Tense about language, easier about life

Ah, Valencia. Charming city. Full of surprises – the convent that has become a bar and restaurant where you can eat Asian street food and drink a glass of wine under the stars and the palm trees, for instance, or the park that’s kept so clean that it can be hard to find a stick to throw for the dogs.

Valencia gets Spring going

It’s not all magic, of course. There are downsides. One is that Spain works at a higher volume than Britain. People don’t simply meet and have a discreet chat in subdued tones. They seem to feel that they haven’t fully demonstrated their joy at being with friends unless they talk loudly enough to be heard three blocks away. That can be a little tedious in the street during the day, but at 2:00 in the morning in the flat next door to ours, it can be a real bane.

But the benefits vastly outweigh these minor inconveniences. If nothing else, it was sheer joy to be enjoying Spring there, a point driven home to me here in Boston (Massachusetts, not Lincolnshire), where I’m looking out on a cold winter’s day under grey, rain-laden skies.

Danielle and I both feel that, to fit into our new life, we need to master the language. As it happens, I already speak a little Spanish, so my new tutor’s first action was to assess my level (far from high). She came up with some curious conclusions.

One was that I sometimes drift into an Italian accent. Not altogether surprising, since I was born in Italy. But, to be honest, I have no idea what an Italian accent sounds like in Spanish. To my tin ear, both accents sound Mediterranean. Which is perhaps a measure of just how much I have to learn.

What’s more, it’s a little exasperating. To sound Italian when I speak Spanish might be more acceptable if I didn’t sound so English when I spoke Italian. Why can’t I have an Italian accent in Italian?

But my tutor’s major concern was over my mastery – or rather lack of mastery – of the past tenses. I keep using the wrong one, she tells me, in rather a random way. It’s not as though I always use the imperfect when the simple past would be more appropriate, say, which would be a far more comprehensible error, and far more easily corrected.

The truth is that I can never remember how the verbs work in the past, so I just use whichever form comes to mind first. I make an approximate stab at the tense, in the hope that the person I’m talking to will translate it to what I actually mean, understand me, and make allowances. 

For an Englishman who sometimes sounds Italian.

Since my command of the future tense in Spanish isn’t a great deal better, that leaves me comfortable only with the present.

This is ironic since a character flaw of mine is always trying to get ahead of events, planning what I’m going to do and what steps I have to take to make it happen. This sort of hankering for the future is what the French call fuite en avant and the Germans Flucht nach vorn, both of which mean a flight – in the sense of escape – forwards. It’s odd that there’s no real term for it in English, since Anglo-Saxon nations are no more immune to this sad disorder than anyone else.

Equally, I have a tendency to live too much in the past, for instance spending too much time concerned with a period, within my own lifetime, when the Brits were rather more open to others and generous in their tolerance than they’re proving right now. So forwards or backwards I go, to the serious detriment of the here and now.

The Rubáiyát of Ommar Khayyám
Lots of good advice, not always easy to follow

“Unborn tomorrow and dead yesterday, why fret about them if today be sweet?” asks Edward Fitzgerald’s version of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Excellent advice, but I’m not good at following it.

Except, it seems, in Spanish. Apparently that’s a language in which I truly live for the moment. Poor mastery of the future, none at all of the past.

It’s almost enough to make me wonder whether I really should pursue my studies of the language. If my current limited skill allows me to tackle a deeprooted character flaw, is that perhaps a price worth paying? Maybe I should just learn to live with being a foreigner who sounds English and occasionally Italian, and can’t account coherently for what he was doing yesterday. And stop constantly planning for a future that may never happen, or regretting a past that’s gone for good anyway.

Curious what language learning can tell you about yourself.

Nations divided against themselves

Have you read Robert Harris’s novel An Officer and a Spy?

Great book. From an idea suggested by Harris’s friend Roman Polanski, who’s about to release the film, to be called J’accuse, with a screenplay also written by Harris.

