Not really – I thought that fact had been well established ever since we first discovered the joys of the package holiday.

Surely we don't need researchers to tell us most Brits would rather snooze in the sun than see the sights.

That's why we're the nation with a reputation for seeking out the local "caff" on arrival in another country, to request a full English breakfast every morning and "chips with everything".

Well, we don't want to eat any foreign muck do we?

Then we don our football shirts, get embarrassingly sunburned and spend all day, every day, boozing.

Ok, I know we're not all lobsters and lager louts – and the under 30s these days love their gap years nearly as much as their skinny soy-milk decaf latte – but I still don't think many of us are under the illusion that we've ever been regarded as a nation of sophisticated travellers.

I'm afraid I know plenty of people who'd rather visit the Coliseum nightclub in Halifax than the Coliseum of Rome.

Even so, the claim by Halifax Holiday Insurance that even on so-called "exotic" trips the average British holidaymaker spends no more than seven hours away from the hotel during their entire trip is pretty alarming.

The finding that 70 per cent never visit a local attraction is equally jaw-dropping.

Apparently we prefer to spend our days lazing, often asleep, by the pool.

Then at night we shun local food in foreign restaurants and eat and drink in the resort's establishments.

Ugh – how naff and unimaginative, I hear you say.

I agree, it's not how I'd choose to spend a precious week off work.

But in these days of non-stop stress, who can blame anyone for choosing the lazy option of an all-inclusive break?

Backpack

While you might prefer to don a backpack, catch buses, ride bikes and see and taste everything a country has to offer, others just want a break from the grey daily grind back in Blighty.

Everything is done for them, all they need to do is get on the right plane and remember to turn over every couple of hours to tan their belly as much as their back.

Why shouldn't they hand over their hard-earned cash for the privilege of doing nothing in the sun?

All you can eat and drink, with everything you could ever want all catered for on-site – no need to move a muscle.

No wonder so many Brits return from their jollies clutching their spare tyres and warning of the dangers of pile-your-plate buffets and drink-'em-dry bars.

This survey seems to conclude that if you choose an "exotic" location you should want to go waterfall diving, trekking through the jungle and take a cookery course in local cuisine, and you're a Philistine if you simply want to relax on a sun lounger with a good book and a strawberry daiquiri.

But people like the idea of travelling to more unusual places.

They feel more sophisticated by choosing Egypt over the Costa del Sol, even if they do only plan to see the few hundred metres surrounding their hotel.

If they want to spend six hours on a plane to reach a country they have no intention of exploring that's up to them.

Those of us that want to experience a place rather than just visit it should be glad of their lack of interest.

If that lot are cooped up in their all-inclusive hell-holes that means fewer people getting in our way when we're sampling the local delicacies.


Not quite the party animal...


WHEN you work full-time and think 10.30pm is a late night it's easy forget there are thousands of students living it up into the early hours every night of the week.

A trip to the Brudenell Social Club in Hyde Park, Leeds, soon reminded me of those hedonistic, fashion-focused times – now oh so long ago!

It was Wednesday night and it was packed with scruffily-glam Skins types who clearly did not have to keep checking whether it was past their bedtime.

I was tuckered out by 11.30pm and figured I should get home before my taxi turned into a pumpkin.

Thankfully I wasn't alone in my failure to party like a young 'un – I still managed to stay out later than Leeds's biggest rock star – Ricky Wilson from Kaiser Chiefs.

Maybe if he'd had a few more drinks he might have adapted their number-one hit Ruby in honour of the venue…"Brudy, Brudy, Brudy Brudy".


Kitty conundrum


ANOTHER day, another drama, in the land of kittenville.

Ruskin and Yoda, our 10-week-old kits, have just about recovered from their first trip to the vet.

It might take me a little while longer to get over it, after a rather unexpected diagnosis.

It seems there's been a mix-up, which means all is not as we were led to believe with one of our furry boys.

In fact the vet seems to think one of them might not be a boy cat at all!

Clearly feline anatomy is more complex than a human's as she's not 100 per cent sure either way and needs to check him/her again in a few weeks.

Just think, if we hadn't taken them to the vet we might have woken up one day to find our little "lad" with a baby bump and thought we had the feline equivalent of Thomas Beatie – the world's first pregnant man!

As it is we will just have to wait and see whether little Ruskin turns out to be a he-cat or a she-cat.