MEN are twice as likely as women to upset holiday plans. These are the findings of a survey that found its way into my email inbox while I was away on holiday (without hubby – so any mishaps were entirely own making).

These surveys are ten a penny in my business, and it’s tempting to dismiss them as piffle; the stats offered as “market research”, little more than a thinly disguised puff for some product or service (in this case, bottled water).

But the key assertion that men were more likely to upset the vacation applecart than women rang true with me.

Many a dinner party anecdote has been concocted from the ingredients of my other half’s travel troubles.

Like the time we travelled halfway round the world to Hawaii – and he spent the first week in bed after picking up a nasty virus on the plane.

Or the self-catering holiday to Sardinia, where he hurt his back handling the luggage and was bed-bound for the first five days, leaving me and our two-year-old in a tiny village and at the mercy of feral dogs and a shop that kept very unpredictable opening hours.

Before you judge me too cruel, after all illness and injury could befall any one of us on vacation, let me tell you about our trip to Grenoble.

We’d flown to the French city with plans of hiring a car and touring the Alps. Cue our first night in bed and instead of whispering sweet nothings into my ear, my beloved was confessing how he’d forgotten his driving licence.

Then there was the time we’d flown back from Amsterdam into Leeds/Bradford. It wasn’t until we got home and my hubby placed the luggage he’d collected from the carousel on the hall floor that I realised he’d picked up the wrong bag.

A call to the airport later, and we were informed the owner lived in Doncaster, was desperate to have the bag returned because it was packed with Dutch cheese. Moreover, I couldn’t get our bag back until we had delivered the cheese-filled one to its rightful owner in Donny.

Memorable too was the weekend camping in the Lake District. The forecast was for heavy rain, so I suggested we abandon the idea. But I was over-ruled with the assurance it would be fine “as long as we got the tent up while it was dry”. This happened, then the heavens opened – and didn’t close for the next few days, forcing us to abandon camp and scurry home, sodden and scowling.

Of course, worse things than this happen to people on holiday. In Family Fortunes-style, the survey found the most common mishaps suffered by Brits abroad were, in first place: transport problems; in second place: the hotel wasn’t right; in third place: lost luggage; in fourth place: visit to hospital and in fifth place: getting food poisoning. Five per cent of people surveyed said their holiday mishap involved splitting up with their partner – which is probably the sort of break few of us have in mind when planning the annual getaway.

SORRY is the last thing I feel for the not-so-poor folk who bid thousands for Olympic tickets and still don’t know if they have a seat for the first round of handball or the men’s 100 metre final.

So much for the people’s games – more than 250,000 people who bid for tickets have got nothing.

The bidding system favoured the rich; people like insolvency practitioner Stephen Hunt who applied for £36,000 worth of tickets and ended up with a clutch amounting to £11,000.

Those who missed out have been promised first bite at the remaining tickets after the June 24 deadline.

Chances are though, the best seats at the most popular events will have been snapped up.

Not exactly a great example of British fair play.