And call me a pig, but isn't it brilliantly refreshing how early the Dutch eat dinner? When they're still laying out the cutlery in achingly hip Barcelona, they're hanging the Closed sign on the restaurant doors of old Amsterdam.

Surely being a Professional Beauty - let alone an ageing one - is one of the most insecure and doomed careers imaginable.

Here in Barcelona, it's the architects who built the buildings that made the city iconic who are the objects of admiration - not a bunch of half-witted monarchs.

When actresses jump on the anti-Iraq bandwagon, they often combine down-home momism with an ignorance of Islamist intent which is truly awesome.

The terrorist attacks were a tragedy for the people who died or were injured, and for their families and friends. For the rest of us, they were a wake-up call as to what type of lunatics we are dealing with. And sleepwalking our way back into ill-sorted, dewy-eyed people personal politics is the last thing we need to set us up for the fight ahead. Come on you liberals, don't give me the morbid pleasure of saying, 'I told you so' again.

The money I pay for my cultural experiences came willingly from my own pocket - they were not the result of bread being removed from the mouths of the poor so that Miss Thing here could mince off to the circus smelling of roses.

Amsterdam has more than 150 canals and 1,250 bridges, but it never seems crowded, nor bent and bitter from fleecing the tourist.