Last updated 11:36, Thursday, 17 April 2008

SOMETIMES I weary of living in a tourist cliché. There’s currently a rush of travel articles in the national media espousing the delights of the Lake District.

The tourist board must have been extra busy during the close season, inviting travel writers to stay in the area and write nice cute things about our attractions.

But how many times can you recycle the word “quaint” without making locals cringe? Four times in the past fortnight I’ve seen parts of the Lake District described as quaint, ranging from Patterdale village to Keswick’s Market Square.

Perhaps these travel writers are put up in such fabulous hotels that they never get out into the countryside and simply concoct their articles from the book of stock Cumbrian clichés.

Maybe it’s time they extended their vocabulary and gave us quaint oiks a break.