Home Of: Bentley Motor CarsFamous For: Hand-stitched leather, exotic wood hewn by carpenters into glossy veneers, excellent train accessHow to get there: Fly into London Heathrow, spend the night in the city, then take a train through the countryside toward Cheshire County.

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Land-grabbers who rented government plots illegally to fly-by-night shops, taking money that belonged to the city. (Mr Hamidi would burst into such places with shovel in hand, pushing people aside, shouting at them to clear their rubbish away.) And, over all these, the swaggering local powerbrokers who demanded their share of the opium trade, the military contracts and the building projects, like boys fighting for candy at a wedding.

ECONOMIST: Ghulam Haider Hamidi