This week's Saunders...

Each nation has its own wonderful peculiarities. The French are gourmands, the British scrappy in the face of hardship, the Belgians - well, I don't know any Belgians. The Belgians are, we must conclude, a secretive, ashamed people.

The Canadians are an ice-skating race, Iraqis apparently enjoy being invaded, the Brazilian national costume is a bikini. What a wonderful world, so full of variety!

Americans are perfectionists. We look around and think: nice world - can we make it better? Feeling inadequate, we aspire to perfection. If only we could become perfect, we feel, we might yet be worthy of love.