Peter Rhodes on dreams, migration and etiquette at the breakfast bar
There's a sparky little debate going on in social media about a long-standing holiday quandary. It is this: when you've helped yourself to breakfast at the hotel buffet, is it okay to pocket more food to see you through the day, or is this a form of theft? Somehow, I sense that some readers may be blushing.
One online influencer brazenly displays her technique for filling a couple of Tupperware containers over breakfast, declaring: “It's not stingy, it's strategy.” And I've seen lots of tourists slyly slipping a baguette or two into their shopping bags, or even assembling a whole ham roll for lunch. But I've never seen any hotel staff intervening to stop them.
This makes me think that either the hotels accept such losses, and budget for them, or stock their breakfasts with stale old grub that's destined for the bins anyway. As the Good Book very nearly tells us: Let he who is without a hard-boiled egg in his pocket cast the first scone.
To his credit, Keir Starmer is resisting pressure from France and some of his own backbenchers to recognise the state of Palestine. How can you recognise any state that has no borders and exists mainly in the mind? If we recognised Palestine, what else might we feel obliged to acknowledge – Narnia?
As for agreeing on borders behind which Jews and Palestinians can live in mutual safety, this is the noblest of noble dreams. But it has to be said that it's also a dream that has eluded the Middle East for hundreds (some would say thousands) of years. Tragically, it looks like the same impossible dream today that it was 100 years ago. Still, think positive. Let's make a start on those borders. See, President Macron, here is a felt-tip pen and a map of the Holy Land. Off you go . . .
Donald Trump's warning to Europe was blunt: “On immigration, you better get your act together. You’re not going to have Europe any more.” This has echoes of the conspiracy theory known as the Great Replacement. It is white-supremacist American nonsense. And yet who can witness the spectacle of thousands of men of military age pouring across the Channel every week and vanishing into Britain and not ask, how and when will this end?
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