The sultan of Brunei has announced that he is imposing a strict new criminal code based on sharia law. There is already a sharia Islamic court in Brunei, but it mainly handles family matters. Next year, the 280,000 Muslims in the country will be subject to a tough new penal code that is expected to include amputation for theft, and death by stoning for adultery. Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, 67, who is one of the world’s wealthiest men, called the code “a part of the great history of our nation”.

Many years ago I visited Brunei and unexpectedly met the sultan in his old palace. It would have been most enjoyable, except for the fact that I had two small, boiling hot, very over-tired children with me. Ignoring parents and good manners, they racketed around the audience room, out if control and sorely embarrassing their parents.

Well, Epicurus would have said that you must put it aside, learn from these life experiences and try to do better. Nonetheless, I read the above news item and got to worry as to whether the behaviour of the children could have been the initial seeds of a new Islamist revolution in Westernized Brunei, as in, “if this is how Western kids behave, I guess I need to introduce the chopping off of hands, stoning and capital punishment” (confession: I could have instantaneously introduced sharia law for the kids myself at the time). It is sometimes the simplest things, never planned or intended, that change the course of events. If this is an example, I humbly apologise to the citizens of Brunei, and hope I am being over-sensitive.