"Er...Dmitri?... Hi Dmitri!"

Just heard a certain Mr. Dmitri Medvedev has been elected Russian President.

The first thing I could remember is this piece of dialog from 'Dr. Strangelove' (spoken by American Prez Merkin Muffley on the 'hotline' to his Russian (Soviet, to be precise) counterpart, Dmitri Kissoff).

"Er...Dmitri? ... Hi Dmitri! I called to tell you that one of our generals went sick in the head and is ordering planes to drop Nuclear bombs on your facilities.... I am sorry too Dmitri.... No! Don't say you are sorrier than I am. I am very sorry."

For more info about Strangelove (an amazingly complex and darkly funny movie, one I would love to watch again) do visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove.

As someone who grew up in the cold war era under the shadow of a world-ending nuclear holocaust (a threat which has not entirely gone away) I humbly wish the new Dmitri on the block and his counterparts the world over - and the rest of us, there, here and everywhere - LUCK.