Durrell provides us here with a few anecdotes from diplomatic life. How the Chief of Mission was over-active and always into peculiar things, like making sailor’s knots all the time to the point where he had his typist tied to the radiator and nobody capable of freeing her. He then proceeded to have a beehive imported from Guernesay to Italy, where he was posted. The bees decided they did not like the beehive and settled for years in the tin stove of the Chancery. Another story is about the cook that was angry and decided to load all the food with huge amounts of garlic. Not all the stories are hilarious but there is a fair amount of derision and Britishness in these anecdotes.
“Then he said in a low murderous tone, from between clenched teeth. ‘I tell you that from now on there is to be no more garlic. Sage, yes. Thyme, yes. Rosemary, marjoram, dill, cummin, yes. Emphatically yes. But garlic, no!’ And so the edict went forth and the sale of peppermints in the Naafi dropped off again.”