You can't teach an old kuttá new tricks - Musharraf has done it again. It was obvious that the military were hoping that the fundos would assassinate Benazir, and so ensured that security was lax for her return home. When that didn't work - first time anyway - and the Supreme Court was going to find against him, he declared martial law. Allah, Army, Amrika; no fundos arrested, only secular types. The Triple Alliance stands firm against the threat of an outbreak of democracy.
The response of the dictator's western patrons can be summed up in the words of another South Asian based bully-boy, "Oh dear! How sad! Never mind!"

I have to quote from an article of Kenneth Tynan's reprinted (from 1973) in today's Observer. Of Noel Coward he writes, " ... if his face suggested an old boot, it was unquestionably handmade."
What is the opposite of a backhanded compliment?