The diplomatic incident in Russia - An apology.

On behalf of my idiot Foreign Office staff, I would like to apologise to both Yuri Staunch - The Russian Assistant Prime Minister - And the Russian people for the unfortunate error made on Sir Sidney Gaffe's 'Goodwill' tour of Russia this weekend.

As you may well know, Sir Sidney presented Comrade Staunch with a fine Mesmo Corp 'Happy Hugs' doll, which bears a 'your message here' tee-shirt. Our intention had been to place a message of love and friendship on there, however, thanks to what can only be described as a 'balls up' in our translation department, the message read instead 'Go to Hell you T*ssers'.

I can only assure our fine, lovely Russian friends that this was indeed an error and that no malice or ill-will was intended on our part - And whilst suffering from a complete humour failure - I would like to thank Comrade Staunch for his customary frankness in pointing out the error.

I'm sure that you will all be glad to know that the 'bad turn' and collapse suffered by Sir Sidney just after the mis-translation was revealed, was not of a serious nature and he should be well enough to carry on his duties as soon as he can get himself packed and on a plane back to Unity Plaza.

We will be launching a full investigation as to how an organisation that represents the free world can be so idiotic as to not properly check the correct translation of a gift before giving it to a foreign dignitary at such a crucial moment in world history and with the worlds media watching... But this may take a little time to fathom.

In the meantime, rest assured that we are doing everything in our power to ensure that this does not cause a problem in our new post-post cold war, thawing & slight re-freeze' era relationship with Russia and also, have no fear that Miss T'su is currently holding de-briefing talks with our translation staff in a roomy but rather damp sub-basement at Unity Plaza.