Where can you glimpse the Union Jack or the St George's Cross these days? Seen as too partisan and tainted by their right-wing associations, the flags have all but disappeared from along our high roads and outside council buildings. But never fear, those who still need such totems in order to feel powerful can pop along to a football or rugby international, where the flags are still waved with furious abandon. Better still, hop aboard a ferry to "Europe". Here, the flags of each nation (but particularly the UK) are flown day and night by men aged between 18 and 30.

A few summers ago, I was introduced to a group of tattoo-bearing English warriors who travel to Spain in the summer and stay on an island, described by one as "Sunderland wi' sand", a pretty place once known as Majorca. Arriving at our apartment late in the evening, my friend and I sighed with pleasure at the quiet setting of little bridges and walkways crossing a long, looping swimming pool. Crickets chirped all around and we could hear (faintly) the surf lapping at a golden beach.

The guide pointed out our balcony and, craning our necks, we took in the six-by-eight-foot Union Jack hanging from the apartment above. Written on it in large white painted letters was: "HULL RULES THE WORLD" (and, as an afterthought, someone had added "YOU BASTARDS").

The next ten days involved an expensive series of cab rides to escape from our neighbours. To be fair, the guys staying above us threw up on to our balcony only once, and despite chanting "All spics are scum" at 5am, they were just your average bunch of aggressive, sexually abusive "nutters".

After that, the Union Jack disappeared from my peripheral vision. Until, that is, I stayed in France over New Year. There, I witnessed the "seamless" changeover to the euro.

Government ministers from across the Continent have been forced to admit that they had completely failed to consider the impact that synchronising currencies during a peak holiday period would have on international tourists. That admission was of little help to the shopkeepers and hoteliers of Montchavin presenting confused and disbelieving Japanese tourists with colourful notes and shiny, tiny coins in return for the recognisable French franc. And the flashy currency converters sent out in advance were of bugger all help to businesses. How on earth does a souped-up calculator figure out the change for an eight-franc chocolat chaud and a croissant from three francs, six centimes, three euros and five cents?

Still, tourists and locals alike fought to keep their temper and their sense of humour until, by 3 January, a sort of international co-operation was beginning to appear. The tourists tried to keep their little coins in separate pockets, and the waiters smiled warmly with excessive, unGallic good humour whenever a skier made the extra effort to pay in euros.

I was beginning to think that this new, united Europe thing was really catching on, until I rubbed the snow from my eyes and noticed that a large minority of the young men were wearing their nationality like a brand label - on the outside of their clothes. There was the pale "Jock" wearing a Russ Abbot tartan bobble hat and red, spiky wig. Behind him, there was a group of English schoolboys with hats, jumpers, socks, boots, gloves and backpacks, all with the Union Jack sewn on everywhere. But the prize for the most jaw-dropping attempt at keeping a nationality alive in foreign climes must go to the Welsh. Gliding overhead in a chairlift, we Europeans were treated daily to the sight of six skiers (adults and children) wearing what looked like Disney-style dinosaurs on their heads. It was, in fact, the Welsh dragon on display.

The Union Jack, then, is still popular with sporting obsessives, drunken louts and - oh yes, that epitome of Englishness, Madonna.

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