Au revoir

It is with sadness that we record the passing of the great Diplomad who has hung up his Blog and moved on to pastures new.

For a variety of personal and professional reasons, he tells us, it's time to stop But, lest any of you think so, he assures us, "we have not been threatened or shut down; the State Department goons are not knocking at the door. It's just time to do something else."

It is a testament to the site that it got more comments than most Blogs get hits, and even these were part of the entertainment – where even the great Diplomad was not immune from criticism. Most recently, he attracted ire from his post when he described watching Bush's "state of the union" speech, remarking:

It's quite an experience sitting in front of a large screen TV in a foreign land surrounded by foreigners - many of them not friendlies - listening to the President of United States speak.

Not a few leapt on the man, telling him that since he was abroad, it was he that was the foreigner, not those who surrounded him. However, we were glad on this occasion to come to the rescue, with the following comment:

Look - we Brits settled this "foreigner question" centuries ago. There are Brits, and there are foreigners, right. Foreigners are people who are not Brits. As our cousins, in kind, we are happy that the Yanks should be honorary Brits when they are abroad, and therefore they are not foreigners either - everybody else is, except Brits of course, but then you knew that. Simple really.

We will miss Diplomad and wish him well. He is leaving the site up so that the archives can be visited. Those who have not yet looked at it can still capture the essence of a rare and valuable narrative.