Imagine a young man, married with two children under three, from a wealthy background and pursuing a military career full of promise, thanks to his intelligence and devotion to duty. This is Captain Alfred Dreyfus of the French Army.

J'accuse:
the novelist Emile Zola's ringing denunciation of the Dreyfus scandal
Now the title of Polanski's film from Harris’s novel

Without warning, he’s arrested for treason. The accusation is that he sold his country’s military secrets to its sworn enemy, Germany. The major piece of evidence against him is a handwritten note reconstituted from a waste paper stolen from the German embassy by a cleaner who is also a French agent. One handwriting expert says it wasn’t written by Dreyfus, another that it was. This is enough to condemn him in light of the most damning testimony of all: the captain is a Jew.

This is the story that Harris tells. He’s written a novel but sticks closely to the historical events. The protagonist of the book, and the hero of the story, is Colonel Georges Picquart. He wasn’t unduly fond of Jews, but he hated the idea of a traitor at large in the French Army, as he hated the idea of an innocent man suffering a terrible sentence in his stead.

Because that’s the cruel twist of this tale: Dreyfus had nothing to do with the treason. Picquart discovered the real spy and denounced him. But the establishment couldn’t bring itself to admit its error, far less when the innocent victim of its miscarriage of justice was Jewish. So they preferred to let Dreyfus rot on Devil’s Island. Why, they even ensured that the real culprit, a Major Esterhaze, was acquitted at his court martial.

Picquart, meanwhile, faced persecution nearly to the point of death: I don’t want to spoil the novel for anyone who hasn’t read it, but the French Army went so far as to try to send Picquart on a mission which would almost certainly have led to his death. But he fought on for a cause which must often have seemed hopeless.

Harris is an excellent writer of gripping novels, in particular of the spy or thriller variety, and And Officer and a Spy is in my view his best. So I’m enjoying rereading it. But it isn’t just a good read. It’s also a curious mirror to our own time.

France was torn apart by the Dreyfus Affair. The nation was divided into Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards. The debate was long and often vicious, with anti-Semitic riots and even some deaths in (then-French) Algeria.

There have been no riots in Britain over Brexit, but the divisions are as heartfelt as in the Dreyfus Affair. The two sides are as diametrically opposed, the hopes of unity are as forlorn, the chances of compromise are as vanishingly feeble.

Compromise? What compromise could there have been over Dreyfus? Could he have been exonerated but left in gaol – perhaps under slightly less inhumane conditions – in order not to upset the anti-Dreyfusards? Surely he was either guilty and rightly condemned, or innocent and needing to be released (as he eventually was).

And how’s Brexit different? Britain either stays inside the EU or it leaves. There may have been endless debate over what kind of Brexit might be adopted, but any form means the country leaving the EU. Like Dreyfus being left in gaol: whether under softer or harder conditions, and for a longer or shorter time, it would still have left an innocent man being punished for someone else’s offence. Ironically, the argument for a softer kind of Brexit is often presented, often by no less a person than Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, as a way to avoid upsetting the Brexiter, or more exactly anti-Immigrant, vote – just like keeping Dreyfus in gaol would have been a way of appeasing anti-Semites.

The big difference between the two conflicts is that the Dreyfus case is over 120 years old. We know today that no compromise would ever have made sense between the two sides. One side had the issue broadly right – Dreyfus was innocent and needed to be released – and the other was deeply and perniciously wrong – it couldn’t bring itself to believe that the Jew wasn’t a traitor to France.

And a century from now? I suspect people will be looking back and wondering how Britain could have been so misled as to leave the EU for a generation before rejoining on less favourable terms. The Brexiters, like the anti-Dreyfusards, will be seen as bigoted and profoundly deluded.

But what a pity if it takes so long, and at the cost of so much damage, for that truth to be recognised.

Failure: nothing to fear in it. As long as you don’t deny it

When I was a teenager, I read some books about playing chess, in the mistaken hope that I had it in me to learn to be a good player. Only one lesson from that time sticks in my mind: the advice never to play out a losing game. If your position is hopeless, the book told me, concede and start a new game, since that will give you more useful practice.

