Do I want to hate CenterParcs because I've watched too many movies? Does the fiery marriage of proletarian and bourgeois in my forebrain make me balk at the solid middle-class dream enshrined in faux-pine chalets and child-friendly leisure-zones? It is after all Butlins for the demographic more interested in beaujolais nouveau than Cannon & Ball's new show. Or is it simply that the brown-shirted fascists running the place lock you in the car park on Sunday night if you're not sufficiently committed to communal bonding to book Monday off work?
I'm sure I've been conditioned by nearly three decades of cinematic brain-washing. So, like a second-hand Billy Liar, I can't help reaching for the technicolour images that confirm my prejudices. I want CenterParcs to remind me of The Prisoner, but the architecture is too banal, I've never been chased by a bouncing ball (which in any case would contravene the traffic regulations) and I'm just not important enough to deserve such special treatment.
The best parallel I know is Logan's Run. There's a sinister geodesic dome at the heart of a hermetically sealed complex. It takes special skill and determination to escape said complex. Sandmen patrol in pairs pretending to be housekeeping staff. With a youthful gleam and white tennis socks, everyone must participate in the many recreational activities on offer. If you're caught trying to escape, or just being old and grumpy, the sandmen will vaporise you. Only one of these points doesn't quite fit CenterParcs.
Even to the well-disposed, there are more rational niggles. While no more authentically Scandinavian than an Ikea Jogesmaktergerghensdotter table-lamp, the setting of pine-clad villas among whispering trees does offer a soothing degree of detachment from the world. Then again, the cost of renting these breeze-block, self-catering bunkers is high, and the extreme cleaning regime leaves a tang of ammonia reminiscent of badly run retirement homes or cattle sheds.
The cost gets higher if you're so cosseted that you don't want half the adults in your party to share bunk beds equipped with plastic mattresses and a variety of stains, some of which could only have come from decaying corpses or full oil-changes. Such features help to remind guests that they're enjoying an overdressed 1950's holiday camp at 2008 prices.
It would be churlish to deny that I've had some high times there. It's good neutral ground for boozy parties with friends you don't see often enough, and nobody has to worry about such legal niceties as driving home or where you lay your head. If you're bloody-minded enough to get out a board game, it doesn't really matter if it takes longer then one evening. If your social life needs the equivalent of a Camp David Summit, you could do worse. Had CenterParcs hosted Clinton, Barak and Arafat, perhaps the world would be a different place.
Perhaps the real reason I find CenterParcs objectionable is this: It reminds me I'm a socially inept, childless misanthropist who never manages to get Monday off work. After all, nobody likes a calm, pine-scented know-it-all. And I always lose at badminton.
