Kevin Pilley: I'm not with the tour

They open their mouths and chloroform comes out. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion

I don’t need someone to brainwash me with heritage, says Kevin Pilley.

They always want to show me views. And things. They want to show me catacombs and feed me dates. They expose lagoons to me. They introduce me to megaliths, tapestries, period armchairs and hypogaeum.

They point at things I can't see. They push rubble. And pedal art. In the form of altar paintings and flying buttresses. And important and very adult cultural things like that.

And they make me walk. While using my ears. Making outrageous demands. Expecting me to remember what they say. Expecting me to pay attention. Some even look me in the eye and talk about chiaroscuro.

They're always erudite and very nice. But not perceptive. They simply don't suspect I'm chronically date-intolerant. That too many dates make me ill. They don't understand that joining a queue outside a museum isn't the beginning of a wild adventure for me.

Narcolepsy is a man with a "Follow Me" sign.

I suffer from the braininess of strangers. I manifest the classic symptoms of a low guided-tour threshold.

I'm not a guide person. I don't do guided tours. I don't see the point. I don't need someone to brainwash me with heritage. That's what books are for. I'm a good looker-upper.

I don't get guides. Guides are stereotypes. They are — for me — people who like to wear badges because they never had a sheriff's badge as a child. They are people who open their mouths and chloroform comes out. Guides make me grind my teeth.

Guides want to walk or stand up. And I want to sit down. They always carry that "I've-made-a-decision-about-how-today-is-going-to-go" bottled water. Conspicuously without any olive. And they suffer from the chits. To get them into boring places for nothing.

Usually, being of the academic persuasion, they want to provoke thought. And succeed. Provoking thoughts of euthanasia. They haven't a clue about people. Unless they are in tombs. They are more interested in the dead than the living. So I suppose I'm biased. Maybe misguided.

The worst tour experience happened to a friend. His father died while being shown around Hampton Court. He suffered a fatal heart attack in the maze. The paramedics couldn't reach him in time. They brought the resuscitation equipment. But no emergency hedge trimmers.

In Guatemala, I had Mauricio. He gave me a tip: "In my country, everyone wants to know you as much as you want to know them. A handshake will go a long way to helping that happen."

"Provided the person is facing towards you," I said.

I went on a Morse tour around Oxford. And got caught behind a mile-long tailback of JRR Tolkien fans. At Christ Church College, having taken a detour to avoid Lewis Carroll freaks on an Alice in Wonderland lap of Oxford, I got stuck in a snarl-up of Harry Potter enthusiasts. Executing an emergency stop outside Blackwell's bookshop due to a queue of Civil War nuts, I suffered severe whiplash when I was rear-ended by the leader of the official C.S. Lewis Narnia tour.

I once had to endure a Catherine Cookson tour of Tyne & Wear made by the driver's opening line: "Good morning everyone. My name's Malcolm. I hope everybody enjoys today's tour. If you don't, my name's Brian."