I’ve always had this secret desire to be a ‘big player’.

Of course I realise this isn’t anything to brag about. If you want to be a ‘big player’ in the modern world you must have, or appear to have loads of dosh – dosh being the only recognisable currency that carries check with the kinds of folks who’re impressed by a ‘big player’.

The point is, you have to have dosh to splash around when the opportunities present themselves.

In Halifax, where I live and work for a small charity, I’m such a ‘small player’ I’ve spent the winter wearing odd gloves. The cashier at the bank noticed it on Friday so I suspect that’s the end of my AAA rating with Barclays.

But in Egypt things are different.

For years I’ve taken my annual hols. there, and because of my ‘habit’ the Egyptians think I’m a rich man. Wow, if only they knew….

…but they don’t, so my desire to be seen as a ‘big player’ is already out of my psychic fantasies the moment I arrive, tipping ‘big’ to the porter as he carries my suitcases on arrival, meanwhile muttering in broken English, ‘welcome back’. At least I think it’s ‘welcome back’.

We always stay at the same hotel. The first time we visited, I noticed a small ledge in the rocks, alongside the Nile, just above where the boats are moored to be hired by the hour.

As a result, the second time we arrived I went along to the pool attendant to ask if he’d mind bringing a couple of sunbeds to the ledge along with the towels. However, he refused, saying we’d have to sit by the pool alongside the other ‘eeengleesh’.

What neither of us realised was that whilst this conversation was taking place, we were observed and overheard by the old guy who’s in charge of the boats from whom there then poured out what sounded like the very worst curses of Allah with the immediate effect that sunbeds, parasols, tables and towels magically appeared on the ledge.

Each year we get more and more

attention, the effects of my outrageously generous bakh’shish obviously having its effect….or so I surmised…

But it was the almost psychic level of intercommunication that first alerted me to the real truth. Not once has the hotel manager or one of his suited minions ever acknowledged my presence there. It’s the old boss at the boats that calls the operational shots – and why? Because the entire operation staff are all his

nephews.

As a result, when I leave, bakh’shish is handed to and generously accepted by the three department heads, waiters of note, the guy who makes the bed, the guy who empties the ash-tray whenever I sit in the lobby (which I don’t use), the porters, the musicians who welcome our arrival and departure, the guy who I witness fondling the hashish pipes (which I don’t use), the old woman who makes the bread (which I don’t eat), two security guards who protect me from potential kidnappers – (for

my wealth) – plus the four boat boys (which I don’t use), plus, of course, the old guy himself who gets a two hundred note (that’s worth around £20).

This year I worked out that the total of the bakh’shish was greater than the hotel bill.

And barely had I sat on the ledge this year before a new nephew appeared, dressed in spotless white sports gear, and introduced himself as the newly appointed hotel masseur.

‘Would Sir care for a rub down?

Well, what ‘big player’ could ever say ‘no’ to a rub down?