The world of international diplomacy is so absurd that it could come straight out of Monty Python, according to Britain's ambassador in Thailand. In a lighthearted look at the more surreal side of the world's negotiating circuit, he revealed that it brought to mind the antics of John Cleese et al.| “Millions are spent on flying people out, wining and dining them, haggling over commas and over the lowest common denominator communiqué, which are then instantly forgotten.” |
The "vast bureaucracy" of the European Union was the most Pythonic organisation of all, he told the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand. "A Tower of Babel, scores of official languages. If you want to translate from Hungarian the phrase, 'Farm subsidies should be reduced by 0.01 per cent by 2015', via English into Latvian, it's bound to come out, as in Monty Python, 'I wish to fondle your buttocks'."
Bangkok, with its plush official residence in the centre of the city, is regarded as a prime posting for Foreign Office officials. Yet Mr Fall experienced the grimmest side of the foreign service when he oversaw the British embassy's response to the tsunami in Thailand, where about 150 Britons were among more than 5,000 people killed. Mr Fall is quick to point the finger of fun at himself and his colleagues. Describing diplomats as "bureaucrats and political eunuchs" undeserving of the deference they are accorded, he said: "If you've got no sense of the ridiculous it can go to your head. The main importance of Python is that it deflates the pompous, it recognises the absurdities of life - and, believe me, diplomacy has more than its fair share of both."
| “The ultimate test should be this: is a country or a government sure enough of itself to allow others to poke fun at it without launching a nuclear attack?” |
Mr Fall's most Pythonesque moment came in the 1970s, when as a junior embassy official in Thailand, he accompanied a group of military officers on a field trip. It became an opportunity to put months of language training to use, as he put it, "pimping for Her Majesty the Queen".
"We went into a typical north-eastern Thai nightclub, pitch black, they direct you to your seat by torch and something would appear and sit on your lap," he said. "I spoke Thai, so I was invited by a Philippines military officer to negotiate the price."