ISpyShanghai

Dingle just tipped me off about a declassified report from when Kissinger and President Ford came to China back in the 1970s. There are some good bits.

“…so I said to her ‘If you don’t, your father will be executed’”
“Haha! Good one Chairman!”

Here Mao and the Secretary of state talk about the international sex trade:

Chairman Mao: Do you want our Chinese women? We can give you ten million.
Dr. Kissinger: The Chairman is improving his offer.
Chairman Mao: By doing so we can let them flood your country with disaster and therefore impair your interests.
…
…
Chairman Mao: Girls, today I have been uttering some nonsense for which I will have to beg the pardon of the women of China.
Dr. Kissinger: It sounded very attractive to the Americans present.

I think Kissinger’s glasses then steamed up, he high-fived Mao, and they chased a busty secretary around the room to the Benny Hill theme music.

Obviously knowing he’d be dead by the time this document was made public, Kissinger feels free to have a pop at the Kiwis whilst talking to some guy named after a Muslim head dress:

Dr Kissinger: Can [the US envoy visit] Australia and not New Zealand?
Habib: It’s difficult. The New Zealanders wouldn’t understand.
Dr Kissinger: They are the worst bores in the world.
Habib: That’s because we never have any problems with them. All they ever talk about is cheese and butter.
Dr Kissinger: And mutton.

This, by the way, was before the term “Politically Correct” was widely used.

I’ll almost certainly never fly on Concorde, play on Top Of The Pops, or slide down a zipline from the top of the Eiffel Tower into a swimming pool full of marshmallows, but this week I fulfilled at least one of my personal ambitions:

New one on the left, old one with the cover faded off to nothing on the right

I had to get a new passport because the old one was full up!

The visa for China takes up a whole page, and I’ve been in and out of Korea more times than the Japanese army, so my stint in Asia has really helped out- but it’s still a decent spread of stamps to look back on.

I’m not showing the two different photos though- it looks like new James ate the old one, then polished his head with an orbital sander.