Foul-mouthed journalists appear to have awarded Peter Mandelson a prize for the most gratuitous use of the word "fuck" in New York.
Waiting to give a TV interview in the Residence of the British Consul-General, Mandelaon asked "who the fuck is he?" of Howard Schultz within the earshot of dinner guests.
Shultz, seen by Mandelson to be running down the British economy rather than running his own company, is Chairman and Chief Executive of Starbucks.
None of this is any great surprise - for who has not walked into a Starbucks coffee shop and exclaimed, "Fuck me. How much?"
