The Brit package

The man had a south London accent, a beer gut, and an overflowing luggage cart that he had positioned squarely in the middle of a moving passageway at Gatwick airport. "Typical Yank!" he said as a woman with bouncy hair, trainers and crisp khaki trousers manoeuvred around him. He shook his head and muttered as she bounced into the distance. She had travelled thousands of miles to see jolly olde worlde England and was not going to stop until she found it. There were so many historic things to do, Beefeaters to see, fridge magnets to buy. Life was too short to stop and try to understand the insults.

That is fortunate because there are quite a few of them flying around if you care to listen. I know because for the past week I have been under cover as a Typical Yank in Tourist Britain. The disguise was easy - sunglasses, checked shirt, camera - though it was a lot harder to put the "gee whiz" factor back into an accent and attitude that has become anglicised over the years. It helped to be accompanied by three children, including a nephew who was just off the plane from a small town called White Salmon in the state of Washington and spoke perfect "gee whiz".

We started off at the Tower and ended at the Hard Rock. In between was Stonehenge, Brighton Pier, William Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Harrods, Buckingham Palace, Canterbury Cathedral and much more. We met lots of other Americans, French, Danes, Italians and Japanese but hardly any Brits. This seemed a shame because in this parallel universe the sun still has not set on the Empire. The monarchy reigns supreme, the Mother of Parliaments is a thing of wonder and Shakespeare is alive and well and trying to get you to sponsor a brick for pounds 2 in his new theatre. It is all completely unreal except for the fact that this is an industry that rakes in pounds 38bn a year and employs 1.7 million people. With figures like that, who cares if the Empire has no clothes?

It was only when we were actually standing in front of Buckingham Palace that I realised there was nothing to see. "Why is it so cool to see the guard be changed?" asked the nephew as we peered through the gates at a man with a furry condom on his head. It's the kind of question you are not supposed to ask. Instead of answering we stopped and watched as Gordon and Terri Smith of Orlando, Florida, had their photograph taken with the bobby manning the Buckingham Palace car park.

They claimed to be having a fantastic time. "We went to downtown Piccadilly last night and it was just wonderful," said Terri. Now Americans use the word "wonderful" in the same way that the British use "sorry" - as a polite way of lying - so I kept on questioning. Sure enough, they had noticed something: the natives were less than friendly. The night before they had bought a take-away and tried to eat it on a bench outside the restaurant. "They came out and made us leave. They said it was English tradition that we couldn't do that," said Terri. Then, worried that she may have been less than upbeat, she said, "But we just loved Northern Ireland. Everyone was so friendly there."

Back on the mainland, things are not so pleasant and not only because of the security alerts. It does not take long to realise that, in general, the British do not like tourists. Outside of the designated historic zones we quickly become Yanks, Frogs, Eye-ties, Japs and Krauts. "Pay attention now!" shouted a woman as her husband barked (incorrect) directions at us amid the chaos of Hyde Park Corner. Nor were Beefeaters much better. "Now we spent millions coming up with this glossy brochure, so shall we all have a little look at it and then we can see where you should go?" asked a Yeoman Warder when asked the way to the Crown Jewels. It took five minutes to ascertain they were up a flight of stairs and to the right but we didn't find that out from him.

Lots of bits of Tourist Britain are closed for repair or even just for the day but the price stays the same. It cost pounds 2.50 each to go into Canterbury Cathedral despite the fact that at least half of it (the interesting bit) was out of bounds for the afternoon. It is hard not to love this magnificent cathedral - I have donated willingly many a time - but the brochure is enough to make anyone feel unChristian. "We hope you enjoy your visit. This great building costs pounds 7,000 each day to maintain and run. We receive no state aid and depend on your donation." I guess they forgot to add the bit about how the Church owns 137,000 acres of agricultural land in the UK plus bits of central London and pieces of America too. If this is poverty, we'd all like some of it.

"I think that was a bit of a ripperoony," said the nephew after visiting the Tower. That is American for rip-off and it cost pounds 8.50 for adults, pounds 5.60 for the children and pounds 3.50 for the guide-book. "That includes the Crown Jewels," said the woman taking the cash. She also told us that we had missed the last Yeoman Warder tour and that the Raven Experience had been cancelled, though she had no idea why. The Crown Jewels were looking more attractive by the minute and so we joined the queue.

