Paraguay has had a U.S. supermarket boss as its ambassador for a while. He did the job well. He was there because he wanted to be there. Rather than the British diplomat who didn't want to be there.

I wonder if this reason is partly geographical, that talk radio is so much more successful in North America than in Britain? People who are very remote - I'm thinking of Newfoundland - feel very connected though the radio.

When McDonald's opened up in Moscow - I happened to be there when it opened and wandered in. And the Russians were queuing three times around the block to get in. And when they got to the head of the queue, they'd go, "I'll have a Big Mac please. Have you the cheese and the rolls? And do you have the meat and do you have the salad?" And everybody asks this because they are so used to things being awful that it took them a quarter of an hour to order a Big Mac.

One does have to learn to travel with a degree of humility and that reflected in writing and personality.

My parents don't think about Europe at all. The Continent is somewhere else. And they call it the Continent - to reflect, they are no real part of it.

I have real fears for Cuba based on the South American experience. Where you have had such a stern regime, as Fidel's [Castro], there is no culture of politics.

My parents probably feel closer to the U.S. They feel America came to our rescue in the war and all that sort of thing. And for their generation the war still goes on. We still save food and little bits get scraped off and boiled out the next day.