h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

British hotels are the last bastion of the full English breakfast.

If you look around the dining room of any hotel at breakfast time you'll see almost all diners tucking into that plate of suasage, bacon, egg, tomato, mushrooms, beans and fried bread. Now if you ask them how often they eat that lot when at home you'll get the answer of almost never. The only reason that they are eating it is because they've already paid for it along with the hotel room!

Must admit I rarely have the time to cook up the "Full Monty" at home! But to be a Genuine Great British Breakfast (GGBB) it has to be home-cooked, hotels & B&Bs never get ALL the ingredients right. Even when they try hard - and some do - they don't know exactly how you like your eggs done etc.

I noticed that the Great British Fry up scored highly in a recent programme about the nations favorite comfort food.

I can rarely face a cooked breakfast, regardless of whether I have paid for it in a hotel room rate. However, I can vouch for the fact that, after a nasty day at work, good old fashioned bacon, eggs, mushrooms and tomatos make a particularly yummy supper dish.

If you've had a rotten day today, eat an English Breakfast for your tea - I guarantee it will cheer you up!

I only ever eat a proper British breakfast at hotels and B&Bs - it's not always perfect, but when they get it right it is absolutely peerless! The absolute best breakfast I ever had was at the Fir Tree Country Hotel, Crook near Durham - about 3 or 4 years back - it was huge, (and I speak as a man of large appetites) and ALL the ingredients were perfectly cooked. It was positively storming! I still think about breakfast there. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm *drifts off into a fried haze*

...and another thing. Who the hell decided that 'hash browns' constituted an integral part of the Great British Hotel Breakfast.

Dreadful Americanisms

No, we want extra sausages made from pigs' unmentionables instead...

I rather like hashbrowns ... However, I don't think I've ever been offered them under the title of 'English' or 'British' breakfast, and I don't think that I have ever seen them on any B&B menus either. It tends to be places like bowling alleys and department stores that serve hash browns with breakfast, and nasty American style fast food outlets, obviously.

I've never had hash browns offered in a hotel or B&B as part of an English breakfast. I think I'd complain to the manager if it happened.

Obviously you are staying in 'better' hotels than me

Oh, I'm dead posh, me. I've got matching socks and everything!

yeaa righton mate, if I pay for it, stay the night, then I eat every thing in sight and steal the spare coffee and tea bits from my room. Don't need the soap and towels as I have plenty (bought ones) at home.

P.