Dear Pauline ......

I had never been to a bullfight until I went on holiday to Mexico one summer with my wife. She really wanted to see the running of the bulls in Spain, but I convinced her that a bullfight in Ensenada would be just as much fun. Besides, we could stay at any hotel in town for £5 and eat tacos for every meal. My wife loves tacos and once ate 32 of them for breakfast. Sure, she’s a large girl, but 32 tacos for breakfast is quite a feat. She was concerned that we would need short term car insurance during our trip, but I explained to her that you only need short term car insurance if you're going to be driving a car. Since we were flying to Mexico and taking taxis wherever we went, short term car insurance would not be necessary. However, she bought a policy anyway, just in case. It covered us for EU countries and I'm pretty sure that includes Mexico.

When we arrived at our hotel, I was pleased to see there were dozens of cockroaches all around the room. We both love to play with cockroaches, so I thought it was a nice touch by the hotel staff. Back home, my wife is somewhat of a hero in the cockroach-breeding community. She has crossed many different species of roaches, creating some beautiful specimens that people just love to see. Her best cockroach experiment resulted in a roach with 100 legs. She had crossed a centipede with a cockroach and had wondrous results.

The next morning I woke up excited. We were going to our very first bullfight and we were both thrilled. We put on the ponchos and sombreros we bought the night before from a gentleman on the street. They cost 8 million pesos (£3) and fit like a glove. We looked like real locals as we entered the bullfighting arena and everyone seemed to be impressed by our colourful attire. Somehow, the people mistook me for someone else, as they kept yelling out “Gringo!” as we walked to our seats. I just waved and tipped my sombrero to them.

Our seats were located on the first row overlooking the magnificent grounds. There were a lot of flies in the air and the weather was a little hot to be wearing our heavy ponchos. My wife likes to sweat though, so we just bought a couple of beers and waited for the fight to begin. I could see the bull waiting outside the ring. He was a menacing beast with thick, broad shoulders and a ring through his nose.

Soon, they let the bull into the arena and the crowd went wild! Unfortunately, the bull charged right at my wife and me wearing our bright red sombreros. At the last second, my wife pulled out a copy of our short term car insurance details and waved it at the bull. Apparently the bull had never seen such low rates and had a heart attack on the spot and died. This was just as well since when I read the policy I realised that since we were not in a car at the time, we would not have been covered against attack by bulls.