Lucky Mr Shannon. Plucked from the well-worn familiarity of his native Chichester, 26-year-old Pete won a competition to spend seven weeks touring the world's top 20 beaches - capering among the dunes, rollicking in the ocean, kicking off his flip-flops and scrunching the sand between his toes - and then ranking them in a special World's Best Beach report.
Shannon devised an exacting method of beach assessment, examining the sea for transparency, wave size and "creature content". He inspected the sand's colour, temperature and "sandcastle build-ability", in addition to investigating the cost of a sandwich, noise levels and the friendliness of locals.
Some 54,000 miles later, Mr Shannon returned, waving his definitive list. Top came Waikiki beach, in Hawaii. Shannon was, naturally, wooed by the malls and fast-food emporiums, as well as the ample charms of the beach itself. Lurking at the very nadir of his list came Brighton beach. He mourned its weather, its dirtiness and its lack of razzmatazz, alongside its miserable view, its murky water and its expensive sandwiches. Brighton beach also harbours "uncomfortable" pebbles and a distinct absence of both "fun" and friendly locals.
It seems that in his seven-week jaunt, Mr Shannon has forgotten a crucial point about Britain's relationship with its beaches. The British don't go to the beach to enjoy themselves, for crying out loud. Brits go to the beach so they can get some good fresh air in their lungs. We go to let our smelly dogs frolic in the surf, to swap our whey-faced complexions for a shrimpish shade of pink and to thrust our children into the grim waters, with strict instructions that they must not venture out again until their legs are entirely blue. This isn't some sun-kissed surf movie with a Beach Boys soundtrack - in Britain, going to the beach is just something you have to do. Like school cross-country, or defrosting the freezer.
We don't buy sandwiches at the beach, never mind expensive ones. We eat the potted meat butties we'd made at home. No, the only things we buy at the beach are as follows: large candy floss; portion of chips; choc ice; boules set; large inflatable ball; jumbo book of crosswords; and one of those boiled sweet dummies on a string that you can wear round your neck and suck a bit, after which it will stick to your jumper
As for the lack of "fun" activities, Shannon has seemingly never set foot in a pleasure beach. Granted, they offer an experience so decidedly unpleasurable that the name has acquired an unavoidable irony. A bit like Sunny Delight. However, in my book, anybody who has not gorged themselves on ice lollies, had three consecutive goes on the waltzer and then vomited copiously cannot be said to have had a "fun" day out.
The locals may not appear as welcoming as those in Hawaii, but this is their valuable contribution to your beach experience. They know that no visit to a British beach is complete without glowering locals incapable of telling you the way to the Laser Quest. Were you to be greeted by some grinning local in a seaside resort, you would be unnerved, or at the very least you might suspect that you had caught the wrong bus and accidentally gone to Florida.
It's well-known that a bit of dirt never harmed anyone. So quite why Shannon is maligning Brighton beach for its grubbiness is beyond my comprehension. So what if there's a little grime mingling with the pebbles? It's all part of the homely atmosphere of the British beach, a place where you can feel at ease to struggle into your trunks as your mother shields you with a towel.
Nevertheless, Mr Shannon's head has obviously been turned by all those fancy fish he's been fraternising with in foreign parts. In his pursuit of "creature content", he's evidently no longer willing to make do with used condoms and the odd jellyfish. What does he want? Mermaids?
W hat the British seaside doesn't have in glamour it makes up for in potted shrimps. We may not have the Zeta-Joneses swanning along the front, but we do have Cannon and Ball at the end of the pier. We may not have rows of palm trees, or Pamela Anderson running in slow-mo along the shingle, but what we do have is every bit as good.
For decades now, we have been peddled an image of the perfect beach, with its palm-fronded white sands and turquoise waters. We spurn our own substandard beaches and spend thousands pursuing this shrink-wrapped paradise. So it was hardly sur prising that, when Shannon alighted in Waikiki, he should declare it the perfect beach.
But Waikiki is in fact the Milli Vanilli of beaches, made up of imported sand, shipped in from nearby Molokai Island. It seems a bit unfair to expect Brighton to live up to something that isn't even real. It's like ladies fruitlessly striving to attain the air-brushed perfection of magazine photoshoots and adverts for anti-cellulite potions.
There is no shame in loving the familiar lumps and bumps of "uncomfortable" Brighton. So it's not the golden-shored haven we've been taught to dream of; the sea is murky and the pier is crumbling. But who needs the faux charms of Waikiki, when you can have fish and chip suppers, sea air and sticks of Brighton rock?
· laura.barton@theguardian.com
