Peregrinations

The full English has never tasted so good

Anthony Peregrine

Italian events earlier this month confirmed that the liberal élite is taking a hammering – at the hands of comedians and oppressed billionaires leading the people from penthouse suites. The year ends with the silent majority making a hell of a racket. In 2017, it will thus be cool to be uncool. The effects will be diverse but, in the realm of holidays, might be surprisingly positive. Suddenly, there will be no need to apologise for foreign behaviour disdained by my liberal élite chums, of whom I have dozens.

They consider it frightfully naff, for instance, to take a dinky tourist train around towns, to eat a full English in Spain or ask for steak well done. In truth, I’ve never much cared what they think and with the course of history blowing my way, care even less. You (like me) want to take the Noddy train? Go right ahead. It’s the easiest way of gadding about anywhere’s greatest hits. You can sweat the obscure stuff later.

Meanwhile, the full English is, by a factor too high to compute, better than all breakfasts offered by the Spanish ( for God’s sake), or any other sovereign people. Holidays offer the time to appreciate it. Anyway, look around. Spaniards eat in London. Japanese seek sushi worldwide. We don’t scorn. So sing-ho for eggs, bacon and black pudding on the front at Cala d’Or, leaving the liberal élite to their mangoes, grains – and mozzarella (OK, I’ve switched nations), which, as Trump said, is the work of the devil. Or if he didn’t, he soon will. Then order your steak however you damned well want it, and leave the with the “bleu” blood dripping from their chins.

We may now cry out loud that there is a strict limit to our appreciation of Buddhist temples, Renaissance gardens and folk customs. We shall no longer be embarrassed to say that once you’ve seen one traditional Catalan dance, you’ve already lost the will to live, so a second is superfluous. And while television presenters and web entrepreneurs are cycling the Himalayas for charity, there’ll be no shame attached to our preference for crazy golf. Crazy golf courses, as my non-liberal élite friends know, have been the scenes of my greatest sporting triumphs. Occasionally we play for money. Invariably I win. The cash goes to charity, so the end result is exactly the same, and we’ve not annoyed a single Nepalese. The list goes on. We shall hire Segways, buy cuckoo clocks and wear sandals over socks. Most of all, we’ll ditch British self-loathing and admit that our fellow citizens abroad needn’t be shunned. They’re generally great, and they speak our language.