title: Convert a namedtuple into a dictionary
body: <p>I have a named tuple class in python </p>
  
  <pre><code>class Town(collections.namedtuple('Town', [
      'name', 
      'population',
      'coordinates',
      'population', 
      'capital', 
      'state_bird'])):
      # ...
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'd like to convert Town instances into dictionaries. I don't want it to be rigidly tied to the names or number of the fields in a Town. </p>
  
  <p>Is there a way to write it such that I could add more fields, or pass an entirely different named tuple in and get a dictionary.</p>
  
  <p>I can not alter the original class definition as its in someone else's code. So I need to take an instance of a Town and convert it to a dictionary.</p>