I asked many friends if Australian anti-intellectualism was still a living force and they all told me it was. If you are above average intelligence, hide this embarrassing fact.

A foreign observer is struck by our gentleness: by the orderly behaviour of the English crowds, the lack of pushing and quarrelling, the willingness to form queues.

It is often said that the Japanese are extremely clean at home, or inside any house or office, but dirty and untidy outside. 'Go and look at a railway station,' I was told, 'and you'll be horrified.' I went and was horrified; horrified by the cleanliness of the place.

It was decided almost two hundred years ago that English should be the language spoken in the United States. It is not known, however, why this decision has not been carried out.

In England the boy pats his adored one on the back and says softly, "I don't object, you know." If he is quite mad with passion, he may add: "I rather fancy you, in fact.

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.

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.