I am back from travelling around the England and Wales part of our great nation. And what have I learnt? I’ll tell you shortly. What I won’t do though is give you a detailed account of all that I have done for the past month; for much like when someone tells you about a dream they had, it could all get a rather boring. So, what have I learnt?

1. I have learnt that Wales really does have a phenomenal amount of sheep. They are absolutely everywhere. And more than this, I’ve learnt that there are loads of different kinds of sheep. There are white ones, black ones, ones with horns, ones with black heads, ones that are very scared and ones that are quite happy to sit in the road and stop you moving.

2. Wales is lovely. Merthyr Tydfil though is God’s unwashed armpit.

3. The Café on the Brecon Mountain Railway stinks of old chip fat. It really does make you heave. And don’t be fooled by this railway’s name. It is not a leisurely ride through the hills and mountains of the Brecon Beacons. It’s a twenty minute journey up one side of a reservoir, a stop for a nasty coffee, and then back to the stinky chip café again. It costs 9 quid for all this pleasure.

4. Don’t let anybody roll their eyes and say ‘good luck’ when you mention you’re going to Blackpool. It’s a genius place. Yes, it’s every bit as tacky as you are led to believe, but if you go there knowing that, you’ll have a whale of a time. Blackpool Tower is amazing, and the pleasure beach- well, it’s like a rollercoaster museum!! It’s simply ace. I’ve also learnt that old rollercoasters made of wood are far better than the modern ones. And that means that Blackpool Pleasure Beach is better than Alton Towers or Thorpe Park by a long way.

5. Bridlington, despite having a fish & chip shop recommended by Vic Reeves, is not somewhere one should spend much time in.

6. The west Coast of England is far better than the east coast.

7. Sellafield Visitor’s Centre is horrible and modern. It’s an ‘interactive experience’ nightmare. How I long for old museums that tell you things on noticeboards and have exhibits in glass cabinets that you can point at.

8. If you go to the Hackgreen secret nuclear bunker in Cheshire you will see the actual machine the Maggie Thatcher used in 1982 to send a message to a submarine to sink the Argentine battleship General Belgrano. 25 years after Maggie’s dainty hands were on this machine, I put mine on it.

9. Bolton Abbey is nowhere near Bolton.

10. There’s a place in the middle of England called Newcastle. It’s about 250 miles from the proper famous Newcastle. There’s also a New York, but I can’t remember where I saw that.

11. Glastonbury is a ‘challenging’ experience. I’ll say no more about it.

12. There really are an amazing amount of variations of ‘Baby on Board’ signs. I saw, princess on board, naughty person on board, tiny person on board, little terror on board, grandchild on board, newborn on board etc. etc. These signs really annoy me by the way.