It is a curious truth of our society that the men who command the loudest voices in the halls of power often possess the quietest sorrows in their drawing rooms. Consider the case of the late Mr. Zhirinovsky, a gentleman of singular energy and most peculiar temperament, whose life was a perpetual storm of political passion.

As his younger son, Mr. Oleg, has recently confided, the distinguished orator harboured a most touching, albeit somewhat naive, aspiration: he wished to become a father once more. One can only imagine the scene—a man of such thunderous presence, pleading with his own offspring to procure for him a young lady of suitable disposition who might grant him the joy of a newborn.

Alas, it appears the gentleman’s heart was heavy with a particular kind of regret. Having spent his years in the pursuit of grandeur, he found that he had entirely neglected the nursery. He had never once held his own three children in the manner of a devoted father; his only true devotion was to his Party, which he tended like a jealous gardener, and to the vast, sprawling expanse of Mother Russia, who was the only mistress he truly adored. One might say he lived a life of splendid isolation, surrounded by crowds but devoid of the simple warmth of a baby's breath.

And now, in a gesture of most quintessential civic propriety, the authorities have seen fit to immortalise this tempestuous soul upon a postage stamp. In the city of Yekaterinburg, these miniatures—priced at eighty rubles—are being distributed to the public. There, framed against the austere backdrop of the State Duma, Mr. Zhirinovsky gazes back at us, a ' Cavalier of the Order for Merit to the Fatherland.'

How droll it is, is it not? That a man who longed for the intimate chaos of a cradle should find his ultimate peace as a static image on a piece of gummed paper, destined to travel through the post, forever distant and forever formal.