Bill Clinton eet een banaan (the best of the best uit ‘bellen met Bill en Blair’)

Maar liefst 532 pagina’s telt het pas vrijgegeven document waarin gesprekken tussen de toenmalige president Bill Clinton en de Britse premier Tony Blair zijn opgetekend. Het gaat om vooral telefonische conversaties tussen 1997 en 2000.

Een aantal dingen vallen op: Bill en Blair vinden elkaar helemaal ge-wel-dig en strijken elkaar voortdurend stroop om de mond. ‘I would love to see you again. Your speech was extraordinary.’ Verder zijn ze het (bijna) altijd met elkaar eens. Clinton laat zich gemakkelijk gaan, en scheldt erop los. In augustus 1998, bijvoorbeeld, over de bloederige Al Quada-aanslagen in Kenia en Tanzania: ‘I’m up to my ass in this African bombing.’

Het zou best kunnen dat Blair even grof gebekt is, maar de passages waarvan we vermoeden dat ze vol bollocks en cunt’s,  zijn – waarschijnlijk op zijn verzoek – weggelakt (blimey!).

Online duiken stuk voor stuk nepfragmenten op. Laat je niet foppen: Wij spitten met plezier het document door. Mate, zie hieronder de krenten uit de pap, de meest hilarische dialogen en de lekkerste oneliners op een rij:

1 Bill wil Brit worden, 10 april 1999

Clinton: If you want you can give me citizenship and make me a Brit.

Blair: You are one very popular man there.

Clinton: I sure hope that it helps in the elections.

2 Bill wil babysitten, 19 april 2000

Clinton: Hello, “dad”, how are you doing?

Blair: I am preparing.

Clinton: You know, after january I’m available for babysitting duties.

Blair: I wouldn’t say that or you’ll be doing it.

Clinton: You said you wanted to continue my work with the Third Way, and this is it: helping Blair balance work and family.

Blair: I could do with a bit of help, I tell you. Cherie is in great form but just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I tell you, just the thought and I feel as if my life’s about to begin again.

Clinton: It is going to be interesting. Given the way the world is changing, it’ll be a completely different childhood that the one your others had. Anyway, it is a great thing.

Blair: Right, Bill, we’ll put you down on the babysitting list now, mate.

Clinton: You’ve got a deal.

3 Bill kijkt een oude film, 15 mei 2000

Blair: Hello.

Clinton: Hey, Tony.

Blair: Hi, Bill. How are you doing?

Clinton: I’m great. I’m watching the end of an old Peter Sellers movie.

Blair: Which one?

Clinton: I can’t tell. I’ve only seen about five minutes. But Herbert Long just disappeared along with a castle.

Blair: Pink Panther, I think.

Clinton: I think it’s the second one. It’s funny as hell.

Blair: He was so funny, Peter Sellers. Anyway…

Clinton: I just wanted to put you in good humor since you’re dealing with Northern Ireland.

4 Bono van U2 is de slimste mens op aarde, 21 mei 1998

Clinton: He’s a smart man, I met him by accident in 1992 in Chicago, he helped me out and we’ve stayed in touch ever since. He’s a very smart man.

5 Tony slijmt over Bills kwaliteiten als kindervriend, 21 mei 1998

Blair: Oh, Bill, I can’t tell  you how great it was to have you. And for the kids, Euan’s friend went back to school the next day in a daze. I told my people that is was a real tribute to you that you were prepared to sit down and spend time with them in that way. We loved having you and had a great time, really.

Clinton (gaat eindeloos door over hoe bijzonder het is om met jonge mensen om te gaan.) You don’t even think about it, and then you turn around and find out it’s been a year since you talked to anyone who is 25. I liked it: they were delightful young men.

Blair: For them, they are still on cloud nine.

Bill: You ought to be proud of  yourself, you’ve done every damn thing you could.

