lt was the summer of 1987 and I had just finished my A-levels. I didn’t really know Alex but we came from the same town in Hampshire and I had got bored with the people I was meant to be staying with in the South of France so I phoned her and, with the arrogance of that age, asked if I could come and stay at her infinitely plusher villa perched high on the hills above Cap d’Antibes.
A day later, I pitched up, as did two other Winchester stragglers. I am eternally grateful to the small contingent who applauded me in a desultory style out of sheer pity I think Alex won the competition I know that I came last. Ten years on, that summer feels like a dream Alex had natural rhythm She could just get up on stage and dance. My dancing on the other hand made me appear to be having some kind of fit. But Alex persuaded 17-year-old me that it was a stunningly good idea to enter the Go Go Club’s dance competition, held every Saturday at Juan Les Pins’ finest nightspot.

You had to get on stage and gyrate to Rick Astley for about two minutes. The person who made the crowd clap loudest won 50 francs, a sickly cocktail and the undying admiration of all the cocky French boys who wore their trousers too high and had packets of Dunhill wedged in their pockets. Schedules mean you have to stay for exactly a fortnight, which will cost a minimum of pounds 559 including room-only accommodation at the Hotel Coco Verde. Hong Kong stops being British nine days from today, and after years of telling us how flights and hotels would be fully booked for the hand- over, the travel industry has suddenly realised there’s still spare capacity for the event.

Trailfinders (0171-938 3939) has come up with a wacky deal involving flying out this coming Friday on Gulf Air and returning five days later on Alitalia, for pounds 1,034 including hotel accommodation.. From May next year, Airtours (01706 260000) is organising holidays to the country’s Pacific coast, flying in to the little-known airport of Liberia. The price is pounds 159 all in, and trips run until 3 August – after which the sun starts setting in Scandinavia.. Dream destinations in Latin America are becoming more accessible with more charter flights to Costa Rica. If your idea of a dream flight is one that lasts no more than 20 minutes, then from today it could come true. Le Touquet moves closer to Kent from this midsummer morning, when a new airline re-opens the route between Lydd and Le Touquet. Following recent correspondence in the Independent, Sky-Trek Airlines (01797 320000) is operating four flights a day at weekends and two a day for the rest of the week.