Shadow cabinet Imitation is supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery, but I doubt Tony Blair thinks that when he watches Rory Bremner. As my mother said on my return: "I could have told you all that without the BBC flying you to Spain." I said that I'd write to Greg Dyke telling him that the Beeb's future research needs could be instantly solved by phoning Toys Hill 538, saving millions of pounds of taxpayers' money I wasn't being sarcastic. A 10-year-old from Sussex had packed The Beano, but was highly resistant to E Nesbit's The Wouldbegoods because "nothing much happens".In other words, what people want from their holiday reading is undemanding entertainment, vicarious experience and sheer escapism. As one of our research subjects said, "you have to read it in the sun really, don't you? If you read it in a dark room, you'd slit your wrists."Two elegant, reed-thin sisters in their fifties from Glasgow were enjoying their thrillers about a US bounty hunter, but didn't think Ian Rankin was "up to much". I spotted half a dozen people reading Dave Pelzer's bruise-buster, A Child Named It, an almost pornographically detailed account of the author's abused childhood.

There were no biographies of Churchill, but plenty of Anne Robinson and Will Young. Men were reading Grisham, Clancy, Pratchett; women were in thrall to Steele, Taylor-Bradford and Cooper Both sexes lapped up detective fiction. Returning to the beach on Monday, we could only find the sort of books that make WH Smith's tills ring with glee. Neither of them expressed any interest in the Third Reich or Georgian furnishings.This couple set the pattern for our research. She read all year round; he only picked up novels on holiday, if they weren't full of "sloppy stuff". Closing in we found a girl reading India Knight's Don't You Want Me and her fella racing through Black Hawk Down.

It also became clear that the youthful male reader thought two mad English ladies of post-babe years were cruising him with intent.We were about to retreat bruised when far-off I spotted the neon glow of a chick-lit paperback. I thought I had spotted a likely suspect as I recognised the cover of Man and Boy; but, on closer inspection, the book turned out to be in German – or, rather, the international language of Tony Parsons. It soon became clear that British bookworms were thin on the ground. It wasn't until 6pm that evening, as we exited our concrete hotel complex on the beach at Alcudia, that we managed to do some research. I know the BBC." On the beach All this unwonted excitement meant that we didn't clock our fellow-passengers' reading habits. "You're joking," he said, "we'd be on a plane."A steward fed him some water, which the rocker duly drank before passing out Three minutes later he sat bolt upright and looked at me "What were we talking about?" he said "Ah, yes, the BBC. At this a middle-aged lady sitting across the way, who was staring fixedly at her feet, said in a hoarse whisper, "he's all right." "Do you know him?" asked another passenger.The woman ignored both the question and the deranged individual who appeared to be her husband and addressed her feet once more: "I tell you, he's all right." By now her spouse-type person was alert to her presence and was rocking in her direction "Where are we going?" he whimpered "To Majorca," she said through gritted teeth.

"Who's flying?" Everyone around us went deadly silent and a man stood up to summon a flight attendant. "Scared of flying?" His eyes swam half into focus for a second "Flying?" he said. Do you work for them, BBC? D'you know him, BBC?" After five or so minutes of this patter he suddenly went silent, sweat broke out on his forehead and his eyelids drooped as he started to rock catatonically."Are you all right?" I asked nervously. Then he spotted the BBC logo on Anne-Marie's travel documents "BBC," he said, "I know the BBC. We had just settled ourselves on the plane when the man in the adjacent chair started muttering to himself. Behind me Anne-Marie stood silently.The augurs weren't improved by what airlines term a "passenger incident". Desperately, I tried to quip my way out of social annihilation: "Expect you've seen worse than that before!" She flashed me the kind of look that suggested that even in the Gulag worse horrors never happened.