Because every Albanian proverb has a silver lining

Today, I am bringing you another selection of Albanian proverbs, of which I am very fond.

Today, I am bringing you another selection of Albanian proverbs, of which I am very fond.

Albanian proverbs, if you haven't come across them before, are rather different from ours. Ours tend to be short and prosaic ("One man's meat is another man's poison"; "Too many cooks spoil the broth", and so on). But Albanian proverbs tend to be poetic and evocative. You sit and think about them for a while, and savour them. Then you realise that they're either meaningless or wrong.

But see what you think. Here are a few more that I have come across since the last lot.

How can you say that nothing good ever comes of war? Have you forgotten the bouncy castle?

Even were we allowed to write our own obituaries, we would still not read them with pleasure.

To a shoplifter, there is no such thing as a luxury item. Everything is the same price to someone who does not pay for it.

Small is beautiful: the motto of the shoplifter.

There is only one edition of a newspaper that contains no corrections or apologies, and that is the very first edition. Which, coincidentally, contains more mistakes than it ever will again.

Never trust a nation that has no nickname.

Did you ever hear of an armed raid on a gun shop?

Nobody ever hunted a sheep for fun.

Mistletoe is always invisible in summer, being covered by the host foliage. That is why Christmas has to be in winter.

Never eat chocolate-covered coffee beans in a field frequented by sheep or rabbits. Or, if you do, never drop one. And if you drop one, never attempt to pick it up. And if you do, don't eat it. Because the thing you have just picked up and eaten is not the chocolate-covered coffee bean you first dropped.

A political party of the centre will be elected in Britain the same day that a British football crowd decides to take the side of the referee against both teams.

Does a bridge go over a river? Or does the river go under the bridge?

Whoever said that it takes two to tango had forgotten about the musicians in the band.

To a bicyclist, every bridge is a hill.

Plants have discovered many wonderful means of propagation, but only the dandelion procreates by tempting people to find out what the time is.

Companies are like women; they never think they are the right size or the right shape, and they always over-emphasise their best feature.

Three things to be wary of: a brown envelope that is marked "Open At Once"; a complete stranger who greets you by your first name; and a rabbit that bares its teeth as you approach.

The wise chocolate-maker puts his shop on the shady side of the street.

A man wearing only bathing-shorts looks fully dressed, but a man wearing only underpants looks naked.

The page we most use in a road-atlas is the one showing our home territory, so it is also the one that first gets worn and torn, and falls to pieces. A wise motorist will therefore use the other pages first.

All oyster shells are different, but all oysters are the same.

An actor: someone who thinks that the stage door is the front door to the theatre, and that what other people call the main entrance is round the back somewhere.

There are some insects whose camouflage system is so good that they have not yet been discovered.

All these and many more will be found in the forthcoming 'Bumper Book of Albanian Proverbs' (2004)

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