The food is splendid and the service staff a joy.
The camps are splendid: an immaculately turned-out staff, tents that dwarf many a Manhattan apartment, proper toilets, hot showers and bush cooking to rival that at Nairobi's best hotels.
France has not balanced a budget since 1974, and its debt, which finances all those splendid public services and an army of staff to provide them, has now reached 91% of GDP.
Finance ministers, Brussels commissioners and ECB staff share, more often than not, a splendid academic career, or experience in a national treasury office – all far from bank trading rooms, where the real action is.
Last week, according to the splendid blog Deadspin, producers of HBO's Real Sports show informed staff that the former US secretary of state's agent had inquired about her joining the reporting team.
He pitched long and competently enough to give the Yankees a chance to win, which they did behind another splendid night from Mark Teixeira, who continued to shred the best pitching staff in the American League.
But cathedrals are so splendid that it easy to feel that visitors - and even staff, perhaps are worshipping the building, not God.
No, there was confident three knocks with his Episcopal staff and the doors opened to reveal him in his splendid cope, stole and mitre of gold silk.
We owed much to the composing-room foreman (or "clicker"), the splendid Mr Benney, who quietly took every incompetence and inconsequence from the editorial staff.
