There are few phrases that strike as much fear into the heart of the international community as “Brits abroad”. Really, it’s with good reason; as someone who personally suffered through a number of Thomas Cook package holidays in my youth and once visited Malia out of choice as a fledgling adult, I can attest to the fact that even British people feel the fear. My own stand-out memories include licking a Mancunian teenager’s neck while dressed in a miniskirt in a bar called The Giant Fishbowl in Greece; and leaning over the balcony at nine years old as my usually sedentary father sprinted down a concrete staircase at 5am, en route to the coveted sun loungers by the pool with six large towels, shouting, with a complete lack of irony, “We have to beat the Germans, or it’s all over.” So not exactly delicate sunsets over white sandy beaches on Instagram.
Considering that the Germans and Brits have never quite seen eye to eye when sharing holiday destinations, it should come as little surprise that the German newspaper Bild this week ran an article “explaining” the British tourists of Mallorca to its readership. With stereotypical efficiency, they slagged off Brits on tour through a list of invented diseases: “Welsh wandering hands”, for instance, as well as “vodka cough”, “underwear amnesia”, and my personal favourite “Anglo-Saxon rash” (the German euphemism for British tattoos). Then there was Prince Harry syndrome – “the pathological need to constantly undress” – which as a Tinder user I can reveal is not a quirk the British leave safely behind on the shores of Marbella when they return home.
The Telegraph, in all its patriotism, responded to this national insult defensively. The charge that the Brit on vacation is always getting his or her kit off is “a touch hypocritical”, it reminds us, for “anyone who has encountered the German love of naturism”. The paper says that Bild “gloats” about our tendency to turn beetroot red in the sun, and “adds insult to injury” by cruelly stating that too much beer on the beach makes us weigh down the plane on the way home. All in all, the impression is that a German tabloid poking fun at our tan lines (or lack thereof) is one step too far.
There is a German word for this sort of mockery, and it’s fremdschämen. This roughly translates as “feeling embarrassed for someone you don’t know” or, more simply, “secondhand shame”, and it’s one of those linguistic innovations, like schadenfreude, that the Germans do so well. But just because the Bild journalists see our “vodka cough” and “balcony legs” (the injury someone sustains when jumping from the hotel balcony into the pool – yes, really) as cause for fremdschämen, is it necessary to react as though we’ve been hit where it hurts and hang our heads at our lewd transgressions? Shouldn’t we rather be flying the flag for Prince Harry syndrome and underwear amnesia, proud of the tramp stamps and dolphin tattoos adorning our sunburnt bodies, happy to chug down discount cocktails and increase the load of the plane returning us to our rainy urban lives?
Just weeks ago, the tabloid press tried to provoke moral outrage over Magaluf, which Bild references when it mentions that young British women are apparently wont to trade sexual favours for holidays. I think it’s fair to say that the public weren’t as receptive to this outrage as expected, rightly choosing to round on the journalists who attacked a young girl for giving a few blow jobs rather than the girl herself. Nowadays, in this regard, the moral outrage brigade is genuinely difficult to rally. Try to encourage them to bring out their torches and pitchforks and protest against a British lack of holiday decorum and you’ll find most have wandered off to the pub, or set themselves up topless on the nearest Spanish beach while cheerfully admonishing others to live and let live.
Personally, I’d much rather see a couple soaking up the sun with their beer bellies on full display and a couple of piña coladas parked beside them than two people shamefully hiding their flab and picking miserably at a salad in the shade. Let them eat stale cake from the buffet for breakfast! Celebrate the healthy breeze on their uncovered genitals! Rub aftersun on their red backs with compassion and bring them chips without judgment! We of the British persuasion only get about seven days of guaranteed sunshine a year, and I’ll be damned if a fear of Germans judging my vodka cough is going to stop me getting my Gangnam Style tattoo out in Mallorca this summer. Let’s be proud of our ridiculous British heritage and respond with classic self-deprecating laughter. See you on the beach.