Captain Moonlight: Geoffrey shows them how. Not.

LORD HOWE, bit of a card. Forget the Healey dead sheep gibe, remember the fall of Thatcher and that time he lost his trousers on the train. Still playful, old Geoffrey. Former Foreign Secretary, should know all about exotic sensitivities. The Japanese, for example: really don't like the slightest public reference to scandal, corruption, that sort of thing. Anyway, Geoffrey was invited to open an exhibition last week to mark 20 years of JICA, the Japanese aid agency. Lots of smiling and bowing on the Japanese side, strong turn out from our own Overseas Development Administration. Geoffrey going well on co-operation, plenty of praise for the world's single biggest aid donor. But then he moves on to difficulties with tenders and how he himself was questioned recently by a parliamentary select committee about the Pergau Dam affair, and how he was sure the Japanese had similar problems. Well. Happy smiles of merry throng freeze, some caught in mid- bow, ODA people choking on the chardonnay. Don't expect to be asked again, Geoffrey.