MPs and peers laughed as Merkel, who recalled her first visit to London in the spring of 1990 shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, said those expecting a "fundamental reform of the European architecture" in Britain's direction would be disappointed.
Last month Angela Merkel made the first, cautious signals in the direction of a higher defence budget at the inaugural visit of the new Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg.
In 2004, he and Menzies Campbell made the unusual decision to meet me, as a solicitor acting for Guantánamo detainees, to give me witness statements about a conversation they'd had with George W Bush on a visit by him to the UK.
Last year, during a visit to Kupang, in West Timor, I met a fisherman with a 12 year old daughter and a seven year old son.
With 300,000 Chinese tourists expected to visit Spain this year and a million by the end of the decade, hotels are rushing to adapt in order to receive a "Chinese-friendly" stamp of approval.
The sense of trepidation we felt when we climbed over the stile and set off towards Alston along the south bank of the river Nent proved to be ill-founded: the hay meadow was as beautiful as it had been on our last visit, more than a decade ago.
With the entire city choked by building work, the kingdom has taken the unusual step of urging pilgrims to delay their visit, and numbers are down 20% this year as a result of reduced visa quotas.
Earlier this year, a few environmental groups had brought a number of these violations to the Bombay High Court's attention, and the court directed Vasudevan to visit the site.
He first joined Twitter on a visit to the company's headquarters in Silicon Valley in 2010.
But, just two days after polling from Lord Ashcroft put Clegg two points behind Labour in the constituency, the visit also marked the beginning of a long Easter weekend of hard canvassing for the Liberal Democrat leader.
Each morning, Mirvish gave away "gifts" to the first few customers through the doors (to this day, a determined and shivering few line up at 6am on the corner of Bloor and Bathurst to claim their free tuning fork or toaster), as well as dollar bills to the poor and turkeys before Thanksgiving and Christmas.
