If ever you pine for the old bourgeois pleasures, genteel, discreet, complacent pleasures (and, in my own case, nostalgic pleasures of the lost British empire, essentially a bourgeois enterprise) - if you are in this frame of mind, get you to Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, and board one of the five glorious paddle-steamers that have been sailing its waters since the early years of the last century.

Make straight for the dining-saloon and there, over a cup of coffee, you will be eased into nirvana. Port and starboard the mountains rise above the lake, dappled even in summer, with recalcitrant patches of snow. The woodwork creaks around you, the pistons pound below, the paddles gently swish, there is a faint smell of engine oil and presently a breathy blast of the ship's horn tells you that you are approaching the little lakeside resort of Weggis.