Travel: Milk price race

A FORTNIGHT ago a reader complained that the price of a glass of milk at a Britanny cafe was pounds 1.90; now Phil and Penny Filer write from Beccles, Suffolk.

'In the Stubaital in Austria, we thought we had found an ideal place for Alpine refreshment. A rustic farmhouse, with home-made cheese, and milk kept cool in a stream.' Not just pastoral - the setting was also highly profitable. The village shops were closed for the weekend, so the farmer sold the visitors a two-litre bottle of milk for 112 Schillings ( pounds 7). 'With a due sense of awe at Thatcherite principles at work even in rural Europe, we decided not to make a fuss; we are, after all, British.'