One wall of the pub was covered with different coloured bottle tops from around the world, and a globe sat by the bar, presumably to help patrons locate the many countries from which the brews originate.

BBC: Krakow brews a beer scene of its own

Another example of his unorthodox thinking is his observation that painting the roofs of buildings around the world white and using light-coloured road surfaces rather than blacktop would reflect a lot of sunlight back into space possibly enough to have an effect on global warming as big as taking every car in the world off the road for a decade.

ECONOMIST: Face value

Old-world primates, though, are big on visual communication, with coloured faces and (in the case of females) coloured sexual swellings.

ECONOMIST: Smell, vision and genes: More colour, less odour | The

The woodcutters and gold prospectors may be long gone, but travellers can still relive this fascinating historic era through a series of forest walking trails that evoke the vanished world of the woodcutters, winding beneath the canopy along rust-coloured streams dappled with sun and shadow.

BBC: Step back in time in South Africa��s Garden Route

The capital Willemstad, settled in 1634, is the financial and commercial centre of life on the island, as well as a Unesco World Heritage Site, thanks to its well-preserved, cotton-candy-coloured Dutch Colonial architecture and buildings like the Mikve Israel Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in use in the Western Hemisphere.

BBC: Living in: the ABC islands

Over this he is seen wearing a cream-coloured bisht - a cloak worn by respected sheikhs, tribal elders and religious leaders in the Arab world.

BBC: Trimmed Bin Laden in media-savvy war