All at sea

Last weekend I returned from France on a cross-Channel ferry. The decks were crowded with young people jabbering away in French, German, Dutch, English. It occurred to me that whichever language they spoke these kids were very much alike in dress, conduct, outlook and lack of physical fitness, as though a European cultural union had almost been achieved already, and I was sorry about it.

A few days later I was back in Dover, this time to board a cruise ship. The passenger list is 90 per cent British and of these the vast majority were born before the war. On this boat no such surrender of the national identity has occurred. We are so thoroughly British, we are almost stupefied by it.

In the evenings I can choose to dine formally in the restaurant, jacket and tie required, or help myself from the buffet, jacket and tie optional but still required, and sit at the nearest table with an unoccupied place setting.