Sorry Dave I cannot allow you to change temperature

On that, hey, another anecdote. I’m on a roll.

We went to France one time. We were in the arse end of **** all and Booking Dot Com had spectacularly failed to actually book our hotel. After a degree of shenanigans we got booked in, my partner went “sod this, I’m going to bed” and I went “sod this, I’m going to the pub.”

I get there, buy a drink, and hey there’s a dartboard. I’ll have a few arrows quietly to myself.

Presently, I get accosted by three French lads. It sounds a cliché I know but, one spoke fluent English, one broken English and the third about three words. They asked if they could join in on a game. Sure, why not.

The evening progressed, fun was had, the fluent speaker acted as translator and I got to brush up on my GCSE French.

At the end of the night, the lad who didn’t speak English suddenly rattled off some high-speed French at me, far too fast for me to catch. His mate explained, he’d said that he’d always hated the English, and I’d changed his mind that night.

Alternatively if you’re a grown up, avoid those relatively few places like the plague. It’s not hard. Then discover that in most of the rest of the world, where ordinary Brits, not gangs of lagered up youths go, we are as welcome as travellers from any other nation.

Oh, sure, I agree with all of that. My point was simply that it exists. I went to Krakow one time on a stag do, it was a work colleague and half of the group was his mates from football and they were animals. I was mortified. Beautiful country, beautiful people – both in personality and physically, I’ve never seen as many fit women in my life, I came home with whiplash – and I was out with a gang of knuckle-draggers for whom a tactical chunder in the street was a normal thing.

There are places which love us too, go anywhere in the US that isn’t a tourist trap and you’re treated like visiting royalty.