DAVID CAMERON said this week how he loves to spend every possible moment of his Cornish holiday with his children doing simple seaside things.

And we have last year’s picture of him changing under a Mickey Mouse towel to prove it.

Just back from Cornwall ourselves – dawn to dusk sunshine, brilliant, thanks – we know there’s nothing like a British beach as the great leveller, even of posh prime ministers. All that lumpy, pink, suntanned and tattooed flesh, wriggling inelegantly back into sandy underwear.

Parents of all ages and classes saying much the same things to their children, teenagers showing off, siblings fighting, mums sorting picnics and sun cream, grandads teaching toddlers the basics of cricket.

When it works – and it quite often does – it’s a wonderful microcosm of the best of British and I love it.

Try the beach on a sunny day as people set up camp, mark out their territories with towels or windbreaks, and pretend – in that very British way – that they are completely private – even when other people’s bare flesh is just two feet away or a wandering child totters onto their rug or a football lands on the picnic.

And then, when we’ve left our little camp and wandered down to the sea, we suddenly all smile and speak to each other as though we’ve just met, as we inch our imperfect bodies into the waves.

Forget citizenship tests – just give newcomers a day on a British beach. If they can cope with that, they will soon fit right in.

STING always had a sanctimonious streak. Now he’s announced that his six children will not inherit his £180m fortune.

Yeah, right.

If he’s giving it all away to charities then good for him. Maybe he’ll buy another house – apparently he has only five or more staff to add to the 100 he already employs. They’re a one-family employment scheme.

But let’s face it, Sting’s idea of letting his kids make their own way in the world is probably a bit different from ours. I don’t suppose they had paper rounds or Saturday jobs.

They probably had the best education money can buy, a helping hand into the grown-up world and won’t struggle to get onto the housing ladder. If he just gave them each a mingy one per cent of his fortune, that’s still £1m.

On the other hand, if he hasn’t given them all that and is really cutting them off without a single penny, then that’s cruel.

A friend of mine had very rich parents who, having brought her up in great ease and comfort, then gave most of their money away.

“All my parents ever gave me,” she used to say mournfully “was expensive tastes.”

Let’s hope Sting’s children are luckier.

WELL that’s it. Football’s coming home, dull and defeated.

No wonder there were hardly any England flags around. No wonder World Cup Fever never amounted to much more than a bit of a high temperature. We all knew it was going to end like this.

So any chance of the over-paid, under-performing superstars getting a grip and stopping the prima donna act? If only.

Maybe they should have spent more time training and less time on tattoos. It would have been a start.

YOU know when your children get to be teenagers and the last thing they want to do is family holidays?

Don’t panic. After shunning us at 15, Younger Son now regularly turns up for a few days to join us while we’re away. (Including once with a hangover at our hotel in the Black Forest, after he’d done a disastrous job interview on a dodgy mobile from MacDonald’s in Zurich station.) Swimming with him in Cornwall last week was like going back 20 years – though I resisted the urge to buy a bucket and spade.

Meanwhile, Senior Son’s in laws are taking their three grown-up children, spouses and three grandchildren to a Spanish villa next month.

Make the most of those quiet holidays – they probably won’t last.