One is leader of one of the most powerful economies in the world, and the other is Tony Blair. Yes, it was a case of mistaken identity last week when a doodle left behind at the International Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland was first thought to belong to Tony Blair, and then found to in fact to belong to Microsoft supremo Bill Gates.
The doodles were quickly given to various psychologists for analysis, and one such shrink, Elaine Quigley, told the Mirror newspaper that the doodles had Blair written all over them: "He is struggling to concentrate and his mind is going everywhere, but he knows he will get to the bottom of the problems in time. That’s Teflon Tony," she said. Or Teflon Bill, as it turned out that the doodles were his.
Meanwhile a graphologist, Emma Bache, told the Times newspaper that, "the Prime Minister’s surprisingly chaotic script indicates an aggressive, unstable man who is feeling under enormous pressure. I analysed his writing 18 months ago and there are marked differences. Then, his writing was much more fluid indicating that he felt more easy-come-easy-go. The ticks, such as the upward stroke on the ‘t’ in taxes, were not so angular." Marked differences? Call yourself a graphologist and you can’t spot that the writing is from a completely different person?
“He is a lot more assertive and aggressive than in recent years because there are lots of very angular strokes. There is a lack of curves and a lot of irritability which he is struggling to keep under control," said Bache. We already knew that beneath Gates’ affable persona there beats the heart of a ruthless businessman. But perhaps all the doodle really tells us is how be passes his time when faced with long, intermittently dull meetings.
