As a life-long Londoner, to me, city life and beach life go together like peanut butter and mayonnaise, muffin tops and low rise jeans, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford – ie. they don’t. The closest London comes to beach life is the mayor's annual pathetic attempt to dump sand on the banks of the Thames. Freezing on the South Bank, avoiding getting sucked into the filthy and powerful current of the River Thames, whilst taking in deep lungfuls of the congested traffic above clogging up Waterloo Bridge somehow hasn't managed to entice us Londoners. I think the Maldives Tourism Board can breathe a sigh of relief.
Beach holidays are idyllic hideaways from the mania of metropolis life, where you can walk stretches of sand without meeting another soul. Beach holidays are the gentle calm of Lamu; quaint fishing towns on Greek Islands. But this uptight city girl's values system was shaken to the core on last year's trip to Rio de Janeiro. There, Cariocas would spend a few hours lounging on Ipanema Beach before padding back into the thick of the city with nothing but a piece of tiny speedos between their modesty and the rest of the passengers on the bus or customers in the mall. No eyelid was batted and not one fuck was given. Watching Brazilians is like getting a masterclass in body confidence and it was there that I learned to stop worrying and love the Beach.
