Russia is terrible. It snows and snows and snows. If you look out the window and say, “It snows too much,” a Government machine reports you to the police and they lock you in a madhouse to have your brain altered. Russia is terrible.
India is not much fun. It is exceedingly hot and rains at odd times. When you say, “India should get a new Government that will do something about this heat,” the police come in the night and take you away. India is not much fun.
Northern Ireland is extremely unpleasant. When you go out for a beer they blast you into many separate pieces with high explosives and answer your children’s complaints by saying you died for the cause. Yes, an extremely unpleasant place.
Lebanon is simply intolerable. If you take a walk into town, either Moslems or Christians will shoot you down. Though its religious zeal is commendable, Lebanon is simply intolerable.
China is unspeakable. Everyone wears a quilt and behaves with suspicious sincerity. If you speak with wit or asperity, they ship you out to the country where commissars reeducate you in the evils of hilarity, the virtues of party regularity and the gravity of sex. China is unspeakable.
England is definitely flawed. You can’t get there if there’s fog. If you do, they fill you with tea and an overpowering sense of your educational inferiority. Though they don’t shoot you, jail you or alter your brain, they soak you for weeks without end in the rain. Oh, England is definitely flawed.
Saudi Arabia simply won’t do. If the Government catches you having a drink, there is no telling what it might do. And it is extremely dry there, too. Saudi Arabia simply won’t do.
Uganda is barbarous. If they don’t like your face, your thoughts or your creed, the Government seizes everything you own and ships you to England without a raincoat, although sometimes it offers to shoot you. Bah to you, Uganda. Bah.
France is out of the question. They charge almost as much as Internal Revenue, and if you despair they say they don’t care and ask why you don’t refuse to pay taxes as they do. What is worse, they say it in French. France is out of the question.
South America is almost acceptable, but only if you have no objection to being kidnapped by guerrillas, although in Chile the Government might extract your fingernails slowly, which hardly seems almost acceptable unless you are not finicky about things like hands.
Bangladesh is not everyone’s cup of tea. If the typhoon isn’t drowning you, you are either starving to death or being suddenly murdered for not being on the right side of the latest Government upheaval. Even for tastes that are medieval, Bangladesh is not everyone’s cup of tea.
Switzerland is much too clean. They rise at dawn every day and polish their money and, because they have so much of it, hardly ever finish before sundown. At sundown they take in the sidewalks to keep them from getting dirty during the night. Afterwards, there is nothing to do but join the rest of the country in taking a bath. On Mondays, they wash their paper money, and on Tuesdays, iron it. Switzerland is much too clean.
Italy is extremely risky. They send the Mafia to cut off your ear and hold you for absurdly high ransom, or alternatively, they haul you off to Pisa or Lucca for a festival and make you dance some tarantella with a lovely young creature whose inamorato will amost surely take it amiss and disfigure your nose with his fist. Italy is extremely risky.
Germany is nothing to cheer. They stuff you with sauerkraut and float you in beer and fit you in ridiculous leather pants and cry, “Ach, if only you could have been here in the old days,” and cry in their beer for the day when Americans were as rich as they and brought more money than they do today. Germany is nothing to cheer.
The world as a whole is not worth a visit. They shoot you, or starve you, cut off your ear, or bomb you. They disfigure your nose and jail you for drink, alter your brain if you say what you think; they rain on you, rob you, torture and mob you, and afterwards weep for the world that was. The world is not what it was. It probably never was. As a whole, not worth a visit.