The Spanish Ambassador's Suitcase

The Spanish Ambassador's Suitcase is a hilarious new collection of diplomatic tales by Matthew Parris and Andrew Bryson..

Heard the one about the Spanish Ambassador who arrived in the scorching Saharan desert fully suited and with a mysteriously enormous suitcase? Or the horse they gave Prime Minister John Major in Turkmenistan which hapless embassy officials had to rescue from the clutches of the Moscow railway?

These and other 'funnies', as they are known in Whitehall, are included in Matthew Parris and and Andrew Bryson's glorious new volume of not so diplomatic writing, which accompanies a new BBC Radio 4 series is a follow up to their acclaimed collection of ambassadors' final despatches, Parting Shots.

Drawn from Freedom of Information requests and previously overlooked Valedictories these startling despatches throw a revealing light on how the British have viewed the world and, unwittingly perhaps, on how the world has viewed the British.