When a wicked and unworthy subject annoyed the Sultan of Turkey or the Czar of Russia, he had his head cut of without much ceremony; but when the same happened in England, the monarch declared : "We are not amused".

The country has always been governed by a coalition but today it is governed by a so-called Grand Coalition which is a more polite word for all and sundry.

Nobody uses his car in New York, because so many people use it that traffic is congested and unbearably slow.

People on the Continent either tell you the truth or lie; in England they hardly ever lie, but they would not dream of telling you the truth.

When people say England, they sometimes mean Great Britain, sometimes the United Kingdom, sometimes the British Isles, - but never England.

A great deal of the pupils time was spent going through, once again, the History of the Communist (Bolshevik) Party of the Soviet Union. He had learnt it at elementary school; at secondary school; at his sports club; at the Komsomol; at the university; at a folk dancing course; at the chess-club.

Bargaining is a repulsive habit; compromise is one of the highest human virtues - the difference between the two being that the first is practised on the Continent, the latter in Great Britain.