Europe's gay holiday capital...

I'm tired; indeed, I'm shattered. I've not washed, I'm sweaty, I have a busting headache and I've not slept in over 36 hours. However, despite all of this I am as a happy as a porcine animal wallowing in it's own excrement.

Last night, I began my marathon trek via Cardiff bus station (sad and lonely) and then Bristol bus station (sad and lonely but not nearly as sad and lonely as Cardiff's bus station) to Gran Canaria for a week. By midday today, I was proudly stood (well, lying flat out actually) on the gay beach with all the other friends of Dorothy.

Maspolomas (or Playa del Ingles, as I'm unsure where one ends and the other begins) must be Europe's gay holiday capital. If you want to know what the latest gay fads are, come here for up to the minute trends in swimwear, accessories, body piercings and body hair topiary styles. My horizons were broadened this afternoon (and that's not a euphemism).

It's often quoted that on average one in ten in the population is gay; given that in Maspolomas it seems every other man is a little bit queer, this must skew the figures in other places - one in two here and one in two hundred elswhere. Given the plethora of homosexuals here, I wouldn't be surprised to find that back home, I am "the only gay in the village".

This is borne out in the number of rainbow flags they have flying here. It seems that every other business is proud to brag about how gay friendly they are. Spain may be in the news right now for its financial misjudgements but when it comes to gay rights, it leads the way in Europe.

What is the collective noun for rainbow flags? This has puzzled me today. What about "a spectrum of rainbow flags" (it certainly captures the diversity of the gay community) or "a refraction of rainbow flags" (a little too scientific, perhaps)? My favourite is, "a fluttering of rainbow flags" (it echoes a camp fluttering of eyelashes, like those glued on to a Spanish drag queen).

And the weather here...? Well, it's warm and sunny; like a typical June day in the UK...

Sorry, I quite forgot!