It's not as if I've ever been to prison or been close to going to prison. The closest I've got is knowing people who have been in jail - after all, I was a member of Parliament - and visiting them there during their sentence.
Travelling the railways of Europe with a century-old guidebook can be disconcerting: fares, food, and drink seem shockingly expensive compared with what they were; trains and paddle-steamers run to unexpected timetables (assuming they're still running at all); and not only states but whole empires have been wiped from the map.
Few people have heard of John Hawkshaw, the engineer responsible for Brighton's sewers, but he also built the Severn Tunnel and parts of the London Underground system. Such figures, largely forgotten now, conceived an infrastructure that was perfect in its fine detail and intended to last for a century or more - as it has.
What's extraordinary about Cobra Mist, and so much of what went on at Orford, was that the public were completely oblivious to it.
I look back on my schooldays with a warm glow of nostalgia.
America, to me, is this enormous contrast between the heady idealism of founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson, who said, 'All men are created equal,' and the reality that he was himself a slave owner.
Oppositions usually say ridiculous things and must embarrassingly then ditch untenable positions.
Like so many other grammar schools that flourished in Britain before they were abolished through a mix of ideology and political folly, Harrow County was a fiercely competitive institution, where all boys were taught to strive for excellence. It was precisely because of this demanding regime that results were so good.
My favourite British line is the West Highland line. It was built across moorland where no one had succeeded in building a road. So everything in that area is there because of the railway line.
No restaurant, however brilliantly situated, can give you the constantly changing views that you can see from a railway. Revolving restaurants at the tops of tall buildings try to compete, but spinning around is no substitute for speeding along.
As a presenter, you have to speak with artificial energy and enthusiasm.
The truth is a good thing.