Banging away on the Algarve...

I spent most of last week on the Algarve in Portugal for a Sales Conference and the highlight of my trip there was the clay pidgeon shoot. I'd never even shot a gun before, let alone fired in anger at a piece of flying pottery - so I was hoping that the session would include some tuition and a few hints on how to hit the target.

Our 'instructor' - chain smoking and bare-footed - handed me a big shotgun (we were apparantly sharing the weapon between 20 of us).

'There you go - blast away', he said - according to my translator. So much for the training...

I shrugged my shoulders theatrically to indicate that I had no idea what I was doing. He just encouraged me by shoving me onto the shooting platform to the cheers of my fellow work colleagues.

I started banging away at the crockery, but after nine misses I was starting to wonder if he had loaded the gun with blanks - he looked far to comfortable giving me the gun in the first place.

'Too fart to head', explained my instructor, while puffing on yet another fag. Surely he can't be qualified, I thought to myself. 'No, no, no...too fart to head', he repeated. 'Oh, too far ahead', I replied.

With my eye in and a little expert advice I shattered the next four clays into dust. The crowd yelped and to a huge roar of approval I knocked over the 'rabbit' - a small clay that rolls across the ground at high speed with my last shot.