Short of ideas? Try a TV holiday

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A lot of us struggle for holiday ideas. I know I do: it's the effort that gets me. I really can't be bothered with travel brochures, or travel agents. The opinions of others should definitely be avoided, too - when did someone last admit to having a crap holiday? All holidaymakers seem to come back home and boast that only a couple of days previously they were lying on a beach sipping warm beer. This belies the fact, of course, that in all likelihood their holiday was blighted by a week of miserable weather and ill luck which saw them contract a mystery hotel-confining disease on vacation day two.

As a result, I tend to plump for exactly the same location each year, with exactly the same people: it's tried and trusted, we know exactly where to go at exactly the right time, and there is exactly no hassle involved in booking the trip either. However, there are people out there, I understand, who go in for a more varied existence. They travel to different countries so they can revel in having journeyed to more unique locations than anyone else in the room at a dinner party. I can imagine, though, that this leads to holidays of undeniable vacuity: once they get there and have ticked the country off the list, I'm sure most globe crawlers are longing for home and cursing the decision to have even considered Azerbaijan.

But there is another way! Many holidaymakers are inspired to go to various destinations by television broadcasts. There's the BBC's Holiday programme - although that's not so popular any more, as it's presented by Laurence Llewellyn Bowen - and Wish You Were Here…? On ITV (not with you, Judith), and even A Place in the Sun.

However, I've always thought that EastEnders vacations provide as accurate a holiday guide as anyone, and he's a brief low-down on my three favourite EastEnders trips.

The Costa del Sol
While it was always perplexing to see Frank Butcher as pink as a prune in December while pulling pints in the Queen Vic (he only ever visited Maaanchester, so where he got the tan from is anyone's guess) he at least had an excuse for it when he visited the Costa Del Sol. He went on what was presumably a Saga holiday with wife Peggy, ex-wife Pat, Pat's husband Roy and Terry and Irene, who travelled only, it seems, to give viewers light relief. After a few too many glasses of fruit punch, Frank and Pat ended up in bed - and guess what? They got found out. Perhaps most strangely of all, Irene got lost on the way home and ended up on The Bill.

Argyll
Is there anywhere better to get hitched than Argyll? Barry Evans didn't think so. That's where he married Janine, with best mate Paul - who was having an affair with his wife - watching on. But Barry didn't mind - not for long, anyway, as he soon fell off a cliff.

Brighton
OK, the third one was a struggle. Perhaps it's best to rely on travel brochures and travel agents after all as a trip to Brighton doesn't really grab the attention. Just for the record, this is the one where Jamie finally came to his senses and slept with Zoe, which ultimately devastated the lovely (read overweight) Sonia.