I never got any good at chess but the lesson stayed with me forever: if you’re getting nowhere at what you’re doing, stop and try something else. That way you’ll have learned something from a failure and, far from being a blow, it will have become a precious lesson.

Probably one of the most frequently quoted sayings about failure comes from the American basketball star, Michael Jordan.

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career.
I’ve lost almost 300 games.
26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot, and missed.
I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed.

My view is that there are two principles in what Michael Jordan’s saying: the first is the same as mine with chess, that there are lessons to be given by failure, maybe indeed lessons that can only be learned from failure; the second, that fear of failure makes success impossible – if you’re not prepared to run the risk of failure, you can never win.

What is essential, though, is to be prepared to recognise your failure. Otherwise, there’s no chance of learning from it.

I played the piano for thirty years. At the end of that time, I realised that my two sons were taking three weeks to learn to play pieces more competently than I had in three decades. It finally came home to me that my talents, such as they were, lay in a different direction – and I embarked on that direction.

These are issues of burning importance in Britain today.

Theresa May once pulled a parliamentary vote on the deal she had negotiated with the EU to cover Britain’s departure, because she feared she would lose. How justified her fear was became clear when she finally did put it to the vote, and lost by the biggest majority ever inflicted on a government in a British parliament.

Even then, though, she didn’t recognise that she’d got nowhere and submitted the same deal to parliament again. This time she lost by a majority not quite as huge as the first time, but still a crushing one.

She seems completely fixated on her deal. Nothing will deter her from it. Indeed, she’s talking about submitting it for a third vote, not apparently prepared to admit that doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result is the definition of insanity. I sometimes think of May as a visionary, if that term can be used for a tunnel-visionary: someone who simply can’t see out of the sides of the extremely narrow blinkers she’s wearing.

She clearly hasn’t the self-awareness to recognise her own failure. But others in her Conservative Party clearly have. It’s up to them to remove her from office as quickly as possible before she does much more damage.

Still, it’s not the Conservative Party that’s my concern. I’ve never voted Conservative in my life and have no intention of changing my mind now. A much more serious worry to me is what’s happening in the Labour Party.

The dismal faces of British politics
Their failure would matter less if their followers recognised it and acted on it

In Jeremy Corbyn, we have a man whose whole life has been about mobilising mass movements to achieve political ends. And, boy, does he have the opportunity to do that now. The petition to revoke article 50 – to cancel Brexit – has now attracted more signatures than any previous petition on Parliament’s site. A million turned out in London for the latest anti-Brexit march, but as usual Jeremy wasn’t there. Indeed, as usual on these marches, one of the chants was “Jeremy Corbyn, where are you?”

Even his deputy, Tom Watson, who apparently can recognise a mass movement when he sees one, was there and showing he could both walk the walk and talk the talk. Among other intelligent suggestions, he offered Labour backing for May’s plan on condition it was made subject to a new referendum with Remain as an option. Jeremy, meanwhile, was canvassing for local elections in Morecambe Bay, about as far from the march as he could get without leaving England.

It’s true, as Corbyn recently said, that problems such as poverty and climate change are more urgent than Brexit. What he doesn’t seem to recognise is that both of those problems will be made worse by Brexit. And, most important of all, Brexit is the question that faces any British politician now. 

Clement Attlee, who had the task of rebuilding the Labour Party as leader in the 1930s would, I’m sure, far rather have been dealing with creating a National Health Service or nationalising some key industries (as he did in the government he led after 1945), but right then, the key issue was the rise of Hitlerite Germany and how Britain would address it.

Attlee rose magnificently to the challenge.

Corbyn, faced with his challenge, ran away to Morecambe Bay.

Like May, he’ll never recognise his failures. But it’s time that Labour members did. And drew the glaringly obvious conclusion that Corbyn just isn’t up to the job.

