It all started back in June 2000, the 24th, to be exact. Mr Security Guard (who shall, hereafter, be known as "Mr SG"), as he is widely known as, is the Security Guard (no shit) of a small holiday complex in Nerja, Costa Del Sol, Spain (Oasis De Capistrano, for the record). He is no normal SG, however. This SG is the most dedicated, competent, tough, fit and downright genius SG ever. He can smell crime a mile away. In fact, he can smell crime as far off as Malaga Airport, but his only priority is Oasis De Capistrano. To see that all criminals stay away from the complex he loves so much. And believe me you, he does a good job in this. The man is a force to reckon with. With a black belt in judo, a talent at boxing, medals for both sprinting and long-distance running, great observational skills, awareness and perceptiveness, any criminals were soon sorry that they were even born. And yes, I refer to criminals only in the past tense, for the complex has been criminal free ever since Mr SG's reputation extended across the Costa Del Sol. He is, in fact, well sought after, with complexes in neighbouring areas and beyond offering him vast quantities of pesetas per hour to become their SG. But no. He will not hear of it, even. He knows where his loyalties lie, and shall remain the main man at Oasis De Capistrano for eternity. Mr SG is a 24/7 man. It has often been debated just whether or not he is actually human, given his perfection. He needs not to sleep, eat or drink. As a sidenote, he is also the sexiest man in all of the Costa Del Sol, if not Spain or even Europe (but not the world, the Asian Prince gets that award) and brought gay males and straight females flocking to Oasis De Capistrano, allowing prices to be raised. Accordingly, he has threesomes nightly, but all this is neither here nor there. So, June 2000, and we have a dedicated, super-human, ageless (forever in his prime), sexy SG patrolling a small, Nerja holiday complex 24/7.

Enter Michael and I. Mr SG first saw us at Malaga Airport, the afternoon of June 24th, 2000. We had just gotten off a plane (sound logical?), and the next step was to locate our coach to take us to the well-patrolled complex that is Oasis De Capistrano. The temperature was, as we were later reliably informed, 34 degrees C - 93 degrees F. However, me, not being one to feel heat ever so much, was wearing a coat. Why? Are you stupid, you say? Well, yes, but, this is irrelevant, in this case. I had boarded the plane at cold Gatwick, wearing my coat (perhaps understandably), before taking it off, but not putting it away. Having a lot to carry already, I decided to wear my coat, as opposed to carrying it. Or packing it away. This, however, was not the only thing out of the ordinary. My big suitcase was heavy, and to carry it in the usual manner, hard. I decided, instead, to carry it with both arms, in the "embraced" fashion. Yes, my suitcase did sport two pairs of wheels. However, the handle (designed to pull the suitcase along by)and suitcase itself, even when vertical and protruding (no jokes, please), were shorter in length than the distance from the bottom of my arm to the ground. This said, I would have had to have squatted in order to wheel it. Short of kicking the ruddy thing, there seemed little option but to carry it in the said way. Anyway, us being "English Goons", locating the coach did not prove the easy task it would have done for anyone more intelligent than a plant pot. We walked straight past our coach, the one with the holiday rep holding a sign saying "Cosmos, Nerja" in discreet, bright red letters. After searching the car park, almost boarding the wrong coach and attempting to ask an old woman for help, we arrived back where we started, right outside the Airport's entrance where we'd come out, and were summoned onto the coach by an impatient driver. Now, let us look at it from Mr SG's point of view. Knowing there was a coach due to arrive at the complex, leaving from Malaga Airport at 3.00, and wishing to suss out all new holidaymakers, he arranged to be on the aforementioned vehicle. It has also been said that he fancied the holiday rep, but I digress. The time was 2.55, and Mr SG was sitting at the back of the coach. All but two of the expected passengers had arrived and were on the coach. Fifteen minutes passed, and late out of the Airport owing to difficulties finding the exit (we have not beel labelled "English Goons" for nothing), and Mr SG observed two strange, hapless, sorry looking youths passing by. One in particular caught his attention. Wearing a coat during the siesta period and seemingly unable to figure out how to wheel a suitcase, struggling with it instead. A smile formed on Mr SG's face. Then, a light bulb appeared above his head. Two passengers still to arrive, half an hour after the flight had ended, and two stupid, sorry looking youths. Could these be the two latecomers? Well, yes, the tard in the coat had a Cosmos label attached to his suitcase, Mr SG noticed. Having a liking for smooth running and punctuality, his initial reaction was to alert the driver as to the whereabouts of the two left, or better still, get out and drag them in by the scruff of their necks. And besides, Senor De Jesus was on in half an hour. However, he then decided that much fun could be had from watching out the back window, to see where they went. He was not disappointed. He chuckled to himself as he watched us search a car park for the coach. When we finally arrived back, me still under the impression that it was Winter, seemingly, I attempted to get on the coach still carrying my suitcase, before having it taken from me by the driver, and put into the luggage compartments below (but not before believing him to be a trying to steal it, not realising he was the driver, and trying to stop him taking it). Michael tripped on the coach's steps, before I sat down, near the front, until Michael reminded me that you were supposed to reserve seats near the front for the elderly, and that some might get on and want the front seats, at which point we went and sat in the middle. Mr SG, having well-developed senses, had no difficulties in hearing and observing everything we did, from the back. The coach departed, and Mr SG grinned (which is the end of a scene from the first episode - a view from outside the Airport of the coach leaving and him grinning, before the change of scene), thinking "The next week could prove funny", in Spanish, presumably, although the guy is multi-lingual, of course, needing to be able to understand everything said by all holidaymakers on the complex. During the coach journey, I kept nodding off, before veering to the side, banging my head against the coach window, waking up and sitting back straight, before nodding off again immediately, then same again, while Michael was heard to complain about the lack of leg space caused by having his bag with him, obviously not being familiar with the idea of overhead compartments. After waking up, I took to taking a photo every time we passed a house, hill or farm animal, before, five minutes before arriving at our destination, complaining that my disposable camera, the only one I'd brought on holiday, had run out of film. Michael then informed me that it had run out five minutes ago. At one stop (the coach stopped at two resorts, one before ours), we got out, thinking it to be our resort, before realising, and running after the coach, banging on the doors to get back in.

