Holy Moses! This hotel breakfast muzak is getting too much - Susan Morrison

We went to Seahouses on the north Northumberland coast for a few days’ rest and relaxation following the Fringe madness.

Charlton Heston as Moses in The Ten Commandments

Very nice it was too. The weather was ridiculously good. The sky was blue, the sea was calm, and there were a ridiculous number of benches for himself to assess. He loves a good bench.

My Yorkshire lad has taken to using one of these Nordic walking poles. He says it helps with balance and endurance.

Now, one of my husband's most striking features is his thick, wavy mass of silver hair, which is currently on the longish side. This, combined with him striding about with his staff-like pole, gave him the air of an Old Testament Prophet.

He stared out to sea looking like Chuck Heston’s Moses, only in a hoodie and with a Yorkshire accent.

Our hotel was chic and lovely, but, like so many, breakfast was marred by ghastly music seeping out over the dining room. It was a particularly grim playlist, a melancholic collection of downbeat wailers.

I wondered if it had been compiled by the staff in a moment of deep customer-hating. And it was loud, so blaring that I had to ask to have it turned down a little.

The hotel at Seahouses was by far not the worst offender. In at least two Scottish hotels I’ve been subjected to relentlessly upbeat ceilidh music at breakfast.

The accordion is a great instrument, but it is not a suitable soundtrack to the bacon and eggs.

It’s even a joke in Scotland's greatest ever film, Local Hero. Our boys and girls are having a strategy meeting in the restaurant of Denis Lawson’s hotel.

It's breakfast time. The American oilman, MacIntyre, asks if they can switch off the music. Turns out, he thinks it's awful. It was.

Why are hotels so addicted to awful muzak at breakfast? Dunno about you, but I prefer a bit of peace and quiet with the coffee and toast. I’ve been known to snarl at people for turning the pages of the Sunday paper too loudly.

It was a joke in ‘83, let's can it in ‘23.