Never play out a losing game. Call a halt and make the necessary changes. The most necessary of all? Part company with both Corbyn and Corbynism.

And time’s short, so do it fast.

Déjà vu, or a little touch of globalisation

Déjà vu is, of course, a present experience. It isn’t generally a true memory of something that has previously happened, but a false memory of familiarity from the past of something one has, in all likelihood, never seen before.

Unless, of course, it’s a perfectly genuine sense of realising that a scene encountered apparently for the first time, genuinely corresponds to a true memory.

That’s what I experienced recently. Danielle and I went into a supermarket on the outskirts of Valencia, a city that is already beginning to feel truly like home but which we’d abandoned for a fortnight, to avoid the sleeplessness that accompanies the glory of the annual ‘Fallas’ festival.

I’d never been in that particular supermarket before. And yet as soon as I entered it I recognised the place. The entry was near the rightmost end of the huge roomful of shelves. All that was further to the right was the electronics section, with a limited range of computing and games accessories as well as music players. The wine was where I expected it, about two-thirds along the shop to the left of the entrance, up against the back wall; bottled water in front of it and a little further along; at the far left-hand end was the fresh produce, meat and fish.

The tills, too, were up at that end of the shop, and most of them, as usual, unmanned. The whole effect was of a place somehow flyblown. Slightly unappealing. It seemed to have everything one might want without quite creating an attractive atmosphere in which to find it.

I knew this place. Though I’d never been there before.

But, of course, there was nothing supernatural or even mildly spooky about the experience. The phenomenon, far from being otherworldly, was quite the reverse. It was merely one of the minor effects of globalisation.

The pronunciation of the name of the French supermarket chain Auchan really isn’t ‘Ocean’, as preferred by many British expatriates. The way it’s pronounced, it sounds like the words meaning ‘in the field’, ‘au champ’. Translated into Spanish, that would be ‘al campo’. Those words could also mean ‘in the countryside’, which has attractive associations, of leisure and pleasure and the open air.

So when Auchan opened its Spanish subsidiary, it called it ‘Alcampo’. A clever international play on words.

Auchan. Not to be confused with Alcampo

Well, not that clever I suppose. But hey, this is the world of commerce, not the theatre of Oscar Wilde.

And the Al Campo on the outskirts of Valencia was laid out in exactly the same way as the Auchan on the outskirts of Strasbourg. We did a lot of shopping there when we were living in that fine city, because if the interior appearance was a tad short of especially inviting, the produce was always good. Just like the Alcampo where we did our shopping in Valencia.

So the experience wasn’t so much déjà vu as plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Or, as we might say in English, another supermarket may be just one more drop in the Auchan.

In Russia too. And, boy, they look exactly the same there

Hey, New Zealand: couldn't you lend us Jacinda for a while?

It’s a tale of two accidental leaders…

Jacinda Ardern was never meant to be Prime Minister of New Zealand. Or at least not yet, not so early as to make her the youngest in a century and a half. She was serving as Deputy Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party when, just seven weeks ahead of the 2017 General Election, the then Leader, Andrew Little, stood down in the face of the dire poll standing of the party.

That’s not an issue for the British Labour Party under its present leadership. It trails a thoroughly discredited Tory government in the polls, at a point when it needs to be well ahead to stand any chance of winning the next election. But Corbynists shrug such matters off. There’ll be a surge, they say, as there was last time. They ignore the fact that the surge wasn’t enough to win and only produced a defeat less drastic than had been feared.

Funnily enough, Corbyn was an accidental leader too. He only stood for the leadership because no one else on the left was prepared to throw his name into the hat. He had no expectation of winning and, indeed, only made it onto the ballot because political opponents within Labour agreed to nominate him as a way of giving the left a chance to be in the game. They didn’t think he’d win either, and how they must be regretting it now.

As it happens, Ardern didn’t win the General Election. She came second with 46 parliamentary seats to the National (conservative) Party’s 56. But coalition negotiations allowed her to assemble a government and she took office. Since then, she’s impressed again and again, including in her personal behaviour: giving birth while in office in a way that charmed the nation.

