Mad happy campers!

“I lurrrvvve you,” sang out the drunk. “You fill me up...”
There were a few precious moments of silence, followed by a large burp, then he started again, warbling like Simon Cowell’s worst X-Factor nightmare: “Youuu fillllll me up.”
I still haven’t worked out which song he’d wrenched these lyrics from to “serenade” his wife in “Brit-on-hols-drunk style.
She wasn’t impressed. She told him to “shut it” in no uncertain terms but, encouraged by the mobile home decking, which in his drunken stupor he mistook for a stage, he couldn’t stop himself making a complete idiot of himself.
It was then that the thought “never again” imprinted itself on my brain.
Never again would I spend my precious holiday time with a bunch of happy campers on a giant Euro site.
Because, the happier they are, the more miserable they make the people who go about their lives quietly.
You know, the sort who don’t turn up the TV or music full blast just in case their neighbours are in.
The sort who don’t start mowing their lawn at 7am or 9pm.
The sort who pop a note through the door if they have a big party coming up to apologise for any parking inconvenience.
I am among the thoughtful one, which is why I hate noise abuse. That’s what I call it.
Never mind you, Jack, I’m drunk, I’ve paid for this holiday and I’m flamin’ well going to enjoy it by singing like a tuneless moron into the early hours of the morning.
Never mind if you or your kids want to sleep, you’re going to have to listen to me.
Bricks and mortar would struggle to block the sounds, never mind a scrap of canvas or a thin mobile home wall. If you get bad neighbours on a camping/caravan holiday, you’re done for.
A chum admitted the very same thing had happened to her on a campsite in France.
“A load of people next to us were talking and drinking late into the night. It went on and on. Eventually my children were crying because they just couldn’t get to sleep,” she recalled, with a helpless grin.
“So, I went round in my nightie and, very politely, said I was sorry to spoil their fun but could they quieten down. They apologised and said yes but as I walked away the shrieking laughter started again. Then I fell over a hedge.”
Need I say more? Camping has some major drawback. And yet it’s all the rage thanks to the credit crunch.
Brits, from every walk of life, are heading for life under canvas this summer in a massive cost-cutting exercise.
In fact, just by going abroad, I broke the mould because this year the “stay-cation” is de rigueur.
The Benidorm bars are half empty while British campsites are turning people away.
Holidaying in the UK is all very laudable, and surprisingly sensible on our part.
But let’s be logical about this. Every year, millions of us leave gorgeous, lovingly cared for homes and all mod cons to sleep on a mat under canvas in a field. Why?
Alternatively, as in my case, we swap the squishy settees and pillow-soft beds of home for a static van with about as much appeal as a garden shed.
We give up dishwashers in favour of communal dish-washing sinks and leave our en suite bathrooms behind to queue up in our jim-jams for shared showers covered in body hair from the previous occupant.
We eat al fresco, come rain or shine, and feast on blackened barbecued food, served up by the man of the van/tent in some strange male ritual. Man never cooks but must do barbecue to protect cave woman from fire.
It is mystifying. OK, I know I am being a bit harsh here. Some of my best friends are campers – and my father’s the proud owner of a caravan. But I really have had my fill of chemical toilets. And the next drunken karaoke slob to stumble across my path could find himself throttled with my Derby County scarf.
Next year’s UK stay-cation is definitely going to take place within bricks in mortar, preferably in my own home!