ROBERT MCNEIL
Xenophobic? I don’t even know where Xenophobia is
THE world is a better place without me. Fear not, I am not recounting the advice frequently given to me by the Samaritans in their weekly call. I am merely remarking that I never go abroad, thus sparing the place calamity and a plunge in morale.
In this, as with so many other things, I am out of step with the great unwashed. Or my friends as I sometimes call them.
Everybody is either getting ready to go abroad or just coming back from the same infernal arena. It is my belief that we should have a Trump-style moratorium on people leaving the country on holiday until we find out exactly what this is about.
Even my last yoga class, far from being a haven of contented peace, was full of restless souls saying they were going to France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan. I said nothing, remaining enigmatic, which is a posh word for boring.
I witter thus in the wake of exciting news that, last year, UK households spent an average of £6,500 on foreign travel.
Nearly seven grand a year on foreign travel. What are you having? Correct: a laugh. And for what? To waddle about on a different corner of the same awful planet, just somewhere with better weather, tasty food and an absence of citizens in grey tracksuit bottoms.
All of my friends are either coming or going. It’s the same with work. Every time you try to get hold of somebody, you get an automated email saying: “I shall be on holiday for the next two weeks. If your message is urgent, I don’t care.”
To paraphrase top corporate klutz CJ from The Rise and Fall of Reggie Perrin: “I didn’t get where I am today by sending out automated emails saying I am not where I am today.”
I gripe. Though I sometimes have a change of scene, I’ve never had a week free of work since 2009 (Reader’s voice: “Oh, please, give us a break.”).
Even if I did, I’d be too fearful to venture abroad. I find the louche walking styles disturbing and the food more often than not a bowl of wheat ribbons with fancy ketchup on top. Thirty euros to you, sir.
The only country I felt anything for was Norway, though I found the people ill-mannered and didn’t like how they kept
‘‘ It’s not xenophobia. It’s really Rabophobia. I am afraid of myself. I have encountered xenophobes and they are always going abroad and sometimes even live there. The world is a complex place
their farm animals locked up. Our bus actually cheered when we saw some sheep. I didn’t like the Czech Republic: sinister. I quite liked rural France, except for one thuggish man who accused us of being English.
Holland was like Norway, a place with a hive-mind and everybody singing the Birdie Song in unison (no kidding, I witnessed this). I hated New York (rude and unpleasant), didn’t like Washington (ditto) and found Virginia Beach dispiriting.
And that’s it: never been to Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Greece, Turkey, and how long have you got? I’d rather go to Mars, assuming it has a Greggs.
You say: “Travel broadens the mind.” Oh, do give it a rest. Nobody I know returns from abroad any different, other than having boiled faces and a vague resentment against Scotia Minor with its dull weather, crazy litter and bovine neds.
I used to take a lot of holidays in England but am too frightened to go there now.
A voice barges into my mind: “Speak candidly, Rab. Are you perchance xenophobic?”
Hell, no. I don’t even known where Xenophobia is. And, even if I did, I wouldn’t go there.
No, it isn’t that. It’s really Rabophobia. I am afraid of myself. I have encountered xenophobes and they are always going abroad and sometimes even live there. The world is a complex place.
As the recent Europeantomime proved, you can’t just categorise people as this or that. Everybody is different (lone voice from The Life of Brian: “I’m not!”).
If I had six grand a year, I’d do what my heroes do: pull up a stool and sit staring at a gantry while travelling to places and times in my head.
I’d be a cowboy on the plains. I’d be a sailor on the high seas, in a wee green boat with a yellow flag (see, I have thought this out).
The Beatles sang: “The further one travels the less one knows.” On analysis, this turns out to be correct, as was their further adaptation of mystical eastern hogwash: without going out of my door, I can get a package deal to heaven.