What unites people in this country more than the English language is the never slaked thirst to leave and go somewhere else. Usually abroad. Make that always abroad. I'm no different. I've long day-dreamed about a rive gauche atelier or NYC wooden floored apartment. Even about renovating a ruin in the French countryside, except I'm no great shakes as a builder (no shakes, really).

What I do not want under any circumstance is to be marooned in some Roast Beef ghetto in the South of Spain. Where the Spanish have been run out of town by my aggressive, obese, boorish kinsmen. Where high culture means being surounded by a mouldering pile of week old tabloid papers, drinking a pint in a bar called The Horse and Crown, a widescreen TV on in the background replaying premier league game on Sky Sports, with a big plate of bacon and eggs waiting for me on the counter.

No, not at all. My inner snob would n't allow it.