And what a queue! If Britain were to have a queueing museum - and it should - then this one would have to be in it. The tortuous route is outlined in velvet ropes which snake back and forth in a series of otherwise empty rooms. On the walls are huge screens on which the Coronation is shown to a blaring "Land of Hope and Glory". When you finally get to the actual jewels, you are transported along a moving corridor that makes it impossible to see the things for longer than a dazzling second. The queue ends with directions on how to get to the Jewel House Shop.

There is a strange symmetry between the Crown Jewels and the Hard Rock Cafe. "I guess they still serve food there," said a friend without conviction. Well, yes and no. If you want to feel like a sadster - ie, sorry ancient hipster - go to the Hard Rock. The place is full of homesick Americans who still come in droves to eat the same food they ate just a few days ago back home. You can skip the food entirely and head straight for the kiosk or shop where you can queue to spend up to pounds 255 on a bomber jacket. We preferred to spend our money on something lasting, like a bacon double cheeseburger and nachos, and as we chewed we watched one pop video while listening to a different pop song and also perusing the walls. I'd recommend Rod Stewart's leopard-skin catsuit from 1971 over the Crown Jewels any day.

At Stonehenge it became clear why there were no Brits to be seen: they were too embarrassed. It is unnerving to find one of the wonders of the world dumped by the side of the A303 next to a portable loo and an ice cream stand. What would the people who built this amazing monument think if they could see us, shuffling round the fenced-off stones while listening to little audio tour boxes clamped to our heads? Agents Scully and Mulder may say "the truth is out there" but they haven't been here. I bought a fridge magnet.

A key experience in Tourist Britain is to pay a fortune to go round London on a double-decker bus. "That will be pounds 30, madam, adults are pounds 12 and it is pounds 6 for children," said a rather nice man. The brochure owed something to Soho with its boast of "English Live Guides". We decided to try out the No 15 bus instead and soon were having an unscripted "live authentic English experience": there was a loony on the bus. He sat in the front seat, videoing other buses, while his wife sat behind him, writing down licence numbers. "Oh my God, I've got a 45 in front here," he squealed. "Let me look, yep it's the one, and here is the 23. Would you believe it? What a great day this is. I haven't seen that other one since Inverness!"

We did finally take a double-decker tour and, even with the jokes, it wasn't as good as the loony. Ellie, our "live" guide, tried hard. "Two comedians used to live on Tooley Street - one was Charlie Chaplin and the other was a man named John Major," she said as the wind whipped round. She applied more Chapstick and soon was commenting about how the Tower used to be a mint. "And with walls that thick, I guess you could call it an extra strong mint." I think I even heard the Japanese groan.

Trafalgar Square is very puzzling because it seems a very grand place to give over to a bunch of birds. Here, among the "world-famous pigeons", one can find London's "one and only licensed birdseed seller". Can this be true? Is everyone else selling birdseed illegally? Anything is possible in tourist-land, of course, and this is particularly true in this square, where the humans are even more frenzied than the birds. "Here! Here! Here!" shouted one man, desperate to attract a bird to sit on his hand. One Italian had managed to get four to line up on his arm and was turning around in slow motion as his friend circled with him, frantically shooing away other tourists as he videoed this amazing feat.

Away from this madness, the real live Britons are walking on by and the tourists are only too happy to let them. The woman with the bouncy hair does not want to meet an "authentic" south Londoner any more than he wants to meet her. The Special Relationship is one of mutual loathing, really. If Tourist Britain is a conspiracy it is a happy one. Tourists don't want to meet real people, they want to "experience" unreal things.

Last weekend the demonstrators outnumbered the pigeons in Trafalgar Square when a march for the striking Liverpool dockers turned nasty. Shops were shut, roads cordoned off, helicopters buzzed. For a brief time, the police state was on full public view. No one on the tour bus gave a damn. The question on everyone's tongue was whether this meant we would miss seeing Buckingham Palace. Long after the monarchy is dead, tourists will be queuing to see a crown that no one wears anymore. After all, this is what makes Britain great, isn't it?