You can't help feeling sorry for the way things turn out for some people.

The other day we met a German couple, he about 55, portly and bearded, she in her 30s, slimmer and not at all bearded. The other difference is that he had two broken ribs and she hadn't.

I found that out when I said, as was true at the time, that we were thinking of riding into Bulgaria.

'We went that way,' the man warned, 'but the roads are all destroyed and not good for our camping-car.'

(A camping car is a van converted to contain beds and a kitchen; for Americans, it's a tiny RV.)

'And what did you do?' I asked, since at that time we were in Hungary and Bulgaria is a whole country away.

'We drove round through Greece and came up to Hungary that way.'

'And the ribs?'

'Well,' he said bashfully, 'that was rather unfortunate. The beds in the camping car are bunks. I have the top one and she...' - he pointed to his wife -'has the bottom one. In Greece I decided to, er, go down to the bottom bed to be with her. And I was just climbing down the steps from my bed when there was an earthquake that shook me off the stairs and I broke two ribs.'

You can't help but sympathise, can you?