Dietrichsen is one of that dwindling band of diplomats who represented both the apartheid regime and South Africa’s new democracy led by President Nelson Mandela.

His memoir contains gems of a unique history that includes the complex and often exasperating transition between the two.

Dietrichsen writes in a detailed, discursive manner that reminds one of the procedural style adopted by writers of the increasingly popular Nordic Noir genre.

Presumably he owes this either to the kilometers of diplomatic drafts he was required to write in a 35 year career in the foreign service or to his Danish heritage, which explains the puzzling title of the book.

Full disclosure, I did military service with the author in D company of the Army Gymnasium in 1967.

He went on to graduate from the Military Academy in Saldhana Bay. He hung up is uniform in 1972 to join the foreign service.

Over the years, we met up a receptions and foreign affairs events – he as a diplomat and public servant, me as a journalist.

This book puts meat on the bones of what I learned about his rather stellar career.

More importantly, it is a concise and well constructed history of the demise of apartheid and the birth of South Africa’s democracy.

Apart from experiences abroad, he played a role driving the rapprochement with neighbouring Mozambique through the Nkomati Accord; in the eventual inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president; and in the formation of the diverse new Department of International Relations.

The book  is elaborately  embroidered with his personal experiences and family tales. 

His three daughters, who have personally distinguished themselves thanks to or perhaps despite his unsettled diplomatic wanderings, add a colourful tailpiece to the book.

They were clearly inspired by their father’s sense of curiosity and adventure and took full advantage of the opportunities provided by his peripatetic lifestyle.

Dietrichsen overcame the disappointment at being pushed aside to make way for an “affirmative” appointment , having been named as ambassador to Indonesia and received agrement  from the host government.

He went on to become ambassador to Switzerland  Liechtenstein  and Ireland.

He left the department in 2007 to accompany his wife on her posting to Hanoi. 

Never one to put up his feet, he has embarked on an academic career training the leaders of tomorrow.

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Dubbed “mad Mike” by the East German media he made his name as a hired gun in the Congo crisis and became a laughing stock for a disastrous failed coup in the Seychelles.

It is surprising that Mike Hoare, who lived a dangerous life to the full, should have lived to 100.

Born of Irish parents in India, he embarked on a military career that saw him end the Second World War as a major.

After emigrating to South Africa, he met Congolese leader Moïse Tshombe and fought as a mercenary for him.

But it was the failed Seychelles coup in 1978 that saw him jailed and transformed him to soldier-of-ill-fortune 

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The organizers of the air rally, which is heading down Africa to Cape Town, has elected not to speak about their ordeal until the planes are safely back in the air.

Allowed to leave Gambella airport near the border with South Sudan, the 40 people involved in the rally went to a hotel to await  take off this morning.

The Ethiopian authorities maintained the aircraft from the 20s and 30s did not have the proper clearance to fly over their country.

Diplomats from Britain, the United States and Ireland appear to have smoothed up matters.

The planes have 10 more countries to cross before arriving in Cape Town on December 16.

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