Sarkozy In, Blair Out

The other day I watched a jolly little home video on YouTube snappily entitled: Tony Blair félicite Nicolas Sarkozy de sa victoire aux éléctions françaises (en français).

En français? Mais bien sûr. Tony, in relaxed mode, congratulates his opposite number (+1) on a video that looks as if it was shot on his personal web cam but which, in reality, no doubt required the presence of a film crew, make up artist, script writer and French pronunciation advisor (who should be fired by the way). Plus a specialist (14 years old) in the uploading of video clips to YouTube.

Surprisingly, Blair doesn't wish Sarkozy "Bonnes Vacances" knowing (thanks to MI5) that he is, even then, on board the luxury yacht of a French millionaire pal floating off the coast of Malta. This, of course, being exactly the sort of "posh" holiday the Blairs enjoy.

Shortly after uploading to YouTube, Tony dashes off an e-mail to Nicolas' hotmail address to let him know he has uploaded "a little something to the web". Nicolas has a lot of things to do, what with choosing the members of his next government, but excitedly he launches Firefox (via a link which also releases a nasty virus, shortly afterwards sending his millionaire friend's borrowed computer into terminal decline) and watches Tony's offering.

After sixty seconds of strange facial gestures and garbled French he hears: "Nous sommes deux vielles nations, de taille comparable..." Sarkozy cheers. "Eh bien, super, if va aborder la fusion que j'ai proposé!"

But, shortly afterwards, Nicolas realises he's been misled. He loses interest in the message, puts his mirror glasses back on and leans back with a creak in the black leather sofa. There's a half-realised thought nagging at the back of his brain... What is it? What is it? Suddenly he realises. "Mon Dieu!" he yells, "J'ai compris! Le roastbeef cherche une poste!"