As regular readers will be aware (both of them) Blighty has rather a low opinion of the old British B&B, likening it to staying in a stranger’s spare bedroom, with the emphasis on ’strange’. This opinion has been arrived at after numerous occasions when tightfistedness came before comfort. So, it came as quite a surprise to read that a Blackpool B&B has been voted one of the best hotels in the world in an online poll.

Quite why a B&B should be voted any kind of hotel in the world is puzzling, never mind one in Blackpool. But the oddness doesn’t end there. Because the owner, Mr Hodson, claims that his B&B is ‘furnished in a very contemporary way and there’s no chintz.’ No chintz! Surely this precludes it from being titled a B&B at all. A B&B without chintz is like a hotel without loud plumbing sounds at three in the morning! It’s like Blackpool without the drunken groups of men urinating onto the beach! It’s like Cornwall without holiday cottages!

Perhaps all a B&B owner need do for his establishment to garner the title of ‘one of the best hotels in the world’ is nip down to Ikea for a car load of flat-packed furniture, tear down that weird netting stuff and paint the walls magnolia. Blighty is interested to know about the bed. Is it not like sleeping in a straitjacket on a pile of rubble with the blitz going on above your head? Could the B&B be changing forever? Let’s hope so. Next self-catering cottage owners will be finishing off the decorating!

It would be nice to see the British tourist industry drag itself into the 20th century. What’s that you say? It’s actually the 21st century? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves!