The Wiki Man: How I learned to stop worrying and love the naff

The building is somewhere on the Pembrokeshire coast, the only one in the world, and I have never managed to find it. It is the Church of St Elvis, commemorating the sixth-century Elvis (or Aelfyw) of Munster, famous only for baptising St David and for giving a name to several generations of Presleys.

I have always thought it would make an ideal site for staging my annual festival dedicated to the many pleasures which belong (with Elvis) in the category ‘brilliant but slightly naff’. Days could be spent jet-skiing or quad-biking. Food would have chips with everything, plus HP Sauce. The fun could continue late into the night, with revellers warmed by banks of patio heaters.

Americans get by without the word ‘naff’, and this may partly be because the concept is less useful to them. One of the gratifying things I noticed when I first visited the United States was that the middle-class English practice of demonstrating how posh or clever you are by affecting disdain for popular tastes doesn’t apply there in the same way. Visit the home of a Harvard professor and you’ll find cupboards full of Pop Tarts, a whirlpool bath and a massive fridge that makes ice.

These differences are particularly pronounced in attitudes to technology or labour-saving devices, which the British affect to hate. It is a badge of honour among some of my London friends not to own a microwave. Likewise the gas barbecue, an utterly brilliant device, is for some reason considered dubious.

But the most extreme British prejudice is reserved for television. There are almost no lengths to which certain people will not go to project the notion that they despise TV. I can’t help suspecting, for instance, that part of Charles Moore’s motive for taking on the TV Licensing people was that it was an extremely effective way of continually reminding people that he did not own a set.