There are those Spectator readers who are fortunate enough to own their own luxurious villas in some suitably picturesque European locale. For the rather less well-heeled remainder of us, the closest that we are going to get to these places is either putting hand in pocket and hiring an Airbnb or, if we are extremely fortunate, being invited to stay with our affluent chums. On paper, at least, it’s a mutually beneficent arrangement. The villa-owners get to be entertained (and entertaining), offering their largesse in exchange for suitable gratitude. Their guests, meanwhile, get a free holiday somewhere wonderful, away from cares and responsibilities, and spending time with dear friends into the bargain. What could possibly go wrong?  

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Well, bitter experience has taught me, and others, that when the email or WhatsApp message comes in – ‘We were wondering if you might be free to join us for a few days in Provence/Tuscany/Mykonos this August’ – that you might be as wise to write back with fulsome expressions of regret and sorrow that you are unavoidably detained the entire summer as you might be to accept with indecently hasty glee. Anyone who has ever taken another’s hospitality must be mindful of Benjamin Franklin’s adage that ‘guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.’ If the assembled guests are........

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