Jackie Danicki

Brian Micklethwait has written a lovely and glowing piece about my Antoine. Some of my favourite bits:

The man just knows so much about party politics, and about so many places…

Antoine has always taken a gleeful pleasure in the strange twists and turns that party politics can involve. For him, party politics is just fun. Americans, with their empire to run and to argue about, too often find themselves writing not about politics as practised in Costa Rica or Azerbaijan, or Australia or wherever, but about how well America (aka President Bush) is doing in Costa Rica, Azerbaijan, Australia or wherever, and being just too damn solemn and serious about it all. In short, Antoine doesn’t just bring formidable knowledge to the blog party. He also brings a particular and I would say, potentially, a very attractive attitude. And it’s an attitude that would also make him an ideal broadcaster…

I have lost count of the number of times I have heard Antoine talk, publicly or just in conversation, about the ironies and intricacies of French politics, which he is very well placed to do, on account of being bilingual in English and French. (He’s not called Antoine for nothing.) And I vividly recall that he was one of the few of my acquaintances to predict not only the mere fact, but, very precisely, the scale of the first Tony Blair victory in Britain.

Yep, he’s one smart cookie, and yes, his attitude towards these things is very attractive. And did I mention he’s awesome? You can read Antoine’s election blog and see for yourself.

Filed under: Life