What are diplomats for? Most people have only a vague understanding of what they actually do, except that they seem to belong to a privileged caste, and to lead lives governed by arcane rules of etiquette and convention. However, beneath the veneer of exquisite diplomatic manners and immaculate dress, all human life is there, and, as illustrated by the stories in this book, much of it is entirely reprehensible. Guidance is therefore necessary, since Diplomatic Services dislike disorderly lives, so between 1949 and 1974, the Foreign Office published a series of helpful little booklets on How to Behave Abroad. These describe conventions which belong to another age but, although much of the advice put forward so confidently may reinforce outsiders" worst fears about the Foreign Service, change was already working through the system and the transformation in attitudes over the twenty-five years during which they were produced carried the seeds of far greater upheavals to come. Over...