No return. Fair

'Good afternoon. A small beer please."

"Of course. But wouldn't you prefer a pint?"

"Er, no, no, I really wouldn't. How much do I owe you?"

"Three euros."

"Three euros for a small beer?"

"Yes."

"Ok, there you are. Oh, could I have a till receipt, please?.....Mmmm, thank you... Ah, I see that the beer was actually only two fifty in the end."

"Yes, that's right."

It had been a while since I'd had a stroll round Malaga city centre and was excited to see what was going down in the 'hood', although it must be said my enthusiasm was somewhat dampened by this first interaction. That's the thing about looking like a pasty-faced tourist, you tend to get treated like a pasty-faced tourist. Maybe in my next life I'll reappear as a swarthy, olive-skinned Mediterranean chap who gets charged the correct amount at the first time of asking and, as a bonus, can perform that sunflower seed trick elegantly with his teeth rather than splutter and choke on the pesky things as is my current modus operandi.

Everything inevitably and necessarily changes of course and that's a crucial part of life's rich tapestry but, boy, has Malaga changed at a rapid rate of knots. In the olden days the above exchange would have been a bit more like this:

"Good afternoon. A small beer please."

"Certainly. And, here, have a massive plate of olives to go with it."

"Lovely, I appreciate it. Oh, and thank the Lord they're not sunflower seeds."

"Hahaha. Quite."

"Slurp, slurp, slurpity slurp. Marvellous. How much is that, please?"

"One hundred pesetas, please. Here, have another beer on the house and another humungous plate of olives."

"But, but...."

"Well, we want you to come back, don't we? More olives?"

I am, of course, looking at the past through olive-tinted spectacles, but there's undoubtedly a strong element of truth in the example. The thing is, to be fair to the current crop of bar and restaurant owners in Malaga, such heart-warming generosity is quite impossible these days owing to eye-watering rental payments and the costs of the ever-more-stringent latest regulations. It's all most owners can do to limp gamely to the end if the month, bracing themselves for a tsunami of bills and payments to hit their bank account on the final day before rolling up their sleeves and starting the whole process over again.

So, it's clearly no use pining for sepia-tinted images of bygone times - that's a fool's game.

Mind you, so is paying three euros for a small beer.

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