It seemed terribly small-minded at first. I have rarely seen so many prohibitory notices on one stretch of railings - do not feed the seagulls, do not ride your bike, do not park here, do not remove material from the beach, no dogs. We noticed again that phenomenon of the English seaside: couples who drive to the front and park, gazing glumly out to sea, occasionally pecking at small packets of sandwiches.
Perhaps they were afraid that by leaving the car they would risk infringing one of the many ordinances. Others were bolder, and ate their food outdoors, as the cold wind swirled round them, flapping their anoraks and whisking cheesy Wotsits towards the hopeful gulls.
So it was something of a surprise to find that the town has its own nude beach, though with the temperature at around 10 degrees, it was less astonishing to find it empty. But it must be one of the finest nude beaches in the world. In the Permian period, 290m years ago, Budleigh Salterton was on the equator, and the great red rocks which make up its cliffs are geologically the same as in the Namib desert.
Since then the town has been steadily moving north; the weather is chillier, the railway has come and gone, and Millais painted The Boyhood of Raleigh here - you can identify individual stones in the wall where he posed his two sons as young Raleigh and his chum
This whole stretch of coastline, roughly from Poole in Dorset, west to Exmouth, has been designated a Unesco world heritage site, which means that Budleigh Salterton finds itself in company with the Great Wall of China, the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand Canyon, all of which, it must be admitted, are ever so slightly more spectacular.
· That night I watched the Comedy Connections show about Not the Nine O'Clock News. It was funny and enlightening: I was pleased to hear their filthy farewell song Kinda Lingers (pronounced somewhat differently) though I would love to have seen again the disgusting "extra mozzarella!" sketch, which still puts people off their pizza.
What puzzled me came at the end, when someone announced that it was the first comedy series that didn't take authority seriously. Was it? Really? What about TW3? I thought NTNN was pretty neutral about politics on the whole, with jokes at the expense of rock singers, TV stars, and punks. Even Pamela Stephenson's unusual method of welcoming an American Express customer - she took off her blouse and, well, you can guess the rest - doesn't strike me as exactly subversive.
I would be more impressed if someone declared that their comedy series had the aim of supporting the government. "The only instruction we had from the BBC was that there were no holds barred! We could take the mick out of stroppy trade unions, Travellers, so-called asylum seekers, and the poor.
"No one had ever seen the comedy potential of going for unemployed miners, or people on long-term incapacity benefit. We didn't care who we attacked, so long as they were powerless ... " No, everyone has to claim to be a revolutionary, now with a honey-coloured house in the Cotswolds and a conservatory.
· Our next stop was France, where we found the kind of media Tony Blair would love at home. The big story is the referendum next month on the European constitution, and the mainstream media are all in line. No politician is too obscure or too discredited to be encouraged to say what a disaster it will be if the electorate votes the wrong way.
Ouest-France, the local paper in Britanny, carried a long interview with that creepy old chancer Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, in which he blamed the media for the fact that the polls show a steadily increasing majority for non (53%-47% according to Paris-Match this week), while any half-rational person would see that the media is desperate for a oui, since a no would be a terrible blow to the cosy cartel of pols and hacks who have governed France roughly since the Permian era.
Giscard also said people should bear in mind that the new constitution, far from being an Anglo-Saxon Friedmanite/Thatcherite, rightwing plot, holds on to the common agriculture policy - which is precisely what Tony Blair would like us to forget.
· I hadn't been to Britanny for years. It's lovely, like Devon and Cornwall without the crowds, and with wonderful food. Our friends are British, but have yet to be burned out - in fact, they have met with little but kindness and welcome. There are endless small discoveries: churches with strange, Byzantine bell-towers, tiny dirt roads that lead to sensational sea views, cliff-top restaurants where a dozen plump oysters cost a third what they would in England. The architecture is endlessly weird - houses you might find in an English suburb or in Budleigh Salterton are next to something that might have accommodated the Addams family, all Gothic towers and crenellations.
In this part of Britanny you rarely hear Breton spoken, though all the signs, including in the supermarket aisles, are bilingual. Many of the locals are stocky and barrel-chested, so you find yourself towering above them, though you would be pretty sure to lose a fight. Our friends have an old print of four girls, say six years old, all looking truculent and tough.
You can tell a prosperous town by the shops devoted to things nobody actually needs, such as perfume, gifts, and exotic foods.
We found three luxury lingerie shops within a two-minute walk, selling wispy bits of lace and silk. One catered for local women and offered les bonnets profonds - bra cups the size of small tents. We assumed they were a joke, but they were real, and might have been for Y or Z cup women. As I said, full of surprises.