The Weasel: So, instead of visiting key marginals and penning colourful profiles of battle-weary candidates, I found myself absorbing mountains of fruits de mer

At this pivotal moment in our national destiny, it will doubtless come as a bitter disappointment to readers that I am unable to devote this page to keen political insights and judicious advice for next Thursday. (I dare say you might find one or two fleeting references to the election elsewhere in the paper.) The blame lies with a temporary deafness suffered by Mrs W. I had been musing aloud about my urgent need to explore Britain during this vital period - and, next thing I knew, she'd booked us 10 days in Brittany. So, instead of visiting key marginals and penning colourful profiles of battle-weary candidates, I found myself absorbing mountains of fruits de mer and plying a stately breast-stroke in the Baie de Quiberon. Sheer heaven. We scarcely saw a cloud the whole time - but how I wish I'd been taking the political temperature in Blackpool North & Fleetwood or Batley & Spen.

Not that our time on the craggy peninsula was without its hiccups. Before we moved into our gite, Mrs W insisted that we should spend a night in a former priory near Auray, so that we could use some accommodation vouchers she'd purchased from the ferry company. Even before we got there, I thought it a bit rum that this monastic institution should now provide 71 hotel rooms. In retrospect, I wish I had followed my instincts and turned back at the series of signs on the drive: "Bienvenue", "Welcome", "Willkommen". Any place so effusive in its greeting is to be avoided. In fact, the medieval abbey was merely a front for a vast modern extension decorated in le style American tacky. Our pokey room was a nightmare in orange hessian. "Still, you said you wanted somewhere quiet," the memsahib reminded me. Fatal words. No sooner had I laid head on pillow than the muffled beat of a pop group started. The percussion was intermittently augmented by a prolonged clanging in the adjoining cell caused by some emergency plumbing work. After only an hour or two, this divertissement was replaced by an unearthly caterwauling which continued into the small hours. Rabbinical chants? Avant-garde scat singing? A black magic sabbat? As we thankfully skedaddled in the morning, we encountered the cause of our nocturnal disturbances, a gaggle of carefully coiffed mademoiselles and one or two soigne men with unfeasibly elaborate moustaches were gathered under a sign for "Hair Club de France". We had heard karaoke by a contingent of crimpers.

Our gite turned out to be a micro-chateau with blue shutters in the depths of the Breton countryside. Under the glowing crescent tail of Hale- Bopp, a river dreamily inched past our front door. Despite this splendid isolation, we found we had not sundered all links with Blighty. One of our predecessors had secured a bridgehead for English gastronomy in the birthplace of haute cuisine by endowing our gite with two tins of Safeway's "Savers" baked beans. Though ours was the only house on the road for perhaps five miles, we found our exit blocked one morning by a camper-van. Sprawled in a folding chair, its occupant was enjoying the morning sun. Rather than point out his idiocy in my creaky French, I negotiated a long and tricky reversal. As we drove by, this innocent waved at us in a cheery greeting. Needless to say, his vehicle bore UK plates.

Even when crowded on Sundays, French seaside towns are wonderfully clean and pleasurable compared to our seedy, down-at-heel resorts, so liberally endowed with bingo arcades and tattoo parlours. With its craggy cliffs, golden beach, tiny fishing harbour and lighthouse, Port Maria on the presqu'ile (almost-island) of Quiberon is pretty much the Platonic ideal of a holiday spot. No wonder visitors want to take some of its glitter away with them. And the local gift shops do their best to oblige with models of fishing boats, bathing huts and old salts. (Brittany does a good line in the real thing, complete with roll-neck jumpers, surf-white beards and the obligatory oar over one shoulder.) But it seems odd to me that people are willing to pay for marine souvenirs when they are freely available on the beach. In no time at all, it would be possible to gather a rich haul of shells and dried seaweed. Strangely enough, Mrs W did not appear overly entranced by my money-saving proposal. Instead, she rashly invested in two miniature trawlers and a lighthouse. But I think my souvenirs will last rather longer. From one of Port Maria's fish canneries (the town has a Steinbeckian profusion), I purchased a massive hamper of tinned sardines. It was only when I opened the box at home that I discovered the tins were of the old-fashioned roll- top variety (no ring-pulls) - and no opener was provided. Still, nothing wrong in letting them mature for a decade or two. I recall that Oscar Wilde's son, Vyvyan Holland, presided over a society devoted to the appreciation of vintage sardines. If this fishy fan club is still going, its members need look no further for a substantial degustation of Quiberon '97.

Though France remains a culinary paradise, there are disturbing signs of declining standards of taste. By far the most popular restaurant in the area where we stayed was a ribs'n'burgers joint called Buffalo Grill, which would not have looked out of place in the soulless outskirts of Phoenix or Des Moines. Similarly, the inexplicable French passion for shell-suits shows no sign of diminishing. But oddest of all is the national cloth-ear for music. In quite a posh restaurant, I found my coquilles St Jacques accompanied by Elvis's rendition of "Rock-a-Hula Baby", while Rod Stewart's "Do ya think I'm sexy?" echoed in my head for a week after I'd heard it blaring from loudspeakers in a supermarket carpark. Still, Brittany appears to be producing its own pop culture. At least I thought so when I saw scores of posters for a local band called "Shanghai". Le heavy-metal or Oriental techno-rap, perhaps? Well, no. Closer inspection revealed that this trendily-named combo specialises in "chansons marins".

Still, I'd prefer an evening of shanties to Rod the Mod.

Despite Brittany's pride in its Celtic roots, you'd be hard pushed to spot any sign of it in everyday life. For all my efforts, Mrs W adamantly refused to don the traditional foot-long starched headdress. But, in one respect, we joined wholeheartedly in Breton habits. Many visitors may on one occasion accidentally buy sour milk (lait fermente) for which there is a perverse local liking. But to make this mistake twice shows real persistence.

According to the statistics, the French are not averse to alcohol, though my Parisian friends are appalled when I suggest a second bottle of wine at dinner. Certainly, to see anyone who is actually drunk is a rarity. Just our luck then to run into one of the few boisterous sots in Brittany. It was in a dockside bar and he was not exactly aggressive, just a bit feisty. Noting noisily we were rosbifs, he staggered over to our table and stood there for a while swaying. "Ha! Twickenham!" he eventually jibed, adding for good measure, "Eric Cantona!" Encouraged by the amused approval at surrounding tables, while our cheeks shone as brightly as the Quiberon lighthouse, he broadened his attack. "William Shaksper! Blurgh!" he grimaced and made a plunging gesture with his hand. (I tried responding with a "Moliere! Blurgh!", but it had little impact.) "Madame Tatcher! Blurgh!" he hammered on. Now with the attention of the whole bar upon him, he achieved a final crescendo of disgust "JEAN MAJEURE! BLUUUURGH!" and crashed his hand into the floorboards. I wonder if he'll be proved right?