Dirk turned on the car wipers, which grumbled because they didn't have quite enough rain to wipe away, so he turned them off again. Rain quickly spec… - Douglas Adams

"Imagine" he said, "never even thinking, 'We are alone,' simply because it has never occurred to you to think that there's any other way to be."

"A cup of tea would restore my normality."

[Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Screenplay]

There is a feeling which persists in England that making a sandwich interesting, attractive, or in any way pleasant to eat is something sinful that only foreigners do.

``Make 'em dry,'' is the instruction buried somewhere in the collective national consciousness, ``make 'em rubbery. If you have to keep the buggers fresh, do it by washing 'em once a week.''

It is by eating sandwiches in pubs on Saturday lunchtimes that the British seek to atone for whatever their national sins have been. They're not altogether clear what those sins are, and don't want to know either. Sins are not the sort of things one wants to know about. But whatever their sins are they are amply atoned for by the sandwiches they make themselves eat.