A toast to the platonic ideal of diplomatic intellect

My dear friend Richard Stow is a most congenial fellow. A serious financial entrepreneur, he is also a clubman and an oenophile. Over a sound meal and good bottles, he enjoys convening a group of old muckers. They are all well into the respectabilities of middle life. Some of them have already featured in the Honours List. Others are heading in that direction. But Richard still manages to evoke the atmosphere of an undergraduate dining club. Begone, dull care.

So when he proposed a dinner with a diplomatic theme and some estimable bottles, I was delighted. These are times when care has ceased to be dull: heart-rending is more accurate. An evening away from the news was attractive. Not that we could evade Ukraine, in the presence of two ambassadors. Indeed, we began by toasting the memory of a third. Christopher Mallaby,who died recently, had worked in Bonn and Paris. With a mind like a clear winter day, his motto might well have been nil admirari.