Not at all.Prime Minister: How are you coping with all the changes?Interpreter (translates)Varya: We live very well We have everything we want A flat, and a country cottage We've got two children .. They're grown up now .. a boy and a girl .... The Labour Party's legendary machine moved into operation with a vengeance at Blackpool yesterday. I'll pick them up myself.Policeman (going off): Right you can sort this one out on your own.Interpreter: Do you speak English?Varya: No, of course not.Prime Minister: Have you picked up all your apples?Interpreter translatesVarya: Mr Blair? Very nice to meet you And I am Varya Vasilevna Take some of my apples They're very good. No chemicals in them, straight from our orchard in Yelets.Prime Minister (surprised): From another city? But aren't there any apples in Moscow?Interpreter (translates)Varya: Of course there are! We have everything here. Your traffic lights have probably broken down ...Policeman: Don't you understand Russian? Back on the pavement I said!Sound of approaching carsVarya: Here stop pulling my bag! Ah, now look what you've done. The handle's broken! My apples!Screech of brakesPoliceman (grumbling): Never mind your apples! You've stopped the convoy now Can't you see?Varya: I won't be a minute. I'll just pick these up ...(Car doors slam)Policeman: I think you and me had better go down to the station ...Prime Minister (approaching three steps): Are you all right? Can I help you?Varya (picking up her apples): No, no don't trouble yourself.

As he told Mr Blair, he was inspired by a shopping centre in Norwich, which he went to visit. The Prime Minister was politely admiring a branch of Mothercare in a new underground shopping complex next to the Kremlin, when the mayor bowled in, accompanied by his bodyguards.The mall, which opens next month, is his pride and joy. The Prime Minister went to Moscow to meet Boris Yeltsin. But, as Phil Reeves explains, the obligatory photo opportunities did not go as Mr Blair's minders would have hoped. Tony Blair's staff forgot one important rule when they were planning his day-out in Russia yesterday. Do not expect to breeze into town without a lengthy encounter with the bald and beaming bulldog, Yuri Luzhkov, mayor of Moscow. The magnet was, of course, publicity. The likeliest explanation was that people on holiday tended to travel with their regular sexual partner while those on business were more likely to be alone..

Widely tipped as a possible Russian president, he has made headlines by playing tennis with Steffi Graf, issuing business advice to Pele (at 60, the mayor still plays football) and by injuring himself while trying to perform on a circus trapeze.So when the Blair roadshow swept in, the city boss knew what to do. Mr Luzhkov can no more resist a gathering of the world's press than a hound can forego a juicy bone. However, international travel "can form bridges between scattered sexual networks that would not otherwise come into contact," Dr Carter says.Forty-one per cent of the business travellers had slept with someone new, compared with 24 per cent of those on holiday or visiting friends. However, their behaviour is important because it can expose the traveller's usual sexual partner to the risk of infection when they return. Dr Carter and colleagues have examined why people take sexual risks while away.

In MRC News, he writes: "The traveller is not only distant from home, but also distant from normal social and cultural codes of conduct We may act in ways we would not consider at home. The rules, rituals and social conventions surrounding how we meet and have sex with new people is likely to be one of the cultural changes that take place when we travel."At home, people tend to choose sexual partners similar to themselves and this restriction of social and sexual behaviour means sexual infections tend to move through populations slowly. A study of 370 travellers found one-third said they had had sex with a someone new and 60 per cent said they did not use a condom all the time. The travellers were all patients at a clinic for sexually transmitted diseases in Glasgow and therefore "unlikely to be representative of the general travelling public," according to Dr Simon Carter of the Medical Research Council's sociology department in Glasgow, who conducted the study. Like the majority of tour operators, their figures were very good this year so it will be interesting to find out what happened."Staff arriving at the company's office off Oxford Street in London yesterday morning were equally stunned to learn of the announcement.One woman said: "We don't really know what's going on I was telephoned yesterday.