Why is it so expensive to leave this country?

I know this start is a conversation killer but….I watched a great TV programme yesterday. It was about David Walliams' heroic efforts in swimming the English Channel for Sport Relief. End of that plug.

It did strike me that swimming the channel is actually quite a good way of evading modern-day piracy, which is what ferry companies seems to be doing to us on this little island. Why is it so expensive to leave this country? While technology increases and lowers costs, prices creep down and inflation is low. Yet it still costs an arm and a leg to take a short hop on a boat. You’d think a sea-faring nation we’d be able to do better that that!

Unless you have a PhD in reading timetables and an almost telepathic knowledge of arcane bargain-buys, coupled with the sheer tenacity of endurance to arrive at a ferry port on the south coast at 2am, then the reality is a ferry ticket is the price of a small house. That’s without factoring in the size of your car, height of roof rack and top box, inside leg size and hair colour. Want to travel across the water quickly and easily - No chance, Sit in line and wait. I thought the tunnel may shrink the cost and compete with rip-off ferries, not a bit of it, they both increase their prices – it must be the most expensive per mile trip, aside from the Virgin flight to outer space, and at least they don’t charge extra for a return ticket!

Swimming the channel. Suddenly seems like an easy option to me.