In such an atmosphere, inclusion of politically incorrect content is not merely a risky move, but constitutes a breach of social decorum.

In his book The Blue Nile, Alan Moorehead described the expedition thus It proceeds first to last with the decorum and heavy inevitability of a Victorian state banquet, complete with ponderous speeches.

In fact, one has to search the books of diplomatic history to find evidence of non performance of diplomatic conventions , and in each instance the challenge to diplomatic decorum came from a source that can be credibly dismissed as barbarian.