Like most consumer trends, cabana-mania started inoffensively enough: you’d spot a few of the stripey canopies dotted about your favourite beach, make some quip about Arabian Nights, and then tut-tut virtuously as you claimed your relatively modest, towel-sized piece of sand.

Call me an old hippie, but I still believed – naively it turns out – that respect for the environment, and our hallowed coastline especially, extended beyond not littering to keeping visual pollution to a minimum as well.