6 Bill pakt er een banaan bij, 4 februari, 1999

Clinton: My staff won’t let me talk to you unless I have a banana at hand. I’m sitting here with a banana; it’s a big, ugly brownish one.

Blair: Now Bill, I thought we should have a word about Kosovo.

Clinton: Yes. Let me tell you, the Prime Ministers of both Macedonia and Albania were here today and they make us look like old men. They are 31 and 33 years old.

7 Bill at zijn buikje rond in Sienna, 6 augustus 1998

(Blair is in Toscane, Clinton vraag of hij in Sienna is geweest, Blair bevestigd.)

Clinton: Oh that is a great place, isn’t that a beautiful little town? When I was there about ten years ago, I ate at a four star restaurant, I can’t remember its name, but it had a sign of a fish, like a peace symbol or something. I had a three hour lunch there and they had to carry me out.

 8 Bill at wat minder lekker bij Boris Jeltsin, 29 mei 1997

Clinton: We will see each other in Denver. We are staying at an old cowboy hotel. Do you know where  you are staying?

Blair: I am not sure.

Clinton: We are arranging a dinner at a place called The Fort that specializes in buffalo meat, wich is low fat. When I had lunch with Boris, he served roast pig and told me real men hacked off ears and eat them. And once he served me 24 courses including moose lips.

9 Bill en Blair over Diana, 1 september 1997

Blair: It’s a grim business.

Clinton: It’s awful, really awful.

Blair: We saw her again just weeks ago when we hosted her for lunch with prince William, he’s a great kid.

Clinton: Yeah, I worry a lot about those kids now.

Blair: She was such a rock of stability in the sense she connected them with the outside world.

10 Bill vindt Tony een baby face

Blair: I’m just actually in my local workman’s club doing constituent surgery in county Durham.

Clinton: Are  you in Durham, I love the Durham cathedral.

Blair: I just came out of a bar where the old blokes were telling me about their troubles. From that to you.

Clinton: Good for  you. I love Durham.

Blair: Did you come here

Clinton: I did, I like dit so well I  brought Hillary back to see the cathedra land walk around the town. I took her to York and Durham on one of our trips.

Blair: Oh well,. I was a choirboy at the cathedral in Durham, if you can believe that.

Clinton: You still have that choirboy look.

11 Bill en Tony kennen Steven Spielberg (maar wie kent hem het best?)

Clinton: Tony? 

Blair: Hi Bill, how are you?

Clinton: Very well, indeed.

Blair: I am sitting here outside Chequers having a cup of tea with a friend of yours, Steven Spielberg.

Clinton: Steven Spielberg? You are? You tell Mr. Spielberg that you may be drinking tea with him, but I am here on the beach in Santa Monica having coffee with Ron Burkle, which shows California has more influence than either the British or the U.S. Government.

Blair: You are?

Clinton: Yes. I am looking at people skateboarding at the beautiful beaches of Santa Monica.

Blair: You lucky man. This is your vacation, then?

Clinton: No, no. I am out here working, but it is a Sunday morning and you wanted to talk. And Ron Burkle is a friend of mine who bought a house very close to the hotel where I was last night. I interrupted coffee to speak with you. Congratulations again on the ceasefire. I think we have a chance now. 

(…)

Clinton: Tell Steven Spielberg I hate coming all the way out here and not get to see him because he is hanging out in Chequers.

Blair: I will certainly.

Clinton: I always suspected that beneath that ruffled, intellectual demeanor was a real Tory aristocrat working. 

Blair: He is out here making a movie.

Clinton: I know. I told you before that he really wants to help rebuild the movie industry in Great Britain because he is so grateful for its influence. He got a lot of- input from early British film makers.

Blair: Lots of possibilities here, but also important to them that the U.S. and the British work closely, especially because some of the other countries and some of the stuff from the EU is not very sensible. The French and the Italians have weird rules and prescriptions on film making. It would help if we can get some decent British movies.