Britain's Olympic athletes came home from Beijing last week, their record 19 gold medals around their necks.

“I am so proud of my country,” Rebecca Adlington, the 19-year-old winner of two swimming golds, told The Mail on Sunday. “For me, being British is about politeness, kindness and fair play.” In the Olympic village, other countries' athletes had pushed in the queues, she said. Not her team mates. “The Brits are saying things like, ‘Sorry, you go first' and opening doors for people . . . It makes me feel very proud.”

On the same day, The New York Times reported from Greece on another crowd of British youngsters: “They are the ones, the locals say, who are carousing, brawling and getting violently sick. They are the ones crowding into health clinics seeking morning-after pills and help for sexually transmitted diseases. They are the ones who seem to have one vacation plan: drinking themselves into oblivion.”