At no time has she been more impressive than in response to the dire events that took place last Friday, 15 March. A new and far more dreadful Ides of March than those that marked the assassination of Julius Caesar. In Christchurch, a terrorist opened fire in two Mosques killing 50 worshippers and injuring many others.

Her statement to Parliament moved me to tears. She found an extraordinarily powerful way of expressing her total solidarity with the victims and their friends or relatives. It was a moving statement that said that these Muslim immigrants belonged to New Zealand and New Zealand belonged to them. It was a highly effective way of rejecting the views of anyone who might be inclined to nurse  xenophobic feelings towards the victims, a sense that it was tragic but nonetheless, they were somehow wrong to have come to New Zealand, that they were in some sense responsible for the attack on them.

She said:

We cannot know your grief, but we can walk with you at every stage. We can. And we will, surround you with aroha, manaakitanga and all that makes us, us. Our hearts are heavy but our spirit is strong.

Jacinda Ardern with the victims
Showing aroha, manaakitanga and ... leadership

She spoke of “us”, embracing all New Zealanders. And she underlined the message by using the Maori words for love and a much deeper sense of hospitality. The Prime Minister was saying categorically and clearly that the victims belonged in New Zealand and deserved its welcome.

Talking of the presumed perpetrator who, following her example, will not be named here, she said:

A 28-year-old man – an Australian citizen – has been charged with one count of murder. Other charges will follow. He will face the full force of the law in New Zealand. The families of the fallen will have justice.

He sought many things from his act of terror, but one was notoriety.

And that is why you will never hear me mention his name.

He is a terrorist. He is a criminal. He is an extremist.

But he will, when I speak, be nameless.

And to others I implore you: speak the names of those who were lost, rather than name of the man who took them.

He may have sought notoriety, but we in New Zealand will give him nothing. Not even his name.

I find it hard to read these words, courageous, outspoken, resolute, without feeling a pricking of tears in my eyes.

Compare them with what Jeremy Corbyn said when asked whether, in a second referendum, he might vote for Brexit:

It depends on what the choice is in front of us. If we’ve got a good deal in which we can have a dynamic relationship with Europe which is all the trading relationships and so on that might be a good way forward that unites the country.

“It depends”. A prevaricating, vacillating reply. And why does he make it? Because he thinks there is a Brexit deal that can unite the country. Which means he wants to pull in the xenophobes who voted to leave the EU out of a dislike of immigrants. Where Ardern tells xenophobes that New Zealand stands for different values, Corbyn tries to appease them.

He must know he can’t. Any deal that he would call ‘good’ would involve a softer Brexit that leave voters would regard as a betrayal. He’s making the same error so many others have made before him, not least David Cameron who called the Brexit referendum: he’s throwing raw meat to people who will only demand more, when they see that pushing their demands gives results.

Ardern stood firm and she’ll be admired for it. Corbyn yielded and he’ll be despised. Two accidental leaders, but only one is truly a leader, showing that accidents can turn out well on some occasions and pitifully badly on others.

How I wish we could borrow her for Britain, to lead Labour, and eventually the country. And send Corbyn back to his allotment to tend to his vegetables. He’d be much happier. As would Britain.

Alas, New Zealand wouldn’t let her go. But can we perhaps can find her like ourselves? At least she’s shown us what to look for.

The heart of Spain: it may be emptying but it still beats warmly

Our gradual introduction into Spanish life continued this weekend. Indeed, we went for a deep dive to the very roots of Spain: a visit to a mountain village on the border of Castille and Aragon, right in the Spanish heartland.

I say Castille although the official title of the region to which it belongs is Castilla-La Mancha. The place is full of wind farms and I made a weak joke about where was Don Quixote, the man of La Mancha, when we really needed him among all those windmills. All I got in return was a faint smile and the tired reply: “this isn’t La Mancha. Here, we’re in Castille”. The region may embrace two historical provinces, but the old attachments die hard.

