Rod Liddle reflects on a recent poll which says that Russians are the world’s worst holidaymakers. Brits are just as bad, he says, leaving a trail of blood and vomit from Biarritz to Dolman
Who are the worst people in the world, do you suppose, based upon your first-person contact with them? I always assumed it would be nigh on impossible to get any worse than a Somali — until, that is, I met a Saudi: woah, as they say. I ask the question because there was an opinion poll in the newspapers last week suggesting that Russians were the worst people in the world, or at least the worst people you meet while on holiday. They have evicted the Germans from the coveted number one position on account of their chav clothes, greed and appalling manners, it was reported. I must admit this surprised me as I have always liked Russians and found them easy to get on with, especially when they are drunk. Chronically bitter and pissed people make me feel ever so slightly better about myself, and that accounts for almost all Slavs, except the Romanians (who in any case prefer to pretend that they are not Slavs, but Latins. Yeah, right, Ion — of course you are).
But back to that opinion poll. I have always rather liked Germans, too, although not in a Taki-Wehrmacht kind of way. But then I have never been on holiday anywhere where you might be expected to claim a sun-lounger beside the pool, or wait in line at an all-you-can-eat buffet, which is where we are told the Russians and Germans disgrace themselves. There is an obvious class element to this poll, then; the Germans whom these British holidaymakers meet abroad are from a slightly lower class of society than the Brits themselves (if that is conceivable).
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