When I was a lad, I used to listen to the radio, not really through choice but mainly because television hadn’t been invented. There was this program on every Sunday afternoon called ‘Desert Island Discs’ where celebrities would name the music and a few material goods they would wish to have with them should they ever become marooned on a desert island. Things one would appreciate for months or years to come, without boredom or regret. An esoteric survival kit as it were. All kinds of combinations were proffered. Bachs’ Suite No.3 in D, white wine and a deck chair, for example. Glen Miller, Budwieser and nylons. Sinatra, whisky and a bar to lean on.

Now I’ve always considered Sharm to be an island. The southernmost tip of the Sinai peninsula, surrounded by sea on two sides and desert on the third. We even have our own pirate now, Cap’n Gino, who lost his left eye to a compressor rather than The Royal Navy, although I suspect that’s only because they weren’t around at the time. But have you ever wondered how it would be to find yourself cast away on a real desert island ? This concept appealed to me so much that one day in my mad impetuous youth I actually did it, and on a Caribbean island no less. I hired this big black man in a speedboat to take my girlfriend and I out to a deserted island, somewhere off the western tip of Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands – real Jack Sparrow territory. Bouncing across the sea, zig-zagging through a mosaic of tiny tropical islands, I felt like a modern day pirate out joy riding in paradise. We chose our island, beached the boat, unloaded the supplies and, with a promise to return and a big black wave, we were finally left alone. Such fun filled days we had, our footprints the only ones on the beach, swimming naked in the lagoon, clear blue skies, a cooling breeze blowing through our hair, (well, hers anyway), the turquoise Caribbean lapping gently at our toes as we cooked on a fire of conch shells whilst the sun set deep and red against a pastel sky. Dusk fell, the wind dropped and out they came, by the million. Paradise lost.

I really don’t know what these mosquitos lived on before I arrived, but they certainly tried to make up for lost time. It was the closest thing to a plague I’ve ever experienced and the mosquito net was crawling with them all night long as we huddled together as far away from the angry buzzing walls as we could get. No bathroom trips that night. We’d have been eaten alive. Jack Sparrows’ only option would’ve been to spend the night submerged in the sea, breathing through a hollowed out conch shell and hoping the sharks wouldn’t notice. Forget Bach, Chardonnay and Frank Sinatra. My way on ‘Desert Island Discs’ would have been Cafe Del Mar, gin tonic and, last but not least, a mosquito net.