As of Friday, the British military presence in Iraq comes to an end. There will be no flags, no parades and no speeches and not even a formal withdrawal – just an administrative mess. The warning signs were there in June when plans for Britain's final military mission in Iraq was in disarray, with no formal agreement finalised to maintain in place a Royal Navy detachment and upwards of 400 troops after the 31 July deadline, when the bulk of British forces were required to quit Iraq.

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As a well-wishing American, I find all of this deeply painful.

Please keep a grip on yourselves. Please don't set aside the sense of propriety and proportion that makes you almost unique among European cultures. Please. There's still a war to fight. The original one, the 'good' one. Remember?

Let's do it.

I was quite amused to see how the TLA "TCN" had changed in meaning. Back in the days of the grand coalition, with Italians, Czechs, Danes, Australians and Romanians all based in Basra, it meant "Troop Contributing Nation(al)". In June, it meant "Third Country National" - i.e. everybody bar Iraqis, Yanks or Brits - normally the people imported by KBR and their equivalents.