The comment was from our host, Teo, in the village of Tartanedo. He and his wife are dear old friends, but that didn’t stop us failing to catch up with each other for 25 years. In many ways, it’s a real test of friendship when one meets someone after that kind of a gap, and the conversation simply starts up again as though it had never been interrupted.

The first connection between us had come when Ernestina, his wife, had travelled to England with their daughter Leticia as part of a teacher exchange. Although Tartanedo has a great spiritual pull on them, especially on Teo who was born there, they actually live down in the plain at Guadalajara, a proper town just about within commuting distance from Madrid. Ernestina had been teaching in Guadalajara back in the eighties and she swapped with a teacher from Luton for a year.

Now Guadalajara is warm and sunny, with a lovely centre and deep cultural roots. Why, at our first visit to our friends after that long gap, Ernestina took us to an inspiring flamenco concert in the town’s well-appointed and attractive theatre.

Luton, on the other, has all the joys of English weather, a depressed and depressing town centre, and only a middling-sized room in the library to act as a theatre.

This made it amusing to learn that Ernestina had happily returned to Guadalajara as soon as her year was over. On the other hand, the teacher she’d exchanged with met and married a man from Guadalajara and, to the best of our knowledge, never went back.

In a Tartanedo street, looking at St Bartholomew’s Church

As for Tartanedo, it’s a lovely if embattled place. The houses are mostly built of sandstone and many are beautiful: in excellent repair with fine façades and an air of permanence. But many of these are holiday homes, uninhabited most of the time. Around the edges of the village, there are buildings, many agricultural, but some residential, that are falling into decay, with caved-in roofs, glassless window and doors falling away from their hinges.

Tartanedo is suffering from the same phenomenon that affected many British villages in the past: rural depopulation. The work opportunities are in the cities, as are the bright lights, the restaurants and the main sources of entertainment. Tartanedo had 500 inhabitants at the start of the twentieth century; today there are only 50 permanently living there. 

It has to be said that those who remain, and even many of those who return at holidays, are from the village and have strong roots there. But there were once two shops and a bakery; now there are vans in the summer that come to sell fresh produce but otherwise there is only a bar and a church. It does have to be said that the church is remarkable: it is crammed with breathtaking works of art, in an architectural setting that mixes styles from several centuries of Spanish development. But even the church is struggling. We were there on Sunday and the congregation was just five strong.

Superb baroque altar. But there were only five worshippers

As Teo explained, Tartanedo is part of “España vacía” – empty Spain. In Tartanedo’s case, that has helped a little: the emptiness around it makes it an excellent area for wind farms, and the taxes they pay have provided a much-needed financial boost. But still, emptying is never easy for a village, and leaves it trying to define what kind of future it might have.

Empty Spain: the surroundings of Tartanedo - big sky, big space
With the ubiquitous windmills and no Don Quixote
Oh, and our poodle Toffee in the foreground

Some of the other aspects of life there are familiar to an Englishman. Of the 50 permanent inhabitants, 25 are from Morocco. Why? One of the few businesses still flourishing there is sheep breeding. There are 4000 sheep, providing work for five shepherds and a living for their families. All of them are Moroccan. It seems the Spanish, like the English, aren’t attracted to certain jobs which have to be carried out by foreigners instead.

As in Britain, Spain sees some racism directed against such immigrants, who come over to take “our” jobs even though “we” don’t want to do them. The Spanish, however, are managing to keep such xenophobic feelings mostly in check for the moment. Spain remains a far more welcoming place, generally, to foreigners than Brexitland has become. There’s no talk, certainly, of Spexit – or perhaps, in España, I should say no talk of Espexit. In Tartanedo, there is far more: there is a warmth between all the inhabitants, displayed in hugs and handshakes, whether the individual’s roots are in Spain or in North Africa. The Moroccan children are even being educated, by volunteers, in the old school house which had long been closed.  

