The 10 most disappointing tourist sights..

..as enumerated by the fine people at Virgin Travel Insurance - who one might think would be in favour of people going on holiday, rather than pointing out what a colossal let-down it tends to be,

Anyway, by way of the Daily Telegraph, here they are:

• 1: The Eiffel Tower
• 2: The Louvre
• 3: Times Square
• 4: Las Ramblas, Barcelona
• 5: Statue of Liberty
• 6: Spanish Steps, Rome
• 7: The White House
• 8: The Pyramids
  
• 9: The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin
• 10: The Leaning Tower of Pisa

And, demonstrating that you don't have to go as far as all that to be disappointed, here are the 10 crummiest attractions in the UK:

• 1: Stonehenge
• 2: The Angel of the North
• 3: Blackpool Tower
• 4: Lands' End
• 5: The Princess Diana Memorial Fountain
• 6: The London Eye
• 7: Brighton Pier
• 8: Buckingham Palace
• 9: The White Cliffs of Dover
• 10: Big Ben.

Isn't it nice to be special?

According to this more or less completely made up survey the British are the worst holidaymakers on Earth.

If we're that bad at it, perhaps we should just stop.

If you're the kind of person that likes specious surveys this one's still going! And it's got a map & everything!

Some topical funnies from Beau Bo D'Or

Extremely droll, I thought.

Our German cousins inadvertently prove my point

Everywhere's abroad for someone.

Stung by the recent case of a British couple winning compensation from their tour operator because the hotel they were sent to was full of Germans (and decades of lazy gags from British end-of-the-pier comics) the mighty German nation has risen up to complain that Brits on holiday are a bit of a nuisance.

Bild reports this morning the shock news that many British holidaymakers cluster in the same kind of places that Germans favour, and that when on holiday Britons, like Germans, have a tendency to act like asses.

Which is why I keep telling people that holidays are not only bad for the environment and bad for your personal economy, they're bad for your mind. Even the best of us will be tempted to put on a straw hat and act like a cock after their bloodstreams have been compromised by the judicious admixture of an excess of San Miguel.

Airport Security: Fuckwits in disguise

Airline operators seem almost determined to erode their customer base by ever-more inventive means.

This week they're banning an IT guy from flying because he had a Transformers t-shirt on. Dude! He's an IT guy! What do you expect him to wear?

Apparently the shirt has an image of a gun on it, although it's a pretty sketchy sort of design and it's by no means obvious that it depicts a gun, or even a Transformer. It's not entirely clear at first reading how even the most accurate drawing of a tooled-up sci-fi robot might contribute to a terrorist outrage.

But that's why I'm not an airline security expert.

Only when the nerds and the hair-shampooers are removed from all aircraft will tourists be safe to pollute the atmosphere as God intended.

Maybe it's just the name that's the problem

A couple from Cleveland went on a couple of cruises a year, all with the same line.

They didn't enjoy one of them, it seems.

One would be tempted to inquire why they kept going back for more of the same.

Until, of course you think about what their names were.Brenda and Gerald Moran. Perhaps we're just a worldwide family that doesn't like holidays.

Warning: May contain Germans

One the one hand the story of a couple who sued their tour operator because the hotel they were sent to had too many Germans in it is a terrible indictment of our excessively litigious culture.

On the other hand, it's bloody hilarious.