Stuff.co.nz (Enlarge photo)

15/07/2008 11:55. "Oh, we don't buy much stuff from your part of the world any more. Food miles, y'know!"

"Besides," added the voice, coming from faintly sneering, ill-painted lips, "We can't go on propping you up just because you're in the Commonwealth, can we?"

I was probably struck a little too dumb by such a pompous, ill-informed tirade to fight back.

Otherwise I'd have explained that far from propping up anyone, Britain eschewed Commonwealth trade almost completely in the early 1970s as Ted Heath's Tories simpered abjectly into the European Economic Community.

I'd also have gone on to mention that European farming techniques are so arcane and inefficient, mainly thanks to French indoor sheep tending, that you could probably fly live sheep premium economy to Europe and they would still have a... // Stuff.co.nz