Torquay - a small and occasionally slightly shabby town on the Devon Riviera around Torbay and backing onto the Devon hills. It was long noted primarily as a holiday destination, except perhaps amongst those people who had a slightly longer and less voluntary holiday when they were evacuated there as a convenient place away from enemy bombers during the Second World War. (As a general rule any bomber who got this far pushed onto Plymouth instead, though there are a few anecdotes of enemy action in the area.) Nowadays it is perhaps better remembered as the home of the hotel called Fawlty Towers, run by Mr and Mrs Fawlty, with its strange attitudes to rats, hotel inspectors and Germans.

As Mr Fawlty remarked, things not to be seen in Torquay include the Sydney Opera House (although Torquay is a holiday resort so does an adequate if smaller line in amusement venues), the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (substituted for by an adults-only garden towards the Babbacombe end of town) and herds of wildebeest (substituted for by herds of motor-cars awaiting the opening of the new bypass). What it does have is cliffs overlooking the sea, decoratively graced by palm trees hoping for another quiet winter.