Apparently, lots of people are leaving their summer holiday bookings to the last minute this year in the hope of picking up a bargain.
This is a good idea in theory but in practice it may mean that although you were hoping for ten days in Lanzarote, being a cheapskate has left you wandering around the hinterland of an unpronounceable country somewhere clutching your pre-packed sandwiches.
Just in case, I thought some practical survival tips might be appropriate.
Imagine for example that, on your travels, you find yourself face to face with an evil looking bear (they're not called 'grizzly' for nothing).
Every pore of your being will scream 'Leg it!' but you'll have a vague recollection of reading somewhere that what you should actually do is remain motionless in order to confuse the beast.
Then, while he's looking bewildered you must walk past him nonchalantly, preferably whistling a medley of Andrew Lloyd Webber show tunes.
Wrong.
Run away as fast as you can screaming for your mother.
Survival manuals are filled to the brim with this nonsense.
Who, upon finding themselves sinking in quicksand, for example, is really going to try to lie horizontally and remain as still as possible? It's obviously better to go down amid a blaze of flailing limbs and muffled yelps than to sink stoically away, inch by excruciating inch.
Always choose the more entertaining option, that's my advice.
Similarly, what kind of fool would adhere to 'expert' counsel when faced with a riled bull? Apparently you're supposed to run around in circles.
Well, look, it may be a perfectly sound theory based on the limits of the physiological structure and capabilities of the animal in question (and, indeed of the bull), but what will happen in practice is that you'll get very dizzy and fall over and said animal will gore you and your spinning bonce, all the while breathing flames through its nostrils.
It's quite clear that the correct course of action is the same as for the bear.
Run away.
If he catches you well, er, bully for him.
Conventional wisdom also has it that if you ever find yourself face to grinning face with shark with the munchies, the wisest move is to punch him firmly on the nose.
Well, I'm no Jacques Cousteau, but from the little I've learned from having the odd bath, it seems obvious that all movements performed under water happen in a kind of slow-motion that takes all the force out of your endeavours (I refer in particular to trying to grab the soap).
Biffing a shark on the old schnozola would be the equivalent on land of tickling Mike Tyson on the nose with a feather and calling his wife a tramp.
I've got a much better idea: climb on the shark's back and ride him like a bucking bronco.
He'll never be able to reach you because of his big thick bully-boy neck and you get a free ride to the next stop - the nearest whiff of blood.
In the same vein, if one day one of the Hounds From The Gates Of Hades comes at you salivating, they say you need to keep your wits about you and stick both of your hands in its mouth (no, really) holding the upper jaw with one and the lower with the other.
A swift tug outwards and bob's your uncle, you've successfully defacilitated the operating mechanism of the creatures rabid mandibles.
Either that or it's bitten your hands off.
To be on the safe side, I would suggest you boot it.
Oh, and then run away, of course.