Obedient as ever, I packed some blue-veined cheese to take on holiday. This was at the request of the young hotel proprietor. I assumed that local supplies of Stilton had run out and that my purchase would revive the cheeseboard at dinner. I was half right: all the shops had sold out of cheese, but my contribution was required for a completely different purpose.

As part of a diversification strategy the hotel offered funeral parlour services. However, nobody really believed that corpses were kept on site. If lumps of cheese were left lying around to rot, the smell might persuade people that this was an authentic business proposition.