll surf out there on their lightweight ironing boards with their Morphy Richards travel iron tied around their waist.

The Chapel at the top of Mount Atalaya? A mere cockstride for these noble seekers after wrinkle-free Wranglers.

Now me, I get my eighty-two-year-old mother to do my ironing. Why, only last weekend she knocked off eleven shirts in the time it takes to watch Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Or was it the Forsyte Saga?

But this craze, started by two rock-climbing lads from Leicestershire (they're known as "Steam" and "Spray") has so far taken in the Pyrenees and Scotland's Old Man of Hoy.

The beauty of this fresh sport is that you finish up looking fit for a wedding with not a starched collar out of place, unlike, say, a marathon runner trying to find his way back to the Commonwealth Games stadium in the back streets of Manchester.

I'm sure somebody will cotton on to this novel sport and figure out a way of making money out of it.

You can be photographed ironing on the London Eye or in Madame Tussaud's, but it's not the same as having risked life and limb to get to your chosen ironing site which could even be atop the Shouting Man in San Antonio. How about inside the egg on the roundabout? Or while dancing in Es Paradis? Or in the back of the goal at the Old Trafford Stretford End?

Germans have been trying to hijack the sport with all the enthusiasm they apply to securing places around the hotel pool. They've been at it whilst snorkelling.

For myself, I prefer the method of boiling potatoes in a modicum of water which you stir with a large soup spoon whilst wearing the unironed shirt. You then rub the hot spoon up and down your chest, which has the advantage of applying starch as well as vigour.

p.s. I was going to write about Bob Dylan this week, after seeing him whine and growl and c-r-o-a-k his way through two hours of nasal nostalgia. But I think we've all read enough about his never-ending tour and anyway he never buys a tee shirt emblazoned with ibizahistoryculture.com.

Sinclair Newton

sinclairnewton@ibizahistoryculture.com