A degree of openness, a level of tolerance, and a willingness to work with her neighbours. They make Spain a refreshing place to live in after Britain. And it was encouraging to come across much of that spirit even in a small place like Tartanedo, which has to find a future for itself.

It’s particularly encouraging because, in Tartanedo, we were deep in the very heart of the nation.

Brexit: what a brothel

It’s amusing how often you get quizzed about Brexit, as a Brit abroad. In fact, I’ve so often been asked “Brexit? What on earth’s that about?”, that I now deliver my stock response with the pat monotony of long repetition.

“No idea,” I say, “but if you ever find out, do please let me know.”

Brexiters always told me that the whole point of leaving the EU was to take back control over our own affairs. In a highly interdependent world, where no country, not even the most powerful, has full control of its future, let alone a middle-ranking power like Britain, that always struck me as a questionable notion. But today, with both main parties having lost control of themselves and the government having lost control of the country, my inclination would be to paraphrase Gandhi: asked for his opinion of Western Civilisation, he replied that he thought it would be a good idea. Well, in that same spirit, I think some measure of control would be suit Britain admirably. But that’s an aspiration, not a reality, and it looks a long way from being reached while the Brexit chaos continues.

Look at the current situation. May has negotiated a deal of some sort. The EU has made it clear no other deal is on offer. Parliament has rejected that deal. It has also voted against leaving with no deal. It has voted not to have a second referendum. It hasn’t, however, come up with any alternative deal.

It seems Britain has shown great skill in saying ‘stop’ but has yet to develop the ability to find a path along which it might say ‘go’.

It strikes me that we’re in the situation of three friends who have gone on holiday together, say to Southern Spain. When they get there, they find it’s not quite as they’d hoped: the accommodation isn’t that comfortable, the sea’s a long way away, restaurants and bars serve food with a distinctly foreign flavour to them.

So one friend suggests heading home. Another suggests they stay a while but cut the holiday short. A third wants to go somewhere else. But no one can agree with either of the others.

Mightn’t the most sensible thing be to decide to make the most of where they are? To try to enjoy what the place they chose might have to offer despite its failings? To learn, in other words, to like what they’re doing, if they can’t work out what they’d like to do?

It seems Britain still hasn’t come around to reaching that rational conclusion.

I’m told that it’s wrong to refer to voters, even Brexit voters, as stupid. Of course, my first reaction is to think “if voters don’t want to be thought of as stupid, they shouldn’t vote stupidly”. But, OK, I can see how it might be counterproductive to say so out loud. So I will not refer to Brexiters as stupid. However stupid their behaviour. Instead, I’d simply ask, “how smart can it be to wish for Brexit if no one can agree on what Brexit they want?”

Foreigners have little difficulty answering that kind of question.

The Spanish daily El País points out that, given the “wicker” she has to work with, it’s absolutely no surprise that Theresa May’s Brexit basket is empty. She has nothing to offer. But more than that, the paper is adamant that the Brexit mess is entirely of Britain’s making. The country, it claims, is incapable of agreeing with itself. It feels the EU has already been far too generous in its concessions. Certainly, El País is clear that the EU should concede nothing more.

El País illustration for a leader article headlined ‘Moribund Brexit’

That, however, is a well-constructed, carefully argued case. A much more succinct view was offered to me in Italy.

“Brexit? Che casino.”

That literally means “Brexit? What a brothel.” Though these days ‘che casino’ has just become a familiar way of saying “what a mess”.

Personally, I think a brothel, with its implications of questionable behaviour, outright deception and the meretricious pursuit of financial benefit through behaviour dubious to the point of corruption, sums up Brexit perfectly.

Even better, though, is the smile or chuckle that tends to accompany such comments. It should be a matter of pride that Britain amuses the world these days. However, generally we want people to be laughing with us, rather than at us. Unfortunately, Brexit has reduced our once-proud nation to a laughing stock. Even if the laughter is sometimes accompanied by tears.

Oh, dear. Brexit. What a brothel indeed.