A meagre Guardian article by glum Lucy Mangan pulls together some disparate material to argue the case for International Women’s Day.

This tended to be quite a big deal in communist Europe, featuring men generously buying flowers and chocolates for their women, then hoping to sit down to a good lunch the women had cooked.

One odd post-modern feminist episode happened in one of our Balkan Embassies around this celebration.

The local drivers (male) organised for the Embassy male colleagues to buy flowers for all the women in the Embassy.

A senior woman among the British staff arrived to find her bouquet and angrily dashed it to the floor, proclaiming that she would not be insulted by this crude sexism!

Diplomacy. The art of getting on with people, especially when you find their quaint but primitive/backward ways annoying.