It was a shock last Friday seeing my first baseball cap and hearing the first gormless ringtones in nearly a fortnight.

They were part of the rude awakening at Faro airport after our gloriously civilised holiday in the countryside of southern Portugal. We go every year and still haven't got used to the culture shock: no mobiles; no T-shirts bearing obscene slogans; nobody talking about football; no television; no pop music blaring from shop fronts. No shop fronts, in fact. Nobody lunging and snarling along stuffing fast food down the throat and chucking the wrapper in the street.

Then you get to the airport and suddenly they're all back - the yobs and oiks arriving or departing. And there's no yob like an English yob. Do you feel ashamed to be British when you see how some of our countrymen behave when they're abroad?

But listen to this if you will. "There was the opportunity only for individualism and the expressing of emotion... inefficient and unfair levies on people's savings... payment had been introduced for members of local government... a growing number of state functionaries drawing salaries from the Treasury... a marked advance in the direction of federalism accompanied by a devolutionary movement towards local government...

"In the theatre there was a movement towards lighter entertainments... in sport a growing trend to professionalism... in fact the professional spirit was making itself felt in all directions... a more scientific and less human outlook... people beginning to grow more introspective and emotional".

A summary of the decay of British society today? Actually, that description comes from a book written in 1911, The Glory that was Greece, by JC Stobart. Uncanny eh? And it just goes to show that old Lord Acton was right when he said: "The only thing men learn from history is that men learn nothing from history".

It didn't (unfortunately) take me long to get back into the swim of things. I opened the English newspapers and the whole horror story tumbled out. Blair involved in the usual slanging match over our rebate from the EU. The Tories lining up in some hideous beauty contest to pick a new leader. And all you can be certain of is that none of them will be any good - because not one of them will dare stand up and speak the truth that the EU is a corrupt shambles and we ought to come out of it; that pouring more billions into failed health and education systems is a criminal neglect of public duty; that we are grossly overtaxed.

They say that people get the politicians they deserve. My God, we must have done something truly awful to deserve this lot! For years I was a reluctant Tory, but I can't vote for them now - nor for any of the others. Everywhere you look it's lies, spin and the state we're in. The decadent classical civilisations fobbed off the disgruntled citizens with bread and circuses. What have we got to look forward to? More "reality" television; Bob Geldof's shameless sentimental self-promotion of another useless pop concert; the annual spectacle of Henman getting stuffed at Wimbledon. But there is one bit of glory: the Aussies are back.

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange.