cheerfulThe best gag is the one about the schoolteachers on sabbatical, but I was quietly amused when the bad guy asked for a large area of desert in South America as payment for his help in the planned coup. For one silly moment I thought he planned, in true world-dominating, megalomaniac fashion to build his secret base there. Sadly it turned out he had more mundane reasons. :)
Further to my post about the phrase: "What are you like?","What am I like?", I have managed to do some Googling.
It looks as though it's a TV catchphrase from the Catherine Tate show. There was a married couple who told the most mundane anecdotes, which they each thought were amazingly funny and "What am I like!", "What are you like?" was one of their catchphrases. Of course Catherine Tate may have picked it up somewhere rather than inventing it herself, but that's probably how it spread. The Manchester origin never really convinced me somehow.
ETA: Another link via Google suggests that it's Irish in origin. (You need to scroll down to the W's)
ETA: Also apparently a catchphrase of Ainsley Harriet who was born in London.
