Nice as it is to be given a present, have you ever had the feeling somebody is dropping you a bit of a hint with the volume selected?
Such ungrateful thinking might perhaps have occurred to Felipe VI, who succeeded Juan Carlos to the Spanish throne last year, with the gift he received from Pablo Iglesias at the European parliament on Wednesday. Iglesias, who leads the radical anti-austerity party Podemos, chose to give the monarch four box sets of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Everybody loves George RR Martin these days, of course, and according to the Washington Post the king pronounced himself delighted: “That’s great, I haven’t seen it.”
Iglesias has stated elsewhere that he’s a big fan. But royals don’t have the easiest of times in Martin’s dynastic saga (whose sources include the French historical novels The Accursed Kings). This was the first time the Podemos leader had managed to meet Felipe - and he told reporters: “I told him that he is sure to like the series and that it will give him some keys for understanding the political crisis in Spain.”
Last year Iglesias, formerly an academic, edited a book analysing Martin’s saga called Win or Die - Political Lessons from Game of Thrones. The cover features a drawing of Iglesias sitting on an iron throne.
He also said of meeting Spain’s new dynastic top dog: “I wouldn’t ask a question about monarchy or republic, but rather whether in a normal democracy the head of state should be chosen on the basis of his blood or at the ballot box.” What could he be implying? What, similarly, was on Hugo Chavez’s mind when he was moved to present President Barack Obama with a copy of the late Eduardo Galeano’s 1973 work, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent? It was certainly not so benign as the thought that inspired Gordon Brown’s gift to Obama back in 2009: Scottish Estate Tweeds.
Which leaves me wondering about the art of rhetorical gift-giving. If by some dreadful chance David Cameron was forced on one as a Christmas guest, what would be an appropriate gift? Surely a copy of Thomas Piketty’s Capital would make him feel as welcome as you’d wish. George Osborne would presumably be delighted with a copy of Economics for Dummies, and maybe Iscariot: A Novel of Judas, by Tosca Lee, for Nick Clegg. Better than receiving a fat lip I suppose.
Which books would you choose to deliver a message with?
