If you'll be travelling soon, you might want to learn a few key phrases of another language before you go. Free language lessons are available online, at the BBC website. It's good to see Nick's tax dollars hard at work.

It's too late to learn much Mandarin before the Olympics are over, but you can study French, Urdu, Welsh, Japanese, and many other languages.

The Quick Fix page has a list of essential holiday phrases that you can print or download as an mp3 file. Take these along on your travels and you'll be able to say "Sorry, I don't speak Albanian," "We were robbed," or "Danger! Avalanche!"