Fascinated by the fascinating subject of diplomatic memoirs?
Check out a magnificent article in the latest edition of Diplomat magazine:
At their worst, diplomatic memoirs offer cliché piled on cliché, the wordily pompous intertwined with the coy, the self-important and the banal.
Hardened professionals tiptoe quickly for the exit when they stumble over the following sort of thing:
“On Wednesday 7 April Peaches and I with some other colleagues dined with the Ruritanian Ambassador and his charming (if overfed and underperfumed) wife Bacteria, who hosted a dinner in honour of the visiting Minister of Agriculture.
At first the Minister did not enjoy the evening. He peered with ill-concealed despair at the grilled moose stew and salted plonka, not opening up when I quizzed him on his government’s latest protests on the iniquities of the CAP. But after a few glasses of best Ruritanian hangova he relaxed, and even told a ribald joke at French expense.
All in all, just about a worthwhile evening. Yet as Neznam drove us back in the Jaguar bumping over the potholes to the Residence, I was all too well aware that in neighbouring Ambigua the clouds of war were gathering…”
Yet terror at writing such tosh has not stopped countless diplomats down the ages – not to mention their spouses – from having a go. And distinguished successes abound…
Until you get to the passages about Ramadan which seem to be … trespassing.
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