You deal with it. No, you deal with it. A place where the veneer of civilisation is very thin, and where politicians almost expect to be rewarded for their criminality. A place of porcelain-fragile egos, where power is confused with greatness - yet again - and over-reaction towards the innocent is combined with dismal under-reaction towards real criminals. In a strange inversion of proper priorities, important matters are taken lightly and trivial ones taken seriously.

There are two categories of people who will never have influence with any government. First are the very small, too small for the big to need to take any notice of them. Second are the very poor, too poor for the rich to have to bother about them.

The stakes are very high indeed, yet we have a selection of Emperor Neros, endlessly fiddling. If this was a Christian kingdom you could make a fortune with those "Jesus is coming. Quick, look busy" T-shirts.

If you think politics is about great men, you're bound to be disappointed, at least in a democracy. The fact that this is a free country is a compliment to the people, not to the government.

As we all know, a large ego can go an awful long way in this game. A retired Italian MP in Rome once told me: "Politicians are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, apart from making us rich, I haven't a clue."

Perhaps we shouldn't complain too much, because we are able to do so. In the old Soviet Union people weren't just afraid to say what they thought, they were terrified to even think what they felt.

Anyway, I love living in a country where people nip down to the shop in their pyjamas.

NNN

There's a rumour going around that the three EC commissioners were spotted in a Karaoke bar singing "I Will Survive" completely out of tune.

Overheard: "The Election Commission is the equivalent of global dimming."

Dear Hum, I have a complaint. This current administration has been in power for five long years and could have done a great many things for the people, but their inept attitude to stamping out corruption is comparable to the English conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, who said to a female cellist in the orchestra: "Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving great pleasure to millions, and all you can do is scratch it."

Therefore I would like to nominate my six-year-old terrier, Kipper, for either of the Election Commissioner positions that will hopefully become vacant soon. His attention to detail, particularly when perks are on offer, qualifies him for the position. He was neutered when young and so would not cause any scandal. - James Darling, Perth, Australia.

NNN

Credit-card companies are now happily making people bankrupt to get back the money they shouldn't have been lent in the first place, which is like someone coming along to clamp your car to the road in order to improve traffic flow.

The best excuse I have heard for noise pollution: "It keeps the ghosts away."

NNN

If I've got this right, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was "killed after being betrayed by members of his own terrorist organisation", and Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has confirmed that the bounty on al-Zarqawi's head will be paid. So we have just given al Qaeda in Iraq a gift of US$25 million (Bt960 million) — no wonder they betrayed him.

"Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. May he rest in pieces." - Ezra Marsh, Quebec.

"Conventional wisdom can be summed up in a simple declaration that a nuclear Iran one day may be undesirable but not half as undesirable as a war on any scale likely to prevent it." - Simon Jenkins, The Guardian.

NNN

Sunday asides:

Although an ancient pass through the Himalayas is about to be reopened, old animosities die hard: the only direct air link between the Indian and Chinese capitals is operated by Ethiopian Airlines.

The great thing about television is that if you watch it long enough, everyone you despise will float past in a ridiculous position. - AA Gill, Sunday Times.

More than 2.5 million Europeans are buried in India.

A neighbour has just returned from India, where behind the bar of a hotel in Delhi he saw a bottle of whisky labelled "Queen George IV Whisky. Distilled from genuine Scottish grapes."

Andrew S Tanenbaum asks: Can a blue man sing the whites?

NNN

Televisions are being sold at a rate of one every 40 seconds, Victoria Beckham has taken 60 pairs of sunglasses with her to Germany, and more than £20,000 (Bt1.4 million) a minute is expected to be bet during the "Fuji McDonald Gott in Himmel One of Our Aircraft is Missing World Cup". The bookmaker William Hill received its biggest-ever World Cup bet last Monday when a man placed £200,000 on England to win. If his prediction comes true, he will scoop £1.2 million. If he loses, the bookmakers will give him a free Da Vinci Code mousepad.

My uncle took me to Old Trafford when I was nine. A real treat. United were playing Ajax Amsterdam, in the days when Ajax was still pronounced like the bathroom cleaner. Somebody spat a hot wet blob of bubble gum from way back in the stands that landed in my hair. "Don't touch it," said my uncle. So I fiddled with it for the full 90 minutes. When we got home my mother shrieked, kicked my backside and cut a bald patch on the top of my head to get rid of it. At school the next day, I was thumped for saying where I'd been and thumped again for looking like a medieval monk.

A German expat on my soi told me: "We have a joke in Germany. If you speak three languages, you're trilingual. If you speak two languages, you're bilingual. If you speak one, you're English."

Frank Marrenbach, the director of the Brenner's Park Hotel in Baden Baden said that the wives of the English players would be offered their own Japanese-style private sauna, so they would not have to confront the local fondness for going naked. "We have many people from outside who are not used to German nudity."

Compiled by Roger Beaumont