As our aircraft glides over Cuba and across the Caribbean Sea, the businessman in the seat across the aisle who has been holding forth on how the Third World has only itself to blame, switches to travel. ‘Instead of Argentina you should have gone to Greece’, he tells me, unmindful of the fact that I would miss the economics conference which is the sole purpose of my travel. ‘The fish in Greece is better than anywhere else. Some of the fish soups are just heavenly.’ He continues on the subject of fish for what seems like eternity. ‘Just walk into any restaurant and say “fish” and you can't go wrong in Greece.’

‘It was also the cradle of Western civilization,’ I interrupt, emphasizing the ‘also’ in order not to offend his sense of priorities. I think he mis-hears ‘the cradle’ for he assures me that if it were crab I wanted, crab I would get. Fortunately, we hit turbulence and the theatre of the absurd comes to an end.

Around noon we are in Buenos Aires. This is the first time that I am in the southern hemisphere of the Western world. The sloping winter sun and the chill in the air in late August seems strange. In some areas the primary colours on house façades create an urban landscape of unmatched beauty, like nothing I have seen before.