Evil Diaries: A Visiting Card

BBC Radio 4 is currently featuring The Stalin Affair by Giles Milton which recounts how Churchill with Roosevelt wooed Stalin to ensure that maximum pressure would be applied to Hitler’s eastern flank. This was an extremely important diplomatic programme which determined so much of Europe’s ensuing history. The British ambassador to Moscow was Sir Archibald Clark Kerr whose ready wit is shown below:

At the height of World War II on April 6th 1943, at which point he was British Ambassador to Moscow, the famously eccentric Sir Archibald Clark Kerr wrote the following letter to Foreign Office minister Lord Reginald Pembroke. This now classic piece of correspondence, which was prompted by a Turkish diplomat with the most unfortunate of names, is indeed hilarious; it also offers proof, if it were needed, that name-based punnery and mild xenophobia did a roaring trade long before the internet was fired up.

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Turning elsewhere I only got to catch up with aspects of Chill Brands yesterday afternoon. It seems to me that some chaps are due to have their collars felt by HM police. It is commonly thought that entering into contract for a company where based on a board meeting is sufficiently evidenced by writing out the minutes of such a meeting long after it is said to have occurred. All the directors must be given notice of the meeting. This does not seem to have occurred at Chill.