If you have nails, prepare to bite them now: For the last two days the new Chinese president has been in talks with Obama who has been supported in these subtle and delicate negotiations by, er, John Kerry ... yeeeees, quite! One would like to think ... hope? ... that behind the scenes there is a top level of serious, intelligent and strategically-minded thinkers in the State Department to guide these two dummies men as they lay the groundworks for a new Sino-American 'arrangement' in the Pacific. Well, a man may hope, may he not? Mind you, and to be fair, I also hope that Xi Jingping has the political muscle and guile to keep his bellicose military under control.
What's the French for 'dropping a bollock? Well, we have the Duke of Edinburgh to keep us endlessly amused by his ability to drop bollocks but now the French have President Hollande to do it for them. On a state visit to Japan he expressed his condolences to the people of China - eh? what? waddesay? - for the deaths of ten Japanese citizens in a recent terrorist attack in Algeria. 'Eh bien, zey all look zee same, do zey not?' The Japanese, I'm glad to say, remained, er, inscrutable! And I have just remembered the French expression - un faux pas. In Japanese it's called a - 失言. See, you never stop learning on this blog!
Further rumbles as the day progresses . . .
