England playing at Twickenham? I wish the All Blacks could play in the 6N....![]()
SSAFA? Why mate?
Off to work at moment, I'll PM you when I get back.
England playing at Twickenham? I wish the All Blacks could play in the 6N....![]()
SSAFA? Why mate?
All this over a pencil holder and a plaque?
Seems par for the course with England.
The talking hat.
The queen being alive since 1776...
We know the Brits can't and/or won't do much other than offer an offended sniff and maybe a strongly worded letter.
It was the American press that was getting it's knickers in a twist not the British press or the people, we have more important things on our minds at the moment...
Your Obama haters are making a big deal about it we're not, we don't care.
The talking hat incident's referenced here:No idea what talking hat and the queen bit are about, want to elaborate?
The bust of Churchill actually belongs to us, it wasn't a gift to the Americans and is worth a lot of money. It was lent to President Bush for the first term of his office after 9/11, he wanted it hang on to it but there's no reason why President Obama should have to have it if he doesn't want to...
We know the Brits can't and/or won't do much other than offer an offended sniff and maybe a strongly worded letter.
...Presents given to British Prime Ministers don't become their property, they are keep for the nation...
We wont do either Margie! We'll just take the p*ss instead![]()
It's a bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein and it's worth thousands of pounds and as much as Blair liked Bush, he can't give away something worth that much belonging to the nation.
http://epstein.3forming.com/Gallery/Three_Dimensional_Works_by_Jacob_Epstein/Page/3.aspx
Diplomatic etiquette is the art of one upmanship done in genteel surroundings, diplomatic talk is saying what you don't mean.
I wouldn't expect a politicians to know the nuances of such diplomatic present giving, thats why he has a staff. I'd suggest it was his staff to blame either through ignorance or design. Perhaps someone out there wants Obama to look inadequate?
Presents given to British Prime Ministers don't become their property, they are keep for the nation however at the end of their term of office the PMs are allowed to buy anything they have been 'given' if they want to keep it.
American ambassadors to the Court of St James seem to be alone in the fact that they aren't diplomats, being a political appointee not a member of the diplomatic service so perhaps there's room for a lot of mistakes to be made when the American Ambassador recommends to the President such things as presents or how things work here.
Our politicians may want a close working relationship with American politicians but we don't, Blair's devotion to Bush has cost us dear in service peoples lives. We'd be happy just trading and being 'cousins' with American, we don't want our Prime Minister being that pally with a President again.
Point being, nobody takes them seriously. Much like the incidents that earned the initial apology in the thread.No one 'took offence' at either of those incidents. Being British we always see the funny side of incidents like that, the times I've seen either incident on the television it's always been in a comedy situation.
We're not all fans of the Royal Family anyway.
Just learnt that one of our students has been killed in Afghanistan by a roadside bomb.
If 'you' chaps don't want or value our help anymore, the noted faux pas is a pretty good way of saying it as far as the Diplomatic Service is concerned.