By the time we arrived, Mr SG was pissing himself laughing, and had to go and sit down to recover and change his underwear. Now, before I go any further, I'll divulge that Mr SG is how people believe "God" to be. He sees and knows everything, at least around the complex. Whenever we did something clumsy/stupid/funny/foolish/English Goonish, he knew, and was often lurking. Truly amazing.

Our appartment: now a shrine to our stupidity

The first mishap occured on Sunday, our second day there, when Michael knocked a glass off the table, smashing it into many pieces, before proceeding to bend down and start to pick up the pieces with his bare hands, cutting himself in the process. However, he managed to retrieve virtually every piece, with me having a kip on the sofa, meanwhile. The next morning, we paid a trip to the local supermarket, taking 50 minutes to do the half-mile journey (along one road), having walked off in the wrong direction, despite the signs to the town pointing the other way, it taking us 20 minutes and a mile of farmland to conclude that we, perhaps, were heading in the wrong direction. After walking into the supermarket, then going back for a basket, we bought our food, me purchasing much in the way of frozen oven food, spending over twenty pounds' worth on this. After taking ten minutes to pay at the checkout, we left, with me forgetting to leave the basket behind, with Mr SG - having already followed us all around the supermarket, close on our tail, us being entirely oblivious to the whole thing. Whether or not it was his excellent skills at disguise, or our lack of any form of observational skills, shall remain forever a topic for debate. On getting back, Michael read the English papers he'd bought, looking to see what we could watch on TV that night, while I packed away my food. Later, I tried to make a meal for tea, but couldn't figure out how to use the oven (having just managed to suss out the toaster - but not without burning the bread). I called Michael over for assistance, but neither of us could figure out how it worked. "The 10-year-old who stayed here last week managed to use it OK" thought Mr SG to himself. So, I had a lot of oven food which I couldn't eat. It was, we decided, time to make a visit to our reception, to enquire as to how to work the oven. We had been given a map, with the reception on it, and with this, we set off. We, once again, managed to get lost, before realising that we had the map upside down. After much searching, we finally saw it "Reception", it said. We went in, me asking the receptionist about the oven, Michael standing in a corner, laughing.

