To commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the first Gerard Hoffnung festival, I'm currently updating his Advice to Foreign Tourists (of the "have you tried the famous echo in the Reading Room of the British Museum?" variety). For example, "it's considered rude to tip London taxi drivers: instead, call them by their friendly Cockney nickname - "scumbag" - and ask them to clean the dog dirt from your shoes in the traditional manner (with their tongue)." Also, "if you can vault the ticket barriers on the Underground, you are permitted to travel free of charge." And finally, "before attending The Last Night of the Proms, make sure you visit the official Summer Proms shop (called the Ann Summers shop), ask for a 'three-hole doll', fill it with helium gas, and release it into the auditorium as the choir sing Jerusalem."

As it happens, I attended Saturday night's concert (sans blow-up doll) but, whereas at home I've always sung along with the BBC1 live relay, in the Royal Albert Hall I felt strangely alienated from the event. On television, the audience seems tiny and relatively unimportant, and the sound balance is perfect, but in situ I was a mere dot trying to hear the orchestra though a muddy acoustic. More curiously still, the cameras exaggerate the number of Britons with flags and give the impression of a vast patriotic occasion, when in fact I was surrounded by foreigners, the only nearby Union Jacks belonging to a German couple, and a Japanese businessman who gamely sang "Rand of Hope and Grory." It was then I realised that the whole event is not a national celebration at all: it's a huge joke at Britain's expense. These foreign tourists were gaining revenge for all the bogus advice Hoffnung once gave them by block-booking seats and waving a few flags about, thereby perpetuating the foul canard that we Britons are an incurably jingoistic bunch.

I hoped I'd enjoy the concert more on video when I got home, but something was wrong there too. Instead of the comforting face of Richard Baker, there was James Naughtie in the box (who I'd seen earlier, vainly rearranging his few remaining strands of hair, Bobby Charlton style), boasting that the broadcast would be "seen in countries as far afield as Japan" (where, presumably, it's scheduled as comedy and viewers collapse in hysterics as this pinprick of an island absurdly claims that it still rules the waves). He repeatedly told us that the Promenaders were an institution, though many looked as though they should be in an institution - an overwhelmingly male sea of decorticated first year physics undergraduates in their fifties, whose mothers long for the day when they'll finally be able to tell neighbours "he's bringing a lady friend home for tea on Sunday."

Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge fan of the Proms, and Nicholas Kenyon, in his first year as director, has scheduled the best series in living memory, but the Last Night is more of a party than a serious concert, and it's hard not to look foolish at a party. Nevertheless, the music was mostly superb - notably Poul Ruders' Concerto in Pieces (an imaginatively antiphonal composition that deserved a place in the second half) and the night's star work, The Sound Barrier by Sir Malcolm Arnold. Arnold (whose Grand Grand Overture for three vacuum cleaners and floor polisher was performed at the first Hoffnung concert) is our country's most underrated musical genius, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra were genuinely moved and moving as they played. But sadly we then had the embarrassing sight of classical musicians letting their hair down by performing Rossini's cat duet, while the audience did what ordinarily staid classical audiences always do. They roared with delight at each meeow, laughing so immoderately that I worried about their physical welfare. If they could laugh this hard at nothing, could they make it through an entire episode of On The Buses without suffering a stroke?

As the Promenaders gave the bust of Sir Henry Wood a hearty three cheers, my hip hoorays were celebrating the departure of Lady Drummond, whose disgraceful no-noise policy last year so nearly ruined the Proms for good. His disappearance is a delight, but the departure of Richard Baker has been a disaster for television. Naughtie's dour performance lacked Baker's gravitas and impeccable timing, and there's now a yawning chasm at the centre of the BBC's coverage. Like a genial uncle, Baker always coped with the general silliness yet still possessed the authority to stay on schedule, unlike Naughtie who humiliatingly crashed the opening of Pomp and Circumstance. BBC, you have been warned. Persuade Richard Baker back, or next year I'll release the helium-filled doll.