Disneyworld…is a historical reconstruction as sanitised as the Kremlin's, and a future vision as uncognisant of contemporary pointers as Peter Pan's. It is a magic carpet under which everything has been swept.

Does not even the most sexually democratic of us, among which number I unquestionably count myself, not choke back the tiniest sob at the sight of poor old Denis Thatcher|Denis stumbling along behind, struggling pitifully to hold his trilby on, as the PM strides across Goose Green|Goose Green with the wind managing only to make her hair look more Medusan, and the very mines praying she will not crush them under-heel?

A long, soft sigh, one of those very Italian sighs that express so much, that say "Ah, signor, if only this world were an ideal world, what would I not give to be able to do as you ask, we should sit together in the Tuscan sunshine, you and I, just two men together, and we should drink a bottle of the good red wine, and we should sing, ah, how we should sing."

The word "souvenir" has, of course, slightly extended itself in meaning until it now denotes almost anything either breakable or useless; but even today, ninety per cent of the items covered by the word are forgettable objects in which cigarettes can be left to go stale.

Since Switzerland has nothing else to identify it…and since both its national products, snow and chocolate, melt, the cuckoo clock was invented solely in order to give tourists something solid to remember it by.

Having lost the last war, they are currently enjoying a Wirtschaftswunder, which can be briefly translated as "The best way to own a Mercedes is to build one."

Strictly speaking, the land does not exist; it is merely dehydrated sea.

Apart from cheese and tulips, the main product of the country is advocaat, a drink made from lawyers.

I rang room service, and asked for a bottle of Perrier, because while I was asleep someone had come in and carpeted my throat.