Best friends stand by and trust each other through good and bad times. Most solid friendships are based on shared experiences or childhood bonds. It’s comforting to have good friends with whom we can be ourselves and all pretense and role-play falls away. Such is my relationship with Camp whom I’ve known for many years. He’s like a brother and I value his advice and counsel. We know each other’s wives and family, share concerns about health and money and most times we are on the same wavelength with the state of the world and the big picture. We disagree sometimes and respect each other’s opinion. We depend on each other for honesty and solid judgement and we like each other’s company. Such is the state of our friendship. When I asked Camp what he thought of the bromance between Putin and Xi he scoffed at the idea of their friendship.

 ‘Although they have sworn ‘boundless friendship’ to each other, their relationship is above all a partnership of convenience. This was obvious by the recent phone call for Xi’s birthday. Both men are 69 and have met almost 40 times over the past ten years and both men think very highly of themselves.’

            ‘But do they trust each other?’