"What appartment are you in", I was asked.

Silence ensued.

"May I have your key?", I was then asked.

"We'll need it to get back in", I replied.

She checked the key for its number, before adopting a somewhat puzzled expression.

"What complex are you actually staying at?", I was asked.

I thought about this very hard question, before admitting defeat.

"What is your name?" was the last question, with me replying after thinking whether or not it was a trick question.

After checking a list, she informed me that I had come to the wrong reception, and that we wanted the one a mile away. As we left, Mr SG emerged from the room behind the counter, saying to the receptionist "English Goons".

The both of them laughed. When we eventually arrived at the correct reception, we didn't understand the explanation given as to how to work the oven, despite the perfect English spoken by the receptionist, so she organised for someone to pay us a visit and to give us a demo at Wednesday, 4.00. The following day, Tuesday, and Michael, once again, smashed something, this time a vase. Not wishing to cut his already cut hands, he decided that we must pay another visit to reception, to inform them as to the breakages, and also to get advice on how to get it up. We got there, having only gone the wrong way once, but got someone barely capable of speaking English, and so had to return, having made a wasted journey. "They walk all the way to reception to get advice on how to clear the floor of smashed vase?!", Mr SG thought to himself. After returning home, and after much arguing, I reluctantly agreed to pick up the pieces. The rest of the day was pretty boring, me opening the broom cupboard's door to see what was inside. "Nothing except a mop, bleach, bucket and a dustpan and brush", I thought to myself. "So boring and useless".

The view from our balcony of the well-patrolled complex that is Oasis De Capistrano

Next day, Wednesday, we went swimming. After establishing which was the adult pool, we went in. "Where are their rubber rings?", Mr SG thought to himself. Afterwards, we lay on some sunloungers, before having a big bloke come and lay claim to them. We insisted that they were rightfully ours. "Where are your tickets, then?", he enquired. This threw us. Having been evicted from our sunloungers, I sat down in the shade, while Michael went back home to get some suncream. After 40 minutes and no Michael, I went back only to find Michael sitting on the steps outside the door with the door handle in his hand.

"Why you holdin' a door handle?", I asked (believe it or not, it was an innocent question).

"It came off in me hand. I tried to yank it open, but then I remembered it was locked", Michael explained.

"Oh, right, cool, shall we go in, then?", I asked.

"But the door handle's come off in my hand", Michael argued.

"So..that means we can't get in, then?", I said, my brain working harder at that point in time than ever before.

"Yeah", said Michael, after thinking about it.

"You tried putting it back on?", I asked.

"No, he thought he'd just ask it nicely", thought Mr SG.

I tried to put it back on, but failed somewhat miserably (whether or not any average kid, I mean, person, could have done it is another matter). The time was 4.00, when we admitted defeat, and, to our astonishment, a woman appeared for our oven-using tuition class. We explained that the handle was not in its usual place, holding the offending object up as proof. She laughed, said she had to go, and did just that. Needless to say, neither of us thought to arrange an alternate time for her to come, or to ask for advice on the door handle. As a sidenote, we never did get shown how to use the oven, and my oven food went to waste. Wearing just swimming trunks, we walked to reception, and a handyman gave us a lift back to our appartment. He put the door handle back on in seconds, before saying he'd come back on Friday, 4.00, to fix the door properly.

"Is that alright?", he asked.

"Fine", we said.

"We've got nothing planned for then" we assured him.

Thursday came, and we decided to catch the bus into Nerja. On the way to the bus stop, whilst walking down a sideroad, Michael was not looking where he was going (i.e. straight in front), but to the left. What neither of us saw was a car driving slowly towards us, down the sideroad. As it got close, it slowed down and then stopped. Michael, still oblivious to it all, carried on walking towards the car, still looking to the left. At a point at which Michael was just about to walk into the car's bonnet, the car pipped his horn. We both jumped, and Michael bumped into the car's bumper, causing him to double over onto the car's bonnet. We both walked off as quickly as we could. Mr SG sat up, having been in the back seat of the car, ducking down.

