Tirana is hot, and the airport is swarming with people holding signs with names on. For my whole life I had no idea why they held the signs; it was all a big mystery to me, but then I ask my sister and she says ‘taxis’ and the mystery is put to bed. As we go to leave, there are racks and racks of luggage, towering by the entrance to the toilets. 

We get a taxi to the hotel, check in and bring our bags up to the room. Hungry, we spend an hour or so looking for a restaurant recommended to us by the receptionist. We do not use our satnav as there are rapacious European roaming charges in place now, so we walk around hoping to stumble upon the place, which is called ‘olive’ in Albanian.

On the pavement there are stacks of bricks, abandoned bags of legumes, an odd shoe. I notice there are several shops, identical to each other, selling only trainers, and with no customers. There are also banks on every street. As you walk you can smell the embezzlement wafting up your nostrils. 

After an hour or so of rambling in the heat, we settle for a cosy little restaurant with American decor: posters of Marilyn Monroe, old instruments and neon lighting. We eat voraciously then go to the hotel, where we lie on sun loungers by the rooftop pool. It is a small, deep pool, and there is a balcony overlooking the city, black mountains looming over it in the distance. I walk into the bar barefoot and topless and order a beer, then ask them what Albanian is for thank you. He says ‘faleminderit’ and I repeat the word, counting the syllables. ‘Fal – eh – min- dair- eet’, and then say ‘five syllables!’. I shake my head at the man and then say ‘faleminderit’ again, and contrast it with ‘thanks,’ then show him the front of my index finger, ‘one syllable!’. They laugh and shrug their shoulders. A skinny bar lad delivers my beer, ‘faleminderit’ I say merrily, before drinking it and falling asleep.

I wake up in the evening, and one of the bar lads is asking me to move my things and go to the bar as the pool is closing. 

“Closing, why?”

“Naked barn owl.”

I look at the man for a second, squinting at him, then say ‘what’s it going to do, swoop us up and eat us?”

“No, naked bar.”

I nod, “of course,’ then pick up my towel and go to the bar, where everybody is still wearing clothes. 

Later at Duffs, the sports bar, I enquire about the fight tonight, which is Usyk vs Joshua. As I am a mug, I tell myself it might be worth watching, despite knowing that boxing is nothing more than an elaborate scam these days. The fights are poorly selected, hyped to obscene levels, over-discussed in the sports media and reliably deliver a spectacle less entertaining than watching your nan knitting. Duffs cannot show the fight because they close before it is on. I ask the man if he knows anywhere else showing it, and he says no. I finish a mojito, then go to the bar and speak to the barman about football. He likes Liverpool. I ask for another one and he gives it to me for free. His mate who has a moustache comes over to us and recommends us a nightclub, and tells us he is a train driver who wants to move to London. Naturally I take this as a cue to go on a rant about the TFL drivers. 

“Oh you’ll be all right doing that lad. You know the bloody train drivers in London? Get paid 70K a week average salary and they don’t even go to work because they can’t be bothered!…” He doesn’t really follow me, but stays for a chat despite the place teeming to the rafters.

We decide to forego the club tonight and to watch the fight at the hotel on the laptop instead. But then when we get back Lucy decides to forego that too, and I’m up there on the rooftop on my own, feathered like a goose from Duffs. The Albanian bar lads are helpful and try to get the fight on, even making phonecalls to try and do this, which I appreciate. The rooftop is almost dead, with only a few people dotted around on the floor. I get the laptop from the room and sit at a table as the fighters are walking on. I look over to another table, two girls and one lad, all about mid-twenties. I walk over, laptop in one hand, sex on the beach in the other.

“May I join you?”

“No,” the lad says, then looks at the girls. 

“No.”

“No.”

I can only conclude that these people are in dire need of a strong dose of Kiasmos. 

I go back to my table and my sorry sex on the beach. Nothing happens in the entire fight, not a single punch thrown, and after tipping the bar lads, I shuffle down to the room, shaking my head, scammed again.