28 JULY 1990, Page 44

eVitAS

12 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY

COMPETITION

12 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY

Chez Adolf

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 1635 you were asked for an extract from a dispatch home by a diplomat who has 'gone native' and taken his host country's concerns or style of expression to heart.

No one country stood out as a specially corrupting force for diplomats, though Japan proved fatal to George Simmers's sad man in Tokyo:

As white blossom falls, This envoy finds fulfilment In hara-kiri.

R. J. Pickles's Ambassador in Islamabad, who signed, 'Very, very respects, D. J. Carruthers, Bart, DSO', began in hectic style: 'Please to read contemporary missive which transports at ppkthe very hottest news from your minusettle, depreciating servant. Thank you very much.' In contrast D. B. Jenkinson's Africa hand described his situation while still preserving, linguisti- cally, a stiff upper lip: 'I am now a Mingarana, and so Lavinia must be shared with all Bungaranas . . . I regret to report that Prince Umbarana oonfod (earmarked) His Grace for the recent Stingapoi. As a mere Mingarana, I could not intervene. The ear-marking was not in itself painful as I pulled sufficient CD rank to ensure that His Grace was made absolutely lupihonka first, as were we all.'

Honourable mentions for Katie Mallett and Olim Legatus. The prizewinners, printed below, take £15 each, and the bonus bottle of Chivas Regal 12-year-old de luxe blended whisky goes to B. Ritford, though whether his correspondent has gone native or bananas is not quite clear.

. . . make the MOST STRONGLY POSSIBLE COM- PLAIN concerning the RECIDIVIST, REVANCHIST, NEOFASCIST and IRREDENTIST actions by my 'felow' Ambassador in a certain neighbour country, who I name not for dignity. He was it who wangled an armour-plated Bentley after men in the dress of separatistes, but remarkably resembling men of his own staff (note well), launched eggs at his screenwind during the Royal Visit. A visit which I was denied, despite the EVIL:01-N f HISTORIC SUPERIORNESS Of my clam. Nor do I stoop to refute the poisoned hintings of his latest despatch,a copy of which has come in

my hands, regarding my past conexions with the

Labour Party. Such remarks are GRANT BREECHES of diplomatic practice, the Vienna Convention, the Helsinki Final Act and the Highway Code. I say to him 'Your mother swims out to the troopships. You are a wangler.'

HM Ambassador, The Balkans (B. Ritford)

The heavy loss of life occasioned by the Iraman bombing of the White House has seriously disturbed the social calendar of the diplomatic community here and has interrupted the discus- sioni on the optimum method of mixing a Martini. As a result, embassy staff have been forced to make isolated experiments. I have never quite been convinced by the French ambassador's claim that one should omit the vermouth, merely bowing in the direction of France, but similar formulae -- such as letting the shadow of the vermouth bottle fall across the gin — have produced gratifying results. They are not quite definitive, however, nor has the lemon zest v. olive debate been resolved entirely to my satisfaction. However, I can report progress on one issue: my colleagues and I agree that shaking does not 'bruise' the gin, and the cocktail may therefore be stirred or shaken

according to taste. Beverley Strauss) The British situation in Tirana is a class struggle situation, in which the crypto-religious self- styled 'dissidents' are in reality only a criminal sub-set of the national consciousness, and have no allegiance to party values as developed under the tutelage of the late Enver Hoxha, whose non-pragmatic ideological code had the fore- sight to disbar such un-Albanian practices as religionary superstitionism, and who would have confirmed that, when the people are the mas- ters, then the true allegiance of all good Alba- nians is to the people's doctrine, now being flouted so grievously by hegemonistic Western- inspired anti-social elements who have infil- trated the infrastructure of the republic, as a result of which foreign embassies are subjected to unwarranted intrusion from anti-state de- viants class D, in defiance of norms of socialist behaviour, in consequence of which I request withdrawal of the typically empty-gesture 'inter- national' aid offered to these subversives, and freedom to refuse refugee status.

(Will Bellenger)

1/ Let me give it to you straight from the shoulder: you FO throwbacks are making me crook with your endless whingeing and griping and Oz-bashing innuendo. 2/ I wouldn't mind if you came up with the goods occasionally. Just what has happend to those 2,000 Good Lager Guides I ordered for the British Council Library? Have they gone walk- about round Whitehall, or what?

3/ As for that clown from Protocol, who I gather's criticised me for not putting on a tie for official functions, tell him to go and wear one on the Hill at Sydney Cricket Ground and see what they do to him.

4/ And what do those moaning zombies in the Treasury think they're up to, sabotaging my Platypus Sanctuary and my Flying Doctors' Ale Festival? I bet they'd soon stump up if someone suggested a gold-plated tea urn for the National Audit Office. (Chris Tingley)

A long session with President Havel last night. I now believe that my so-called 'open' dispatches have been hopelessly submerged in total meaningless mess. What is the nature of reality? Is objectivity knowable at all? I think it was lonesco (The Sideboard?) who said that a duck cannot skate on a mud-flat. I am not an ambassador. 'Truth' is made known to me by way of impressions, metaphysical mysteries that are complete in their incompleteness. For me, the notion of briefings that explain everything and appear authoritative relates solely to an inner existence that has no beginning, no end stop. The long-awaited speech by Mr Hurd on Czechoslovakia would be so much schivenich.

Something Havel said to me early this morn- ing will always linger in my consciousness. 'It's not what a man is that makes sense of the world, it's what a man is nor.' The same goes for a country.

(John O'Byrne)