EU, you so funny!

[Murgatroyd]

With a weak coalition at home and an opposition calling for "Nice or death," Mr Miller had arrived in Brussels with little margin for manoeuvre. He left a national hero.

Despite suffering spinal injuries in a recent helicopter crash, he had defied his doctors' orders, joining the other EU leaders in a wheelchair.

That did not prevent his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi from cracking one of his jokes about being dropped from a helicopter.

Not exactly diplomatic from the man who was expected to broker an historic deal on the first European constitution.

Over lunch, Mr Berlusconi also failed to endear himself to another key player, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany.

"Let's talk about football and women," Mr Berlusconi suggested. And turning to the four-times married Mr Schroeder, "Gerhard, why don't you start."

"I don't know much about women," Mr Schroeder apparently replied, looking sourly at his asparagus risotto. "But I thought you knew something about food."

Then, until one o'clock in the morning, Mr Berlusconi drew some of his colleagues aside for a series of "confessionals" - not the religious sort, but a traditional form of EU negotiations to find out each government's bottom line.

Some prime ministers apparently stood outside Mr Berlusconi's door only to be turned away without an explanation. One delegation gave up and went to a pub.

Man, they criticize our foreign policy, yet make fun of one another's paralysis, womanizing and weight problems when they're supposed to be working on a constitution. Pshaw.

[LordShard]

heh heh heh, they need to fix their own problems before they bitch about ours.