"English Goons", he said to the amused driver and passenger.

After getting on the bus, and asking for tickets to Nerja, pronouncing it "n-e-r-j-a", as opposed to "n-e-r-k-a", we sat down. What we hadn't realised was that Nerja was only just over half a mile from where we were staying, only a few hundred yards from the supermarket. The bus stopped, and the driver shouted.

"Nerja!", he yelled.

"No, we want nurja, not neeeeearrrka", I yelled back, before realising it was the said place after all.

"Fancy a bus driver not being able to pronounce nurja", I said to Michael. As we got off the bus, Mr SG thought to himself "English Goons", as he stood at the bus stop.

The Living Room of our appartment on the day we arrived

Next morning, at 10.45, we left for the supermarket. "English Goons", Mr SG thought to himself, upon realising that what he'd expected to happen, had, and that we'd gone out at the time we said we'd be in so the handyman could fix the door.

Fast forwarding some 37 hours to Saturday night, and I went to close the front door, being as we were about to go to bed (not together). The door was stiff, and needed to be slammed shut. I opened it wide, and slammed very hard. It shut OK. The only small problem was that the door handle had come off in my hand, and so we were now locked in. Mr SG was in stitches. "These two are so funny, they should be on TV. English Goons!", he thought to himself, chuckling.

But just then, the light bulb made its reappearence above Mr SG's head. All of a sudden, he saw himself as an accomplished comedy writer, having won awards for his hit comedy "English Goons". He knew all he had to do was to make scripts out of the stupid things we'd done. "The people of my good country will be on the floor laughing", he thought. "What next? Will they set fire to the place?", he said, laughing momentarily, before a rather worried look appeared on his face.

We were locked in until Sunday afternoon, when we were paid a visit by a Cosmos rep, who had come to deliver a note to "Mr and Mrs Warren". We banged on the door, asking her to open it. The note was to confirm the time of the return coach back to Malaga Airport. It was 9 am, we were told. I mentioned the fact that we might not be up in time.

"Don't you have an alarm clock?", she asked us.

We looked at each other, blankly. By the time we left the complex, Mr SG, although amused by us, had decided that it was a good thing that we were going. After all, he had had visions of the whole complex being set alight. He felt sure that he had enough goonish material for about ten series of English Goons, so was glad we were going back. So, at 8.45 the morning we left, he gave us a wake up call. He came in through the front door we hadn't locked, entered our room and started beating a drum, before ushering us out, and throwing our stuff out after us. This, incidentally, was the first time we'd seen him. This just goes to show what a master of disguise the man is. Or what dumb fucks we are.

The Living Room of our appartment after a couple of days

He wasn't surprised to find a smashed bowl, dirty pots and papers strewn everywhere. "Surely they can't read?", he thought to himself.

Mr SG submitted scripts for his comedy to one of Spain's leading channels, that Autumn, and they loved it, accepting it as sheer genius, immediately. Two well-reputed young actors were cast as me and Michael, and the show was first aired March 2001. Mr SG became regarded as a comic genius, and has since made a mint. Of the show's success, he said "I am delighted by the show's success, and by the first class acting. However good they may be, though, the characters I had in mind were far goonier. Too goony to be portrayed, I suppose". Series two was soon planned. However, there was one great bonus. Mr SG got word of us coming back to the complex, and set up recording equipment all over our appartment. Unbeknown to us, we were filmed 24/7, Big Brother style, and the best footage was used in series two. Series two did the seemingly impossible, and proved even more popular than Series one, winning "Best Comedy" award. The show started with Mr SG seeing us drunk, but not realising we were, instead thinking to himself "They've progressed well since last year. They seem so much more co-ordinated and comprehensible". Reviewer Manuel Emmanuelle was quoted to have said "Just when we all thought that it couldn't get any funnier, this happens. And the acting was so much better, this series. Where do they find them? It really was as if they really were English Goons". Mr SG has plans to have the show aired 24/7, Big Brother style. "English Goons go large" will premiere later in the year. I can't divulge much, but it has a change of scene, to Devon, England. It has us arriving for a holiday at a caravan site - without a caravan. Watch this space.