Much of the press reported gleefully that the UK-India Business Council had launched a new course for British businessmen advising them, among other things, to try to stop kissing their counterparts when visiting the subcontinent.
The fact that the ball bearing salesmen of Burnley (a caricature, but you get the idea) are now enthusiastic smoochers is, surely, proof positive of the final collapse of that stiff-upper-lip Brit reserve that for centuries set us apart us from our more physically effusive continental cousins.
No longer, for us, the firm, old-fashioned, let's-keep-our-distance-thank-you handshake; we now hug, kiss, squeeze and embrace with the best of 'em, as I found out for today's G2.
"Everyone's doing it," Carol McLachlan, a personal development coach for accountants, told me. "Bank manager and customer. Boss and employee. Next-door neighbours. Client and accountant. Any old colleague. The rule seems to be that if you've met them even once, you kiss them. And in business circles, certainly, that wasn't the case even three years ago."
A kiss is ambiguous at the best of times, signifying anything from friendliness to desire, deference to insult. Kissing - on the lips, originally - was, in fact, a common form of social greeting in Britain from Roman times at least until the 1500s, when the potential for misinterpretation (is that kiss saying "Hello", or "I don't half fancy you"?) led to its gradual demise outside the fairly restricted circles of ladies who lunch, footballers, and what body language expert Judi James calls "the more excitable professions", in other words the theatre, fashion, etc.
Abroad, of course, they've never really abandoned the gesture, although the rules governing its use are sometimes exceedingly complicated. In France, for example, anything between one and four kisses can be acceptable depending on who you are, who you're kissing, how well the two of you know each other and and exactly where you both happen to be in France. There are so many variables that even French people within the same region confess to being confused.
Here, it's a veritable social minefield: to kiss or not to kiss? Cheek-to-cheek, or mwah mwah in mid-air? One kiss or two? Right cheek first, or left? It was all so much easier when the handshake was your only option.
So how do you feel about it? Do you welcome our newly rediscovered propensity for oscular intimacy (assuming you recognise it at all), or does it embarrass you? Are you confident you know what to do, in every situation? How, in short, do you deal with the great kissing conundrum?
