Arresting holiday destinations

PINNED DOWN: Your holiday tour guides await you in Syria.PHOTO/AP 150718110526

WITH Henley and Wimbledon now behind us, the London social season has drawn to its close and the British are beginning to pack for the traditional summer holiday. Most of the British that is: the ones who remembered to do something about booking it. Unfortunately, that was my task this year and what with a busy time at work and the distraction of those late evenings in the pub, oops I mean the office, it got sort of rolled back on my "to-do" list. Anyway, nemesis is now here in the form of a grimly-amused wife, "I offered to arrange it weeks ago but you insisted that you would do it yourself", and children with eyes so liquid that they could be Labrador puppies on an anti-vivisection poster who are raising an expectant chant of "where are we going this year, daddy?"

The question isn't a particularly easy one in the circumstances so the obvious course is to prevaricate. "Aha," I reply, "it will be a surprise, an exciting one." Well the first part of that is certainly true.

The family cat takes time from its rest in front of the fire to spare me a glance. Animals can sense duplicity and its unspoken comment seems to include the word "jerk". Still, this year is the anniversary of Waterloo and if that teaches us nothing else it teaches us not to waver under pressure; so I maintain the mysterious approach and rely on being able to pull something out of the hat after an hour or two's thought.

I repair to my desk on the pretext that I have urgent work to do. An hour and a half later and I am still staring blankly at a large map of the world, wondering where we should go. The Far East is too faraway and Centre Parcs is perhaps too close. What is needed is somewhere in between. Sterling is strong at the moment so it is a good chance to go abroad but exactly where?

That is the question. Well enough of wondering. Like Hamlet, I need a course of action, something that will take the decision for me.

Many years ago, I used to share a flat with a friend who told me that he always decided where he would go on holiday by closing his eyes and sticking a pin in a map of the world - rather like pinning the tail on the donkey at an old-fashioned fair. No, younger readers, it was not a real donkey, just a picture. Still it was good fun because ... oh, never mind, things were different before computer games.

Anyway my friend, who being an Irishman would never have embroidered the truth, told me that he would always go where the pin landed provided that the place was actually on land. That could be disappointing and he told me that he once spent two weeks in a terminal at Manchester airport. Usually, however, it took him to exotic destinations which he would never normally have thought of. He had been to Kathmandu and Carcassonne and had spent a week on an atoll in the South Pacific.

His method always struck me as rather a good one. Anyway, I have no better idea so I decide to give it a whirl, pick up a pin, close my eyes and lunge.

Hmm, Syria it is then. Yes, rather an exciting option that, but I have always wanted to see the great Crusader fortresses and, anyway, one never really knows how dangerous these places really are and how much is the intelligence services trying to justify their budgets.

Still one should be a little cautious perhaps. I know. I'll try to book it with Thomas Cook. They are about as experienced as it gets and won't book a holiday if it is too iffy. I reach for the phone: "Hello, Thomas Cook? Can you book a family of five to Syria for a couple of weeks." "Yes, I did say Syria". "Sorry I can't hear you very clearly. Someone else seems to be listening in at your end"

"What? You'll get back to me in an hour? Perfect. Thank you."

Well, so far so good. True, the itinerary is hardly finished, but I'm well on the way. Now I can tell the family that I am at the last stage of finalising the arrangements. If Thomas Cook can't do it, I will just have to say that the security position has forced me to think again. At least that is not as bad as having arranged nothing at all.

I have just mentioned that we are going somewhere very exciting when I see that our youngest boy is transfixed by something going on outside of the window. "Even more exciting than that?" he asks. "Four policemen, two of them armed, are walking up the garden path.

"Just where were you trying to book us to?" asks my wife suspiciously as two of the policemen move round to take up position by the back door. The cat looks on with the complacency of one whose initial judgment has just been confirmed by events.