There's a place even more expensive than London. I've just come back from there: it's called Norway. I was there for a long weekend with three friends, all of us hard core Londoners, steeled to high prices, gazumping, exorbitant costs when it comes to anything. But Norway stuns; it's impossible not to wince out loud at the eye watering expense of everything

The cheapest bottle of house wine - the very cheapest, the vin ordinaire, the stuff that you would take home in a plastic box from the corner shop - was £30. Maybe I'm picky, but for that price, I expect some theatre when the bottle is opened. I want to see flourishes, drama, that price insists on the cork being popped with some gusto, not unscrewed like a two litre bottle of diet coke being poured at a picnic.