Expert commentary from Quentin Cockburn and Cecil Poole

Quentin: I say Cecil, take a look at this Claude chappy.

Cecil: A dry, unlikely looking fellow, doesn’t inspire much confidence

Quentin: Hmm… reminds me a bit of Percival, at Singapore, diffident, indecisive.

Cecil: His presence undermines authority, we used to weed those types out in the colonial office

Quentin: And now they just rise to the top.  In our day we had a place for them, out of the way, remote, irrelevant,

Cecil: Canberra?

Quentin: Precisely