Welcome to a Brit's place in the sun

It's nothing unusual, in the sense that untold numbers of British boys sported the very same coiffure on a thousand beaches during last year's excuse of a summer. I think it was called stepped, or curtain style. Or was it pelmet? No, the name was tablecloth, er, tabletop.

Oh, forget it. The last time I asked for a particular hairstyle the request was for a Boston or some such exotic type of cranial topiary. So it just goes to show what I know about hair fashion.

Anyway, whatever it was called, his version looks like a large black rat has crawled on top of his head and died. Arthur Scargill's shredded wheat was never like this.

Youth at its most ludicrous, believing itself to be beauty personified. No wonder women eventually tire of men - for there is no greater passion-killer than the other person laughing like a drain at the very mention of your appearance.

Did you enjoy your holiday this year? We certainly did. Our family suffered a rain-sodden week in oil-soaked Brittany followed by the other extreme - a week on the Greek island of Cefallonia.

My, doesn't time fly. It will soon be time to book air space in next year's migration of Brits as they fly from their native shores in the great journey to the beer and chips breeding grounds of other climes.

You can learn a lot from people-watching. One of the reasons why I oppose further British integration with Europe is that as much as I love my own race, I know we must be kept away from other European cultures for their sakes.

Who really would want to share a beach with the rude, untamed English? No, far better a selection procedure at ports and airports where only intelligent people who have undergone behavioural courses are allowed to leave these shores.

You see, I was a multi-culturalist long before the race relations corporation was a multi-million pounds concern employing thousands. Yes, trust dear old Phillpott to blaze the trail.

Where was I? Oh yes, on the beach at Skala, the main town on this delightful island of Cefallonia. The boy with the dead rat on his head is engaging in the ritualistic preliminaries to immersing his golden body in the waters of the Ionian Sea.

He's strutting across the pebbles like a rooster on a dung heap, eyes alert to any ladies who might be blowing low whistles at the sight of his shimmering pecs.

There are indeed a number of bronzed beauties from Brindisi, gathered at the shoreline, but they have not - apparently - noticed young Romeo. They are too busy loving themselves and cannot be bothered with our rodent-capped popinjay parading on the tideline.

These girls spend what seems like an age rubbing themselves with oil as they sit and fidget in the broiling afternoon sun. I suppose I would, too, if I had a thong terrorising my gluteus maximus.

Despite having bodies with a finish that would put a Queen Anne table in the shade and muscles like gulls' eggs, there is one vital and baffling contradiction. They all smoke their heads off. Have the European commissioners abolished lung cancer by special decree? And if so, why was I not told? I've half a mind to start again, for it's obviously a harmless habit and pleasurable beyond belief.

The Greeks love the Brits. This is why I'm as polite as possible - it's probably what I perceive as trying to make up for our fellow countrymen elsewhere on the Continent. And I was trying to figure out why they like us so much.

Ah yes. They're the only people in the world against whom we have never declared war or who have started hostilities against us. To enjoy the confidence of a nation which genuinely likes us - now that kind of integration must indeed be worthwhile and likely to succeed.

It's 108 degrees fahrenheit today. There are two obsessions uppermost in the mind of every Brit here at the Captain's House Hotel - staking out territory on the beach and keeping a perpetual, merciless thirst at bay.

Just as the Italians always begin the pampering as soon as the first towel has hit the shingle, then the British start to dig in. What starts as a foxhole develops into an entire trench system complete with listening posts. And if we could hire the barbed wire and machine guns from old Stavros in the wooden shack over the way, then yes, we would.

It's all the fault of the Germans. But you can't blame them for the Brits' lack of sense. And, of course, I'm on safe ground now, for everyone's allowed to be beastly about us. It's written into the constitution - don't say anything about anyone unless they're English. Then it doesn't matter.

And in any event, the ever-innovative English are the people who cut out the middle man - we do very well at hating ourselves, so there's no need to sub-contract.

By jove, there are some crimson backs out there on the para-gliding pontoon. There's a knot of Brits just over the way, scattered and sprawled like that tray of seafood the waiter dropped on the floor last night. They'll be suffering come nightfall. No amount of after-sun will douse the flames of hell about to be endured by this gang of lobster louts.

Anyway, we're off on a coach tomorrow and this will present another unique experience for the island-hopper - the Greek driver's affection for his vehicle.

Cue Dollars western. Love me, love my coach. Don't swear at my coach... my coach doesn't like it. In fact my coach takes it very personally when he's shouted at. Now if you should decide to apologise to my coach, then I'm sure he'll be happy to accept your apology and drive on down the road as if nothing had happened...

You should have seen the row we witnessed after returning from an evening spent at a nearby fishing village. Some bollards marking out a pedestrianised area annoyed the driver - no, it was the coach which was upset, actually - and the driver leapt to the defence of his own true love.

I don't know what the Greek is for "if you don't move those flipping bollards they'll be rammed where the sun doesn't shine" but from where we were standing that seemed to be the general flavour of the exchange.

A huge crowd gathered and the driver's soprano warble of protest had now modulated three octaves into a feverish falsetto. Hidden behind a pizza parlour, I could make out every strangled syllable, even if I couldn't understand a blind word he said. Happily, the altercation is over as quickly as it began.

There are a lot of Yorkshire voices on this beach. It's so good to hear British regional accents these days. Nearly all the young people with whom I come into contact these days suffer from the glottal consonant, its practitioners having all gained a GCSE in EastEnders studies. If this programme ever became the subject of a university course we would have as nation of geniuses overnight.

Which brings me to where I came in. The lad with the dead rat on his head has emerged Adonis-like, dripping from the azure-blue depths of this small corner of Ionian shangri-la. As for me, well, I'm sipping a litre of ice-cold beer, staring into space and thinking of next year's holidays. In the meantime... vive la difference.

Next week: Avast and belay! All aboard with Black Cap'n Quint, for we be bound for Leisure Island on the noon tide.