Community: Real Life

Costa del hell


David Evans

David, 23, works in admin for the NHS. During his student years he went travelling and met some genuinely lovely Brits along the way. He likes cycling, outdoor activities and co-fronts a band.

David is embarrassed by the behaviour of brazen Brits abroad.

We were standing in a Vietnamese family's house trying to buy some cheap souvenirs, when it suddenly dawned on us we were being offensive. We were being Brits on holiday. We were standing there, in shorts and sunglasses, gesturing at the poor woman and speaking slower and louder. Horrifying.

I'm someone who tries desperately not to be a typical Brit abroad. Why? Well, isn't it obvious how embarrassing we are? We treat everywhere we go as home, with our feet on the table and flabby white skin hanging loose.

What, in God's name, makes us lose our inhibitions and tarnish the name of our fellow countrymen (and women) by sauntering around the Costa Del Sol in tracksuit bottoms like we own the place? For Christ's sake, put a top on tourist boy. You look like a semi-evolved land-walking Moby Dick you're so pasty.

It starts at the airport. This whole debacle begins on home turf. It's not some sort of sun-influenced madness. The minute a Brit decides to go on their jollies they seem to reach into their inner-selves and become the antithesis of subtlety and patience. Naïve creatures with a haul of luggage ("Just in case, dear!") cramming themselves onto a plane with tickets they got for a 'steal' on Teletext. Throwing the shackles off, they become blunder-prone embarrassments to their nation, eager to wreak havoc abroad.

We board our planes and are offered booze. Over-priced booze, but we buy it, drink it and get rowdy. The shackles of the 9-to-5 are off! The Brits are free on the continent to enjoy... wait, why are we going to Budapest again? Oh yeah, they've got cheap alcohol.

"The minute a Brit decides to go on their jollies they seem to reach into their inner-selves and become the antithesis of subtlety and patience."

Drinking 35 Pilsners, passing out in the streets of Budapest and then waking up in a police holding cell does not constitute a holiday in my opinion.

So why not just stay at home? There's cheap beer at Wetherspoons. There's cheap beer down your local. Because the beer fuels the ignorance. "Oi mate, we used to own this country!" was a response I once heard as a barman turfed out a rowdy tourist one evening in Thailand. Well, no we didn't. Furthermore these assertions about empire are at least, ooh, a century old 'mate.' We've pretty much had our tails tucked between our legs since, and thankfully so. If we still had an empire the locals would have to put up with you 24/7 rather than two weeks out of a year in the summer.

I wonder if we are baulking against the stereotype of the stiff upper-lipped Englishman and his prim-and-proper wife. I pray that there is some sort of post-modern irony in the brazen, wanton attitudes of our youth holidaying in the Med,drinking to excess and getting up to no good.

Please, keep us at home. I hear the Lake District is nice.

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Updated: 02/07/2009


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