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If there's one thing I like it's a nice broad, sweeping generalisation or a solid, dependable hackneyed old stereotype. I especially like national stereotypes.

They're harmless, fun, and probably a lot more accurate than we care to believe.

I don't care if Italians think I buy condoms in packs of 12, so that I'll have one for every month of the year, because in return it leaves me free to assume that all Italian men are mummy's boys and that a hand grenade goes off in the belly of an Italian woman the instant she gets married.

The Australians think we're all whiners. Great. It means I can continue to regard them as backward because they think the height of sophistication is to cook your dinner over a bonfire. Here, you do that if you're a tramp.

And then there are the French, one of my favourite targets for a big broadside of ill-informed prejudice.

Blah blah the war blah blah garlic blah blah berets moan moan communist tendencies drone drone referendum grumble grumble cheese smells funny.

Of course, France isn't all bad. Jeremy, who secretly likes to think he is French, always maintains that food in humdrum French restaurants is better than it is in the equivalent establishments in England.

And, much as I like to disagree with him as a simple matter of principle, on this occasion I may have to acknowledge that he could conceivably be right, technically.