I read this article, Camping tips: packing and pitching in the Telegraph today (well to be honest I got a third of the way through and gave up). It purports to give advice to those thinking of going camping but, it was obviously written by some hack who hasn't camped in years (if ever). Articles like this are quite common these days as camping is getting popular and they always annoy me.

So to put the record straight I'd wanted to point out a few errors in the above mentioned article.

"these are the essentials to pop in your rucksack"

Rucksack? Go to any campsite in the UK and you would be hard pressed to find any backpackers. On our last weekend away I saw one set of bicycle tourers, a couple of motorcycle tourers and that's it.

Campers in general pack cars, roof-boxes and trailers not rucksacks.

"Food (couscous is brilliant – avoid tins and anything ambitious)"

Avoid tins? So, that's food that: doesn't leak, keeps for a long period of time without needing refrigeration and can provide a quick and easy meal with limited cooking equipment. Avoiding tinned food makes no sense at all, unless you are the mythical backpacker that the articles writer assumes all campers to be.

We always take tinned food and so does everyone I know. Couscous is nice too but a bit of a faff to make.

"Frisbee (entertainment and plate rolled into one)"

Here we go again, campers don't use real plates they have to use bits of skanky plastic they've been throwing around a field.

Sorry to kick this one into touch but you would be laughed off the site if you were eating out of a Frisbee. Boring as it may be campers eat off plates. Backpackers trying to save weight are more likely to eat out of the pan they cooked the dinner in (as it's clean and designed for the job) and leave the Frisbee at home.

"Camping is about being free and easy, so try not to pack the kitchen sink (if you really need one, you can fashion one out of twigs when you get there)."

Fashion a sink out of twigs, that I have to see. Alternatively (back in the real world) you can use the one attached to the toilet block, the big stainless steel kitchen sink (yes an actual kitchen sink with hot water and everything) that the campsite provides for you to wash up in.

I am going to stop there but feel free to post other interesting snippets you find at odds with the reality of camping for most of us.

I hope that camping loses the novelty status it seems to have at the moment and becomes so mainstream that the papers stop feeling the need to write badly researched drivel about it, like the article above.