It's a tricky cultural balancing act, isn't it, Annie? I guess that Cornwall for you, as Spain for me, appealed partly because of the slower pace of life. Which is great until you need a boiler fixing urgently.

I'm prepared to take the late with the chilled, but when it comes to business I think you do need to be able to snap into a time-disciplined mode, or you won't be taken seriously, as an individual, a company, or a country.

And that can have massive consequences - when the Netherlands and Sweden hold up billions in fiscal support for southern European countries, it's largely because of a perception of fecklessness and lack of effort.

Hospitals go unbuilt and teachers unrecruited because of that.