Heavenly Father , look down on us your humble, obedient tourist servants who are doomed to travel this earth, taking photographs, sending postcards and buying souvenirs. We beseech you, O Lord, to see that our plane is not hijacked, our luggage is not lost and our overweight baggage goes unnoticed. Give us this day divine guidance in our selection of hotels. We pray that the telephones work, and that the operators speak our language.

Lead us to good , inexpensive restaurants where the wine is included in the price of the meal. Give us the wisdom to tip correctly in currencies we do not understand. Make the natives love us for what we are and not for what we can contribute to their worldly goods. Grant us the strength to visit museums, cathedrals, palaces, and if we skip an historic monument to take a nap after lunch, have mercy upon us for our flesh is weak.

Dear God , protect our wives from ‘bargains' they don't need or can't afford. Lead them not into temptation for they know not what they do.

Almighty father , keep our husbands from looking at foreign women and comparing them to us. Save them from making fools of themselves in night-clubs.

Above all, please do not forgive them their trespasses for they know exactly what they do.

And when our voyage is over, grant us the favour of finding someone who will look at our holiday snaps and listen to our stories, so our lives as tourists will not have been in vain. Amen.

Riviera Hotel, Vancouver