Morrocco; le tour packarjhed.

Obviously, sharing a tiny flat in Paris with only one bed, belonging to an (apparently) handsome Frenchman in a rather dodgy part of the city, somewhat set the tone for the trip.

Arrival at Marrakesh and settling in went reasonably smoothly. By Monday evening it was plain that Emanuel was besotten by a waiter, a 6'6" handsome negro from Paisly, Sophie was keen on King Hassan's sister-in-law's son, and Martin had fallen in love with a local called Gertrude, a high-class racing camel from Saudi belonging to Prince Abdul abul bul A'meer.

Emmanuel's love-affair was brought to a dramatic close on Tuesday morning when the waiter ran off with Prince Abdul's left-half-brother but she soon found comfort in about 4 pints of Gin & Tonic and King Hassan's sister-in-law's son. (Sophie still doesn't know about this so don't tell her). Martin and Gertrude were keen to arrange a wedding but Prince Abdul was reluctant to free the elegent camel.

This changed on Wednesday evening when Sophie was kidnapped and held for randsom by the waiter's wife, an ex-blonde from a small isolated village in Frankfurt. Sophie was rescued by a combination of Gertrude's second-cousin (an SAS major) and low cunning; as a reward to the family, Prince Abdul released Gertrude from service, who immediately eloped with Elvis who had been running a chip shop in Marakesh. Martin was devasted, and it took him several hours to recover under the ministrations of a local houri.

On Thursday things began to get a little complicated. The tattoo on Sophie's inner thumb (showing the location of the bidet given to Eva Brown on the day before her wedding) had been copied by Gertrude during a night of betrayal and passion, and in turn it had been stolen by Elvis's ex-brother and casual golf-player, Mohammed Ali Mohammed Baba Mohammed Mohammed. Sophie and Emmanuel by this stage had found comfort in each other's company, little knowing that each was trying to sell the other to King Hassan's late great-great grandfather for "several tens of working camels" (as one source put it).

I can't really remember what happened to the rest, except that it seemed to involve two Germans, a camel-reproduction expert from Dubai and a half/half Llama/Dromedary calf.

We are trying to recover now, and if anyone knows of a good VD clinic that specialises in camel-borne diseases we'd all like to know (symptoms are spots on the face, neck and arms).

The True Story (well, sort of) with bonus pictures.