Miles Kington: A few words of advice from our friends in Albania

It's high time we had some more Albanian proverbs. Albanian proverbs? They are not at all like our proverbs, which are practical and boring. Albanian proverbs are allusive, evocative and perpetually on the verge of being interesting, like scraps of conversation between two old and forgetful philosophers. I hope you like them...

The only people who say they will never go on a cruise are people who have never been on a cruise.

Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Cry, and the world laughs at you.

If table tennis had been invented first, what would outdoor tennis be called? Ground tennis?

The only people who say they will never go on a cruise again are people who have already been on a cruise with exactly the sort of people they were trying to get away from in the first place.

An eclipse of the sun or moon is of interest to everyone, except an astronomer.

A return ticket is of no interest to a homeless person.

There are three kinds of people who hate going to fancy-dress parties: actors, plainclothes policemen and transvestites. For the first two it is too much like work, and for the last it is too much like fun.

Real tennis is the only game played exclusively by royalty. It is also so complicated that it never caught on with the common folk. Perhaps we should revise the idea that all royals are stupid.

There is no such thing as a homeless astronomer. He is at home everywhere in the universe.

Jive, and the world jives with you. Dance and you dance alone.

An astrologer looks at the stars and tells you what lies in the future. An astronomer looks at the stars and tells us what happened millions of years ago in the past. But who is there to tell us what is happening now?

A hundred years ago a cruiser was a heavily armed ship which went forth to sink other ships and kill thousands of people. Now, a cruise is an operation undertaken by middle-aged people who wish to meet other middle-aged people with a view to criticising still other middle-aged people, without anyone actually dying. Perhaps progress is possible after all.

The worst real tennis player in the world is still in the top thousand-best players of the game. How real is that?

Lunch, and the world lunches with you. Dine, and you dine alone.

The French call reading glasses lunettes, a pair of little moons. The English used the word "moon" to describe lowering your trousers and displaying the twin globes of your backside. To which nation would you give the prize for poetry?

See Naples and dine.

Why are same-sex marriages so controversial? After all, most people are in a same-sex marriage. They have sex, and it is always the same.

Three people to avoid: a man who wishes to grumble about his wife, a woman who wishes to grumble about her children, and a child who wants to tell you the plots of his favourite Simpsons episodes.

There are two ways to have a star named after you. One is to discover it. The other is to incur the wrath of Zeus and be turned into it.

All these and many more to be found in my forthcoming 'Bumper Book of Albanian Proverbs'

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