The building is somewhere on the Pembrokeshire coast, the only one in the world, and I have never managed to find it. It is the Church of St Elvis, commemorating the sixth-century Elvis (or Aelfyw) of Munster, famous only for baptising St David and for giving a name to several generations of Presleys.
I have always thought it would make an ideal site for staging my annual festival dedicated to the many pleasures which belong (with Elvis) in the category ‘brilliant but slightly naff’. Days could be spent jet-skiing or quad-biking. Food would have chips with everything, plus HP Sauce. The fun could continue late into the night, with revellers warmed by banks of patio heaters.
Americans get by without the word ‘naff’, and this may partly be because the concept is less useful to them. One of the gratifying things I noticed when I first visited the United States was that the middle-class English practice of demonstrating how posh or clever you are by affecting disdain for popular tastes doesn’t apply there in the same way.
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