Two gentlemen of St Petersburg:

The words that should have been spoken

Like every other member of the commentariat I was shocked and disappointed by what my colleague Jane Shilling described as the "phatic gruntings" of the overheard George Bush and Tony Blair last week at the G8.

One expects something better from world statesmen. Like this, perhaps.

Dramatis Personae:

Georgio, King of America,

Antonio, Duke of England,

A waiter,

A microphone

(Act ten, Scene twelve. Council Room, St Petersburg Giorgio sits alone at a great table.) * Giorgio:(to Count Putin offstage)

By the time the second hour after noon hath struck, and all the town is roused again, Then must I depart these shores, and give thy forces - deputed to mine protection - rest.

A messenger enters and inquires if the King desires parchment whereon to compose his final address to the Grand Council.*

Giorgio: Those thoughts that stand ready, like troops before their entrance into battle, Require no further preparation, but may be uttered, armoured as they are.

Nor will they stand long upon their expression, as those of other consuls do, Slouching in the halls and yawning in the privies, cobwebbing the ears and eyes Of princes, whose realms and golf courses make silent call from home.

Exit messenger.

Giorgio turns his attention to the waiter.

Giorgio: Oh for a beaker full of the warm West, Full of the almost true, the unengorging Cola With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And embrowned and sticky mouth.

Wherein, or so the wantons have it, A dozen Mentos might a sudden fountain make.

The waiter brings a Diet Coke. Enter Duke Antonio.

Giorgio: Well met, Duke Antonio! How fares my noble cousin? Departest thou for fair Albion's shores the nonce?

Antonio: The nonce? Yes, I have yet some business in this place, though time blows his horn for me, as for all men.

Giorgio eats, as Antonio stands.

Antonio: But it bethinks me that the matter of the vasty commerce of the world, The spice ships braving winter storms, the caravan from farmost Chine to Ealing come, Yet demands our attendance, late though the hour and tedious the argument.

And America's voice, itself by commerce made deep and loud, Should o'er the objections of the cavilling, sheltered pack, sound out.

Giorgio: Dost ask it of me?

Antonio: Sweet cousin, I do.

Giorgio: And who presideth over the judgment of the issue?

Antonio: You know her well, 'tis Angela, the Duchess of Bavaria.

Giorgio: Ah yes, now I think on't I do recall the dame. Request her, fair cousin, that in the deep interior of our counsels she make her eye to fall on me.

Antonio: I will.

Giorgio: Thus being called must I, as fitting the rank I do hold, reply.

And so all is known.

But sweet Antonio, in what old box in dusty dungeon entombed are those poor creatures that were once held to be my politenesses? You have a gift, not two days since, bestowed upon this your tardy and undeserving friend. A sweater, was it not?

Antonio: Of Burberry, coz. This spring the generous lambs first leapt the swards of Oxfordshire that - summer-shorn - rendered up this item of men's charcoal knitwear.

And the Lady Cherie, with dressers three, made expedition to Harrods Palace, and there requested a long sleeve, ribb'ed crew neck, striped horizontal all about, with fully fashioned cuffs and waistband. Doth suit you, sirrah?

Giorgio: Like unto a second skin. Nay better, for the first hath no embroidered G. For Giorgio. But good Antonio, take we counsel now concerning the Levant.

My lord Annan, charged by the nations in their assembly to calm the noise of war, Seeks only to separate the arms, thinking thereby to fulfil the task.

But the enmerded Moor, taking this peace for respite and repose, By my vision, readies his galleys for renewed assault on the enrag'd Jew.

Antonio: Mayhap your counsels have prescribed another course, But stand I ready to depart, at word once spoken, For domed Jerusalem, besieged Beirut and perilous Damascus, To smell out the land, to test the walls and ramparts of obstinacy, and discover yet who would rather dwell in the valleys of peace.

Only let it be soon, for rashness leads on to rashness.

Giorgio: Good my cousin, e'en now the fair Condoleezza, for Zeus's favoured daughter named, Encompasses within her Vuitton sacks, the necessaries for the voyage.

Antonio: The course is wise. And yet thy herald, being thy herald, must prevail, or all is lost.

Gentle Giorgio, little detains me in my state of England, whose wealth and peace is long secured, and whose people's affections were ever mine. And so might I, with profit to us all, beard the lion in his den, and failing if fail I must, succeed.

Giorgio: Sweet Antonio, there may yet be need. But how the horrid bruits of war do interrupt the nourishment of the soul. I have thought ten times this summer long to divert me to those pursuits for which my nature was by God first formed. The writing of sonnets.

Antonio: The composition of operatics.

Giorgio: The designing of cathedrals.

There is the sudden sound of microphone feedback.

Giorgio: But heark! A spy?

Antonio: This microphone, which we thought but slept, is awake and - like any traitor - broadcasts our councils to the unready world. Dead for a ducat, dead!

Antonio draws his sword and stabs the microphone.

The rest is silence.