NOW I don’t know about you, but when it comes to funding my holiday, I tend to put a little aside in the months before to help cushion the blow.
What I don’t typically do is stuff my suitcase full of £1.2million of cannabis and then attempt to smuggle it into Sri Lanka.
Charlotte has been accused of trying to smuggle £1.2million worth of drugs into Sri Lanka
@bellamay.xx / tiktokBella posted videos of her smoking in the back of cars[/caption]
But that is what former Tui air stewardess Charlotte May Lee, 21, is accused of doing when she was stopped at Colombo airport last week.
The previous day, another young Brit, Bella Culley, 18, was nabbed at Tbilisi airport in Georgia, having allegedly flown in from Bangkok with 14kg of marijuana.
So two girls in two days, caught, locked up and now starring in their own personal reboot of Midnight Express.
Meanwhile, their frantic parents, beside themselves with worry, try every trick in the book to get them out.
What a mess.
Now there is a suggestion that the two — who both flew out of the same Thai airport — are linked.
Investigators wonder if nasty smugglers “preyed” on these women as part of some sort of international drug ring targeting backpackers.
Because of course there is no way on Earth that these two plucky lasses — no doubt keen to fund a never-ending holiday with the easiest cash available — could have just decided to smuggle drugs on their own.
A bit of “easy money” to avoid having to do the unthinkable and — OMG! — get an actual job. No, these Gen Z globetrotters must be “victims”. It wasn’t their fault. They’re just “vulnerable women”.
Hmmm.
Bella Culley certainly did not appear to be a victim of anything — other than perhaps social media. Indeed, her boastful posts on TikTok and Facebook prior to her arrest revealed a young woman high on life.
And possibly more — in one snap she has what appears to be a spliff hanging out of her mouth.
In another, she flaunts wads of cash, captioning it with bags of money emojis (Where did she get all that from?)
Sri Lanka PoliceCharlotte has claimed the drugs found in her case were ‘planted’ on her[/caption]
@bellamay.xx/TikTokBella showed off huge wads of cash in social media videos before her arrest[/caption]
She also revealed she is not necessarily someone who follows the letter of the law too well, writing: “How about we get up to criminal activities side by side like Bonnie ’n’ Clyde making heavy figures and f***ing on balconies all over the world.”
Meanwhile, May Lee, who recently worked on a “booze cruise” in Thailand and is also no stranger to showing off on social media, insists she had “no idea” the drugs were “planted” in her bags.
If convicted, this unlucky pair’s sentences will be long and miserable. I don’t blame anyone for trying to get them out. Any parent would want the same.
A rat-and-maggot-infested foreign prison is no place for a young Western woman, especially one like Culley, who claims to be pregnant.
But spare me the victim nonsense.
Both these adults, if guilty, should have known what they were doing was highly risky. Backpackers — even those as young as 18 — know exactly how the world works. I was one myself once.
Hardly a month goes by without some well-publicised horror story of a British national getting caught with drugs.
And incidents are on the rise.
Recent stats from Prisoners Abroad, which helps Brits who have been nicked overseas, reveal a huge increase in drug arrests — up 57 per cent, with 243 new cases between April 2024 and March this year, compared to 155 in the previous year.
Brits Michaella McCollum and Melissa Reid — aka the Peru Two — who were banged up in Peru in 2013 for smuggling cocaine, garnered such notoriety that two kids dressed up as them for the village fete.
It is easy to blame social media for all the world’s ills, but for Charlotte May Lee and Bella Culley, it might have played a part.
The urge to live a luxury, carefree life and show it off to followers can be a powerful motive to do the most stupid, high-risk things imaginable.
Social media is a powerful drug with which one must exercise extreme caution.
And yes, as another two terrified women are now finding out, it is not the only one that could ruin your life.
ITV IS cutting the number of presenters on Loose Women to save cash.
Presumably it will also now be rebranded . . . Less Women.
