Captain Moonlight: Holiday in Scotland

YES, very nice holiday, thanks. Scotland, since you ask. Highlands. Wonderful scenery, pity about those damn midges. One salmon, fair amount of trout, out most nights, lochs and river. Grouse? Not me, I could have been abroad. It's been a tough summer over there, very tough indeed. Just dreadful what people have been putting up with, I can tell you. Barely a day has passed without another 'holiday from hell' story. Remember the family thrown out for sneezing after midnight? The family taunted by Germans because England had failed to qualify for the World Cup? Mostly Majorca. Terrible food, desperate accommodation, and, on one memorable occasion, an entertainer who did Bing Crosby impersonations only in German. And then last week, Tenerife, where the Mears family arrived at their hotel to find a headless man had been dumped in the foyer in a suitcase. 'His head had been left on the beach,' said Mr Mears. 'We began to suspect then that the hotel wasn't all it was cracked up to be.' The next day the man in the room below them leapt 50 feet to his death from the balcony.

It was in an attempt to spare you such scenes that the Captain launched his holiday competition before heading north. Hymning the praises of the British holiday, I asked you to summon up the beguilements of native destinations in the manner so notably achieved by Torquay with its slogan, 'See Naples and die, but see Torquay first'. Two clear winners. First, Colin Lees, of Cambridge, with this suggestion for his home town: 'Come to Cambridge, the Oxford of East Anglia.' Very good, Mr Lees, and unusually perceptive for a Cambridge man. Second, Mr B Maystone, of Crawley, for his reference to a colourful incident in Brighton's past which also fascinated Graham Greene: 'Bring Your Trunk To Brighton For A Peaceful Holiday'. Sorry, Mr Mears. Champagne for Mr Lees and Mr Maystone.