Read this on the plane home yesterday and laughed so loudly that the flight attendant gave me a odd look. Still worth it though. I love the English language when it’s used like this.

More troubling than the ban, however, is its implication: French officials are sending important ideas to each other using BlackBerry e-mail. That is deeply disturbing. Most BlackBerry messages are composed during a brief spell of “BlackBerry prayer” in the middle of a meeting to discuss something else. Many others are thumbed out while jet-lagged in the car on the way to the airport, or inebriated in a taxi late at night.

Government officials and ministers have been making terrible decisions for centuries while sober, awake and concentrating. Making them while drunk, exhausted and distracted is unlikely to help – although anything is worth a try.

One thing to be said for BlackBerry messages is that they are short. That is an idea worth exploring. Government documents the world over should be typed using only the thumbs. If they cannot be sensible, at least they can be brief.