A LONG SPELL TO WAIT
WHEN I was a kid, my family visited Orlando to take in the theme parks and it was such a memorable experience for us all.
I will never forget the look of thunder on my old man’s face as we queued in the blistering Floridian sun for over two hours for a seat on Disney World’s Space Mountain ride.
But that wait was nothing compared with what punters at the new Wizarding World Of Harry Potter have had to endure as it opened in Orlando this week.
Fans hoping for a thrill on the Harry Potter And The Battle At The Ministry ride were greeted with a sign that informed them they would have to queue for 300 minutes.
Yep, that’s FIVE HOURS, firmly putting the MUG in Muggles.
Quit moaning at Eurovision – the show is so bad, it’s fun
MORE carping about how Eurovision has become some sort of politically driven brickbat to give the likes of Brexit Britain a battering.
Maybe it is. But so what?
GettyOur entrant this year was named Remember Monday for a reason[/caption]
The actual results mean diddly squat to most of us – we haven’t tasted victory for 28 years.
Our entrant this year was named Remember Monday for a reason.
That reason being a plea: “Please remember us on Monday.”
Good luck with that, girls.
No, the Eurovision Song Contest is less about the contest and more about floating off to some cacophonic country where the LGBT rainbow is the national flag and anyone caught taking things seriously has their bottom smacked by Graham Norton.
As the late great Eurovision host Terry Wogan put it: “It’s supposed to be bad.
“And the worse it is, the more fun it is.”
BRUCE BOOSTS TRUMP
TRADEMARK tantrum from Donald Trump as he orders a probe into whether leftie luvvies like Bruce Springsteen gave “illegal” support for Kamala Harris’s election campaign.
But while the Don works himself up into a tizzy he might want to remember that it was people like Bruce, below, – who tore into him last week – that actually got him elected.
All the right-on celebrities who sided with Joe Biden and then Harris, paved the way for Trump Round 2 by failing to call out how daft the Democrats’ campaigning was.
Where were the speeches and songs blasting Kamala for offering nothing meaningful to the American people?
Born To Run? More like Dancing In The Dark.
GARY’S EXIT A SHAME
THERE was a crushing inevitability to Gary Lineker’s red card from the BBC.
Gung-ho Gary just cannot seem to function without a regular dopamine hit from social media (yep that old drug pusher again).
GettyWhatever you think of his leftie posturing, you have to admit Lineker was a bloody good World Cup host[/caption]
And with his fateful Instagram repost about Zionist “rats” he did what many hopeless addicts do – he plunged in the needle before checking the safety of the product.
It was idiotic, offensive and embarrassing, and quite rightly he has apologised and is no doubt kicking himself for this unforced error.
So here we are, facing a World Cup without Lineker as the man to unite the nation.
And I’m a little misty-eyed about that.
Because whatever you think of his leftie posturing, you have to admit he was a bloody good World Cup host.
This former England number 10 knew exactly what our lads were going through on those foreign pitches.
A Mexico ’86 golden boot winner and an Italia ’90 semi-finalist (and brown shorts victim), the boy from Leicester had the emotional experience as well as the actual experience.
No offence to the perfectly capable Gabby Logan, Kelly Cates and Chappers but they haven’t been there.
So I’ll raise a glass to Lineker this weekend as, knowing my luck, he discusses Man United’s battering by Aston Villa on his final Match Of The Day.
And maybe I’ll send him a nice tweet too.
Keep those levels topped up.
BICEP BEN
JUST as David Beckham’s 50th celebrations come to an end, along comes another showbiz himbo celebrating half a century by showing off his six-pack.
This week, it was Ben Shephard and his He-Man torso gracing the cover of the most judgmental magazine in the petrol station, Men’s Health.
Putting the hard into Shephard, Bicep Ben can be seen in a number of Adonis-like poses.
A reminder, if one was needed, that if you switch having fun for a life of protein shakes and punishing gym workouts, you too can look just like him.
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