FROM NOOKY FORAGER IN MAGALUF

IN AN EFFORT to raise the quality of the British tourists that come to the European Continent for summer holidays every year, the European Union is considering having Brit travelers to their lands pass a culture test before being granted access under a new visa scheme.

“We are sick and tired of the Neanderthal British holidaymakers who descend on Europe each summer like invading hoards; we hope that a simple test of cultural knowledge will lift the tone of this tourist tide, and make it somewhat bearable,” says Sebastian DeGaulle-Entrepreneur, an official at the European Commission in Brussels. “Only those who answer a few simple questions in history, art, cooking and music, will be allowed in. The others can go to Blackpool or Skegness. Or wherever.”

The British tourist has become the scourge of many holiday destinations in Europe for the past five decades. Drinking to excess, mooning from hotel balconies, having sex on traffic islands while waiting for the lights to change, eating nothing but fish and chips and brown sauce, and failing to comprehend one word of any local language they encounter are among the behaviors most despised by Continentals.

“And always the demands,” says Miguel, who runs a small bar on Majorca. “I support the visa test. I may lose some business but I will regain my dignity. I don’t understand why, if they hate Europe so much, they all come here on vacation every year and are lining up to retire here. How many Spanish people want to retire to Bognor or Wigan, tell me that?”