Daft statistics are water off a duck's back to techie journalists. We are bombarded with surveys on this or that from companies seeking any way to get a mention and most of them have to be taken with a pinch (well, a tablespoon) of salt, especially now that we are deep into the silly season.

But the latest, from Samsung, contains a nugget of hope for those of us who have the impression that British tourists abroad look and behave worse than other nationalities.

It reveals that one in 12 (8 percent) of people in Britain "practice their beach pose" before going on holiday. This means that 92 percent of us don't, but we have to look on the bright side: some few Britons are setting us an example.

It could mean eight percent fewer men  strutting about with their beer guts drooping over their Union Flag boxers, and fewer women with their cellulite bulging from ill-advised miniskirts and bikinis.

It means more people realising that even fat people can look elegant (except, perhaps, techie journalists who must be the scruffiest bunch of professionals in the world).

The Samsung figures do look deeply suspect, however. Just 21 percent of women confessed to being very concerned about how they look in holiday snaps, which means that 79 percent were lying.

Samsung, which has just launched a new range of digital cameras, craftily points out that they no longer need to resort to scissors or a biro to eliminate images they disapprove off.  They can simply delete them from the digital holiday record.