Last Thursday to Monday I was supposed to be in Spain with my gaming guild. Thursday morning I got to the local airport and left the snow behind. We flew to Malaga, were picked up by Fernando who we were told spoke three languages so there would be no problem (unfortunately the three languages were French, Spanish and Portugese) and driven to the main villa we’d be using. I was staying in the second villa, about 5 minutes away walking and some were staying in the hotel somewhat further away. There followed a weekend of friends, alcohol, food, stupid conversations and Munchkin. It was a great weekend but I’m not altogether sure it was what we thought it was.

The channel 4 show Space Cadets was a reality TV show whereby members of the public were trained as astronauts and fooled into thinking they were sent into space. I think the same thing happened to us, except we were made to believe we went to Spain instead.

We thought the plane flew across England, over the English Channel, over France and onto Spain; actually the plane flew over England, flew over the English Channel but turned around, flying back over England again. A special place on the coast was converted to a Spanish looking town and actors were hired to help convince us. It was the little details they forgot about that convinced me we were still in England. The main one being the fact that for a huge part of the weekend it was raining - we were in Blackpool not Malaga! The water wasn’t the Mediterranean but the Irish Sea! The second little detail was that they forgot to change all of the number plates, some were still showing English plates.

Where ever we were, it was great but we should all be reminded that things aren’t always what they seem - you have to keep your senses!