The tabloid coverage of the second kind of story (the woman arrested at the Eurovision Thong Contest, or whatever it was called) was mostly “why oh why” nonsense and a mediation on the loose morals of Brits abroad, etc., but it was made a bit more interesting by the overtone of anticipation of that good old tabloid staple, a “My Foreign Jail Hell” storyline, in the event (which didn’t materialise) of a hefty prison sentence.

This is news? As a Club 18-30 participant in the early 80’s, and therefore old enough now to pass jugement on ’the youth of today’, it would seem to me that these stories add nothing to the perceptions , and indeed facts of British tourism for the last 25 years. They do nothing that we didn’t (except for the excellent clubbing that did not exist then). I well remember vomiting in the streets of Mykonos from a surfeit of alcohol. It seems that this is no more than ’silly season’ journalism that is dragged out every year with updated pictures.

One of the more economically productive things about tourism these days is that people keep seeking ever more out of the way and “authentic” places, often going to the armpits of the world just to prove that they’re real tourists and not soft-asses. This brings money into very depressed areas, and that kind of tourist money is often basically free cash, since you don’t have to invest much in remaining obscure and out of the way.

Having chucked in the back alleys of a few European capitals myself in the 80’s, I second Mark. But, I was pretty irritated at the level of fast-food and fish-and-chips joins I saw in Prague a few months ago. I suspect that’s what motivates people to get away from the big centres to be considered “serious” tourists.

I agree it’s nothing really new, but I think I didn’t make that point well enough in the post. What I think is new is that there’s a much greater development of the tourist areas with much more specialisation of resorts - whereas 10-20 years ago there may have been certain hotels in resorts that were family-oriented etc, now whole resorts and areas are specialising in certain areas e.g. Faliraki for drunken 18-30, Ibiza and Ayia Napa for dance music, whereas the older resorts are catering more towards the family experience.

And there’ll always be people looking for the next ’unspoilt’ destination - there was a piece in The Observer’s travel section recently about Sri Lanka, whose basic tone was ’peace equals access to new beaches’…which makes me wonder how long before people are going on about Sierra Leone or Liberia as a great place to get away from it all.

It’s not just tourism, either… British home buyers are flooding into areas like the Limousin where real estate is still dirt-cheap compared to the UK. At a dinner near Limoges recently, a table full of local residents complained that house prices had gone up 30% in their area because of the influx of British buyers. And they’re not all just buying holiday homes, either; many are relocating for good, thus boosting the local economy and, of course, integrating both themselves and their new neighbors more tightly into Europe.

Nick Barlow conjects that holidaying with foreigners will somehow render the British susceptible to government by foreigners. I suppose that wishful thinking and faith in the beneficence of passing time are bound to give thusfar disappointed Euro-enthusiasts some hope. But it all relies on the false assumption that, as a nation, we cannot tell the difference between a cosy chat in the neighbour’s garden once each summer and knocking through the party walls to live together (and sharing bank accounts, too).

Similarly with the phenomenon of second home buying, the object is, literally, to buy into the holiday dream. It is escapism made concrete, not some kind of veiled plea for one’s home at home to be opened to the European public. I’d wager that any research done into the Europhilia of second home buyers abroad would reveal the usual 70% against.

However, anecodotal evidence -- not to mention the letters section of “France” magazine -- suggests that many Brits are in fact buying *first* homes in France, and thus abandoning the pound pre-emptively.

As Mick Jagger once said: ’I said I had a home in France, I didn’t say I liked the French’

Ditto Richard Perle.

“I actually have gone out of my way not to know or care about the Dutroux trial. Last I heard, it was planned for 2004, maybe.”

The exceedingly tardy progression in bringing Dutroux to trial is but one of many reasons Brits have become increasingly cautious about ever closer political integration in Europe when our starting point is this from Magna Carta of 1215:

“39. No freemen shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.” - quoted from text at: http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/magna-carta.html

Any readers who feel in need of some updating on what’s behind the protracted course of bringing Dutroux to justice might try this suitably sanitised account on the BBC website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/correspondent/1944428.stm

I’ve always been under the impression that the main reason for the incredible delay in the Dutroux trial is the fact that Belgium is decentralized to a ridiculously absurd degree. This is, after all, a relatively tiny country that is nonetheless split among three regions, three language communities, 11 provinces, and a couple hundred communes, each of which has its own hazily delimited areas of competency. These entities’ inability to communicate effectively with one another has, perversely, fostered a form of anarchy, of which the Dutroux fiasco is the most prominent example, but by no means the only one.

So, let this be a lesson to all you devolutionist libertarians: Be careful what you wish for.

Bob is responding to the next post “A reason to love Belgium”. Cross-talk is something of a hazard on blogs.