It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it

The BBC has been running a broadcast on Radio 4 called “Diplomatic Dinners”, which delves into the world of wrangling peace while wining and dining. Diplomats have long used food and drink to further their cause, but the tactic is tricky. Everything from deciding who sits where, to what food and drink is served, to what cutlery is used, risks making or breaking diplomatic relations. The broadcast unveils several veteran accounts of diplomatic dining. Social secretaries are sometimes summoned to investigate crucial gossip – who’s slept with whom, or has fallen out with whom – so that seating arrangements can be planned accordingly. Amusingly, one diplomat in Australia once turned over his plate as a statement of displeasure about his seating placement. “But he was extremely greedy so he only did it for the first course,” says Lord Carrington, who was High Commissioner in Australia at the time. Some menu items are politically unpalatable. The former governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, remembers a delegation from the World Wildlife Fund which had come to China to promote the protection of rare species. At their farewell banquet hosted by the government in Beijing, the second course was bears’ paws.

Even the Foreign and Commonwealth Office supposedly has a regulation stating that those entering the diplomatic service must have both kidneys, since social obligations of the job might place physical wear and tear on the organs. In other words, you must be healthy enough to have a chance of surviving a career of alcoholism. No wonder veterans joke about being asked to “lay down your liver for your country.”