Prithee excuse my writing style tonight. I'm M25-lagged.
Being the unfortunate resident of, over my relatively short life, three 'picturesque' villages in leafy West Sussex I feel I am justified in my loathing of tourists, particularly walkers. I just can't stand them. If you want to visit somewhere, all well and good. If you want to take pictures of the place, fair play to you. But being a tourist is something different altogether.
I was until the day before yesterday convinced that tourists were a slightly different species. Just a few adjustments in the genetic soup here and there, a few jiggles to make certain personality traits more extreme, and there you had it. Shove a camera in their hot little hand, give them a nudge towards a minibus or well-worn footpath and off they would toddle, devouring the things put on show and not even processing the fact that they are all the same as the last five places they went. They must talk at a certain volume or above; they must be ignorant yet patronising; they must follow each other like sheep through the obvious tracks unaware or uncaring that it is all fake. At least, that's what my opinions were. Until the 25th October 2007.
Then I went to Stratford-on-Avon.
There I had tourism and the tourist persona thrust on me with irresistible force. At every turn chocolate box buildings and reconstructed farmhouses, such as Anne Hathaway's house (which is rather like the one I grew up in in fact) loomed at me, presenting me with multilingual guides and old women in ambiguously Olde Worlde dress.
And yet I too followed the visitor trail without a murmur of discontent. I looked appreciatively at the 'Birthplace' of Shakespeare (capitalised to buggery on all the signs) and bought stupid amounts of overpriced tat in the gift shop. In fact I laughed quietly at the abundant and tired old quotes that were attached in witty places to the tat.
I have joined the Dark Side. Or at least, was a mercenary in it for a while. And the worrying thing is, it didn't feel that bad. In fact, I have a T-shirt (white!) with the quote from the Taming of the Shrew: "Will you woo this Wild-cat?"
I disgust myself.
