My Favourite Holiday: Josh Pugh
Comedian Josh Pugh looks back fondly on getting gastro and being hospitalised on holiday
I don’t think I knew you could go on a holiday that wasn’t booked as a package until I was 25. Even now as a fully grown man, a part of me panics when I land in a foreign country and I’m not immediately greeted by someone in brightly coloured t-shirt with a clipboard telling me which coach to get on. When I was seven, my mum, dad, sister and I flew to Mallorca for such a holiday. I collapsed on night two while walking up the stairs after an evening dancing to Whigfield. When I woke up, I was in a Spanish hospital with my mum.
A bad case of food poisoning and severe dehydration meant that our week in the sun was spent in hospital. My dad stayed with my sister in-resort, terrified to spend any money, unsure our insurance covered medical care. The saving grace was that the 1996 Olympics were on the portable TV on the ward and I spent seven days watching people from countries I’d never heard of doing sports I’ve never heard of and I loved every second. Eventually my shits stopped being green and I had to leave. Four stars.
Josh Pugh: Ha Ha, Yeah Sound is touring the UK until Sunday 29 November.