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Whatever the truth of Gordon Brown's diplomatic discomfort in New York and his kitchen chat with President Obama, the incident suggests the often bizarre reality of much of international relations at this level.
For behind much of the public theatre of diplomacy, the ornate embassies and grand banquets lies a world of personal egos and petty politics that is often more playground than statesmanlike.
It is a world where power and hierarchy usually count for more than ideas, where status and symbolism trump genuine dialogue. Hence the routine to-ing and fro-ing over exactly what kind of meeting one leader or minister has with another — a “walk by”? A “walk and talk”? Or the holy grail of a bilateral? The results can be perverse, even comic.
I accompanied Jack Straw on his first trip to Israel, four months into his new job as Foreign Secretary in 2001. It was an important moment, coming a few weeks after 9/11 and as Straw sought to establish himself on the world stage.
The trip was a diplomatic disaster, not because of what it failed to achieve — such trips rarely have a particular purpose beyond demonstrating which countries are important to our interests — but because Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to have a diplomatic hissy fit.
He cancelled his scheduled meeting with Straw. The reason? Straw had made the faux pas of using the word “Palestine” in a newspaper article on the Middle East, published in Iran.
The cancellation was the ultimate snub: we were horrified. What would it do to Straw's reputation? Where would this leave UK-Israeli relations? How would this terrible personal slight be covered in the press?
Frantic phone calls followed between diplomats, officials and flunkeys to try to reverse Sharon's decision. It took a personal call from Tony Blair to change the old general's mind and the meeting went ahead late at night.
Of course, it served no purpose whatsoever beyond demonstrating Sharon's singular desire to make an impact on the new boy. Nothing of substance was discussed and it was memorable only because halfway through, one of the chairs collapsed, leaving Tony Blair's Middle East envoy, Lord Levy, prostrate on the floor. It seemed to sum up the whole trip. It is not just meetings that don't go ahead that cause diplomatic panic but those not planned at all.
I recall the call from a Foreign Office colleague in New York with Straw at the UN five years ago. “There's something you need to know,” my colleague said nervously. “Jack accidentally met Robert Mugabe — and a TV crew recorded the whole thing.”
“Accidentally”? Unlike many of his diplomatic counterparts, Straw tried to cut through formalities and would stray from his phalanx of advisers to approach other government representatives and say hello.
This he did at the UN, where literally hundreds of presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers mill around. He was saying hello to so many people that he barely noticed, until it was too late, that he was shaking the hand of a brutal dictator.
The response in the press was predictably unforgiving. But as with the Sharon debacle, it counted for little in terms of Britain's foreign policy position — or even for Straw's long-term reputation.
So Gordon Brown need not worry on that point at least. A chat with the US President over a steaming cooker may not be ideal diplomacy. But the UK's relations with the US depend on rather more fundamental issues than whether or not a meeting is actually a meeting at all.
Ed Owen was Jack Straw's special adviser at the Foreign Office, 2001-5. He is now director of Apex Communications.
