Radio 4 is supposed to be soothing. The familiar rhythms of the daily schedule, with Woman's Hour always at ten, reminding you that it's time for coffee, and The Archers at two, signalling that lunch is at an end, provide fixed points in a turbulent world. But there's one Radio 4 programme that I find profoundly unsettling - a palpitation-inducing, mouth-drying, sweaty-palm-provoking intrusion into my life more disturbing even than being interrogated by the Stasi or trapped in a lift with Geoff Hoon. Both of those are regular anxiety dreams of mine, but neither gives me the fear quite as much as the theme music of this show.

I refer, of course, to Desert Island Discs.

It's not the format that is so distressing. Allowing the listener to glimpse someone's character through their choice of nine favourite pieces of music was a brilliant idea and is rarely less than absorbing. Mind you, they haven't invited Geoff Hoon on the show yet.

Nor is it the presenter who causes me to feel positively ill. Listening to Kirsty Young isn't quite like hearing angels sing lullabies but it comes close.

No, the problem for me is the desert island. The thought of being trapped on one is, for me, as close to terror as you can get. Fair enough, you may say. A Robinson Crusoe or Tom Hanks-style Cast Away fate might be rather disagreeable. The memory of Lord of the Flies may cause the occasional shiver. But, given that I am not an 18th-century ocean-going trader, and given that aviation is the safest way to travel, surely such scenarios are so unlikely that even the most fevered mind would be hard pressed to imagine that such a fate was a danger real enough genuinely to worry me.

But it's not that sort of desert island that worries me. And I don't have to rely on my imagination to conjure up my desert island fears. I just have to remember my seven days in the Seychelles.

It must be about ten years now since my trip to the sunshine islands suspended like emeralds in the balmy expanse of the Indian Ocean. Ten years since I enjoyed the lap of waves against the golden shores, and the relaxed lifestyle with poolside cocktails just a wave of the hand away. Ten years since I revelled in the limitless opportunities for relaxation while the cares of the world faded away like footsteps on the beach before the gently incoming tide.

And, oh, what hell it was.

I was there when the climate was perfect. I was there with a charming companion. I was there in luxury accommodation. In short, everything possible had been done, arranged or contrived to make the stay ideal.

And still I hated it.

I hated the purposeless, empty, yawning days of pure self-indulgence. I hated the idle hours spent catching rays or stretching languorously by the pool. I hated the idea of a week trapped in a gilded cage designed, apparently, for leisure but devoid of those things that make leisure hours worthwhile - opera houses and concert halls, theatres and museums, distinguished architecture and cosmopolitan urban streetscapes. Or snow-covered mountains and meat covered in cheese.

And so, when friends now let slip that they are heading off this Easter to the sun-drenched shores of island paradises, whether in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean or even the Pacific, there is no whiff of envy in the happiness that I express for them. I am genuinely delighted for the economies of these islands that enough people still want to visit them. And I am overjoyed for those acquaintances who can find some pleasure in spending a fortnight in an environment that is a cross between the boardroom of Bear Stearns and a Northern Line Tube carriage in July - simultaneously full of worried rich people, incredibly hot and frighteningly claustrophobic.

Some people find the idea of doing nothing on holiday the greatest lure of all, therefore their ideal destination is the sort of environment - a tropical island paradise - where there is nothing that can be done, no matter how hard you look. No culture to absorb, no history on which to reflect, no effort worth making beyond the most basic. On these islands the most routine activities, such as swimming, have to be made much more elaborate - with boat trips, scuba kit and dives off reefs - simply to fill the hours. But all you're doing is basically combining a trip to the London Aquarium with a dip in a lido slightly warmer than the one at Tooting Bec. And even splitting the two doesn't add up to a full afternoon for most of us.

The problem with the sort of luxurious inactivity that island holidays promote is that it doesn't refresh. It exhausts. A great deal of contemporary tiredness and irritability, the fraying of nerve-ends from which we all suffer, is put down to lack of R and R, and the standard prescription is just the sort of chill-out that an island holiday or its more accessible equivalent, the spa break, offers. But the contemporary ennui that afflicts so many of us isn't the sort of physical exhaustion after months of back-breaking labour that requires the modern equivalent of what Victorian doctors would have called bed rest. It's closer to a generalised, low-level depression provoked by the frustrations of modern life. And the best answer to any form of depression, sadness, irritation or melancholy is not idleness but activity. The best holidays are those where we have the chance to follow an interest or activity, whether music or skiing, architecture or ornithology, at our own pace but nevertheless in a purposeful way. And that's why, given the choice between a weekend in Stuttgart and a month in Mustique, it's Baden-Württemberg every time for me.

The Skoda factor

I was delighted to see that the Skoda Octavia had scooped the prize for the best-value vehicle on our roads. As a Skoda-phile I am pleased that my taste in motoring has been vindicated. But even at the moment of triumph, a worm of doubt eats away at my pleasure. Part of the joy of driving a Skoda was the knowledge that you were behind the wheel of a wonderful car that the rest of the world had been brought up to scorn. And because it was unfashionable, it was cheaper than other, more showy but less efficient vehicles. But now that everyone knows how great Skodas are, now that they have been lauded by the motoring press and critics everywhere, there is no shame in driving one - and therefore no discount on the price in future. Rather like living in an area that you helped to gentrify and can now no longer afford to live in as your family expands, or going on holiday to an under-appreciated spot that then becomes fashionable and far more expensive (how long before Stuttgart is swamped?), the pleasure in being a pioneer is soon overtaken by the cost of keeping up with all the new converts to your cause.

Which is why we need to find another family car that is reliable, a pleasure to drive, has German (of course) quality engineering and is scorned by all for its unfashionability.

All suggestions gratefully received. But really only one thing is crucial. To guarantee laughable ugliness and therefore true cheapness, it has to be the sort of car that Jeremy Clarkson would sooner have driven into his house than be caught driving.

Money to burn

And at the risk of annoying the great Clarkson even more, I have to agree with Mary Ann Sieghart. Spending licence-fee money on the rights to Formula One is ludicrous. Giving money from pensioners to some of the world's wealthiest men, to fund the screening of a sport less exciting, and harder to follow, than Crown Green Bowls is folly. And please don't get me started on the Olympics...

Michael Gove is Conservative MP for Surrey Heath

Times Recommends

• We must lead the world to stability
• The recession's a blessing in disguise
• The guilty men who sent mum to Iceland