What a strange thing it is to find your peer group on the receiving end of Foreign Office censure. For we are trainee Saga-louts, defined as the new breed of over-55s who drink too much on holiday and cause trouble.

We're not old enough yet but we've been practising for years, and goodness we've been bad. Yes, there have been many occasions when we've got drunk, got loud and landed in ditches on the way home to our invariably remote lodgings. I have fond memories of a couple of male friends standing in the back of a Jeep and belting out Lydia the Tattooed Lady as a sober wife drove through the Greek countryside.

There was the friend who abused an inflatable whale; the day pebbles were thrown into a bikini while it was being worn, and the deeply embarrassing confiscation of our CD player by two young chalet girls who couldn't stand either the volume of our singing, or our adoration of Supertramp. A loud noise in the night means that someone has misjudged the edge of the bed, and there has been a lot of falling asleep in inappropriate places.

Shocking, if not criminal, I'm sure you will agree. If the Foreign Secretary has that much fun on holiday, he's a lucky man.

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