“Politics was often not only unnecessary, but sometimes also unnecessarily complicated.”

“Allan thought it sounded unnecessary for the people in the seventeenth century to kill each other. If they had only been a little patient they would all have died in the end anyway. Julius said that you could say the same of all epochs.”

“Julius didn’t want to use the freezer unnecessarily because it used a hell of a lot of electricity. Julius had of course hot-wired it, and it was Gösta at Forest Cottage farm who unknowingly paid, but it was important to steal electricity in moderation if you wanted to keep taking advantage of the perk for a long time.”

“But God answered with silence. He did that sometimes, and Father Ferguson always interpreted it to mean that he should think for himself. Admittedly, it didn't always work out well when the pastor thought for himself, but you couldn't just give up.”

“There are only two things I can do better than most people. One of them is to make vodka from goats’ milk, and the other is to put together an atom bomb.”

“And not only that, Mr Stalin. I have been in China for the purpose of making war against Mao Tse-tung, before I went to Iran and prevented an attempt to assassinate Churchill.’ ‘Churchill? That fat pig!’ Stalin shouted. Stalin recovered for a moment before downing a whole glass of vodka. Allan watched enviously. He too would like to have his glass filled, but didn’t think it was the right moment for such a request.”

“Allan realised it was only a matter of time before he and Herbert were stopped along the road and checked out properly. Not even a marshal would be allowed just to roll into the capital of a country at war without somebody at least asking a question or two. So Allan spent a couple of hours instructing Herbert as to what he should say – just one sentence in Russian, but a very important one: ‘I am Marshal Meretskov from the Soviet Union – take me to your leader!’ Pyongyang was protected at this time by an outer and an inner military ring. The outer one, twenty kilometres from the city, consisted of anti-aircraft guns and double checkpoints on roads, while the inner ring was virtually a barricade, a front line for defence against land attack. Allan and Herbert got caught in one of the outer checkpoints first and were met by a very drunk North Korean soldier, with a cocked machine gun across his chest. Marshal Herbert had rehearsed his single sentence endlessly, and now he said: ‘I am your leader, take me to… the Soviet Union.”