Paul Merton (officially a National Treasure now he has a paunch) is currently presenting Paul Merton In Europe, in which, surprise, he potters around Europe in a nice straw hat investigating the cultural idiosyncrasies of our mainland brethren.

Doubtless, he will stare on in stage-horror whist Johnny Foreigner eats/loons about/fornicates with something strange and unmentionable as we gasp into our Ovaltine and check that the front door safety chain is on properly.

And this week, he visits France.

The Brit/Frenchy relationship is a protracted and somewhat rocky one, languid Xenophobia reigning long, perpetuated primarily by the enduring contention that we think the French are lazy and the French think we’re uncultured louts. 

And in many ways, we’re both right. Spend prolonged time in France and you’ll get wound up fit to punch a granny as – again – they close the pharmacy or supermarket fifteen minutes early with a louche shrug and swan off on a three-hour lunch break when you need emergency teabags or pile cream.

Basically, if you’re waiting for something important to be done, there will be a Frenchman who should be there doing it, but is actually somewhere else enjoying a fag instead.

But what we call ‘lazy’, the French see as honest, deserved, good-living.  Share that three-hour luncheon with said Gallic individual, and it’ll be a heart-warming and fabulously sociable experience that any miserable English workaholic would do well to cultivate (albeit to a slightly less than 100% unproductive degree).

Instead of skipping all forms of living outside of the office and consequently being moody, pasty, divorced and thrashing through the  Gaviscon by the tender age of 29, perhaps kicking back and sacking things off things now and again would make that Excel spreadsheet slightly less of a spur to taking a nice nap in the gas oven.

So now, lets investigate the evidence lurking behind this here British ‘lout’ label. Well, despite an unparalleled sense of humour, as dark, dry and dangerous as gunpowder and being gestators of the best popular music in the known universe; due to being being penned up as we generally are for 18 hours a day behind a Mac, only taking eight-minute lunch breaks in the rain, crowding onto buses or languishing in traffic with only (horrors) Chris Moyles for company, we go nuts when off the leash.

Fuelled up on lager and desperate to forget that Mr Brown not only has us by the short and curlies but has probably taxed them as well, we become boorish, anti-social and – well, louty when we’re not restricted by the mores of the workplace.

I have sat outside a nice French bar and watched as an already fairly hydrated Englishman downed a pint and then vomited over himself. More than once. Again, on numerous occasions, the tranquil alpine air has been rent by none-too-dulcet English female tones, screaming ‘faaack off!’ as she wades through slush in knee-high boots, like a renegade office worker from that hideous Boots advertisement, soaked in a scary mixture of snow and Barcardi Breezer .

(And we’re way worse when we are out of our comfort zone. Other nations seem to just get on with being in a foreign country and the limitations presented therewith, but the Brits HATE not knowing where the local supermarket is or how to ask the bus driver if he stops at the tourist office. Fear makes the British prickly. I have had very polite Estonians, Spaniards, Russians and Italians timidly request help when lost in London. In France, the English virtually demand they be taken to their required destination, covering up their fear with this unique brand of shouty aloofness, barking orders at the natives like a deranged Sargent Major.)

So what will Merton contribute to traditional French/Brit relations? My guess is he’ll maintain the merry stalemate: happily clinking local booze receptacles with the Gallic in a way that makes viewers want to sell up and buy a Gite immediately. Before moving on to watch a Frenchman eat a horseburger and casually smoke near the wood pile on a building site so that viewers promptly shelve all Gite plans and give thanks to God that a massive stretch of water separates us from those raving lunatics.