The best thing about this column is being able to share all my Basil Fawlty moments with you all. Which brings me round to my most recent incident – baked beangate.

Because I’ve recently discovered that posh hotels don’t consider baked beans worthy of their menus and I want to launch a campaign to reinstate them.

On a recent trip to Blackpool, the enormous cooked breakfast ticked all the boxes – tables piled high with bacon, eggs, toast, hash browns, sausages and baked beans, all of which are an absolute must.

And yet venture somewhere posher, or is it further south, and baked beans are impossible to get hold of, the good English fry-up being replaced with kippers, eggs florentine or smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. But ask for beans on toast and the surprise is palpable – ‘why would you want beans if you’re staying here? Don’t you realise we’re too posh for that sort of thing’.

Which perplexes me. Why are beans posh?

It’s like saying strawberries and cream, or shepherd’s pie, or Sunday roast, or bangers and mash are too posh. Too posh for whom exactly?

Beans are classless, a British institution that transcends the social system. You can imagine the Queen and Prince Philip sitting down to a nice supper of beans on toast balanced on trays on their knees while watching Only Fools And Horses on TV.

However, one recent London hotel I stayed in realised that ‘no’ wasn’t going to work with me, when I asked for baked beans on toast, but you could sense their alarm.

It was five-star after all and what the guest wants the guest gets. You could almost see the maitre’d pointing to the newsagent’s on the corner and sending one of the waiters off to buy some Heinz beans.

The beans arrived resplendent in a bowl with a spoon (I kid you not) half an hour later with all the staff beaming in delight, as if presenting me with an award. I’m surprised they didn’t applaud.

“Will there be anything else madam,” they asked.

‘Some toast?’ I said trying not to howl with laughter at the Fawlty Towers-type scenario enfolding before me. And when the Asian waiter brought the toast back, he asked shyly: “So what do beans actually taste like? We cook them in curries and serve them with fish.”

Where do you go with that? Because trying to describe the great British institution that is the baked bean is harder than you think.

“Well they are tomatoey and sour but sweet at the same time,” I managed.

But then it’s a bit like describing Marmite, which is also notably absent from breakfast tables.

“Let’s just say both are part of our nation’s DNA and I personally can’t start a morning without either,” I finished, hoping he wouldn’t ask about black pudding.

More tea, vicar?