Nero and Caligula are a' feudin'!

Well, OK, it's actually Sarkozy and Berlusconi, but that's more than close enough. Sarky is really worked up about the ECB, which is good, except what he's worked up about is that there might be two Italians and (gasp) no Frenchmen on its board come November.

Really.

Yeah, Nicky, that's really the problem that you should be focussed on. Well done. At least you are proving that you play a mean fiddle.

At the latest rescue summit, these two giants of statecraft managed to feud over the future of one, Lorenzo Bini Smagi (aka the Lusitania?):

Sarkozy has made clear that France wouldn't accept a situation under which Italy would have two of its nationals on the board and France none, when Frenchman Jean-Claude Trichet is replaced at the helm of the Frankfurt-based bank by Draghi in November.

After repeating in piqued diplomatic language Friday that it expected Bini to quit the ECB board to honor a commitment he made this summer to step down by year-end and clear the way for a French official to join the ECB board, the French government appeared to be losing its patience.

But Berlusconi argued it was none of its responsibility. "We offered him prestigious posts, but Bini Smaghi declined them all," Berlusconi said, adding that he bore no responsibility in the spat. "At a certain point, I asked [ Sarkozy]: What should I do? Kill him?"