Virginia Blackburn

OH dear lord, just look at the pictures. Actually, on second thoughts, don’t. There they are, a group of British holidaymakers, stripping off and disporting themselves in front of horrified onlookers in a fountain in Rome called Altare della Patria. Worse still, that translates as Altar of the Fatherland as the fountain is a memorial to all fallen soldiers. Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita it ain’t. Why do they behave like that, these people? Specifically what is it about the British abroad? We’ve all been there, cringing in an airport in some foreign clime when a group of drunken stags or hens stagger by dressed in something horrible and singing tunelessly and at volume. Or creeping into our resort hotel hoping other holidaymakers won’t realise we’re compatriots of the group of people who have been drinking all day in strong sunlight and are now trying to punch each other’s lights out in between throwing up in the lobby. What is it all about?

It’s useless to say we didn’t used to be like that. Brits have always been violent and rowdy with the exception of a few decades in the 20th century when we managed to cultivate a reputation for good manners and bowler hats.

Nor are the scenes abroad entirely unheard of in our own inner cities when the sun goes down. But there is something about going to another country, you as guest to their host, and behaving in such a vile way that makes the majority of us, who would not strip off and splash around in war memorials, just want to curl up with shame.

And if you do want to behave like that why on earth go to Rome, the Eternal City, one of the most cultured places in the world?

There are plenty of I USED to go to a restaurant called Asia de Cuba, in which the cuisine was a combination of Cuban and Japanese. In the wake of the row involving Jamie’s jerk rice, just who was misappropriating who? horrible