“A GOOD speec  h should be like a woman’s skirt”, Winston Churchill once said. “Long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.” Barack Obama would have done well to heed such colourful advice when he gave his final speech at the UN General Assembly on September 20th. Among 1,500 addresses to the General Assembly since 2010, the United States—always represented by Mr Obama during this period—has given the longest average talk of any country. He clocks in at around 38 minutes a speech, well over both the voluntary 15-minute time limit suggested by the UN and the worldwide average of 20 minutes. Americans are far from the only long-winded speakers: many South American delegates like to take their time too. By contrast, Scandinavian and Eastern European representatives tend to keep it snappy. But even Mr Obama’s drawn-out addresses fall short of the record. That belongs to Muammar Qaddafi, the former dictator of Libya, who made headlines in 2009 with a talk lasting one hour and 36 minutes.