'That was then, this is now,' muttered the Chancellor, puffing out his chest so aggressively that one of his brass buttons shot across the room and struck Pickwick a glancing blow on the back of the head. 'Choice: Mr Hamlet for his behaviour apologises on behalf of Danish people, or we go to war!'

'He's talking to that nice conflict resolution man at the moment,' replied my mother in an anxious tone.

'Then it is war,' announced Bismarck, sitting down at the table and having an almond slice anyway. 'More talk is pointless. Return I wish to 1863.'

But then the door opened. It was Hamlet. He stared at us all and looked, well, different.

'Ah!' he said, drawing his sword. 'Bismarck! Your aggressive stance against Denmark is at an end. Prepare ... to die!'

The conflict resolution talk had obviously affected him deeply. Bismarck, unmoved by the sudden threat to his life, drew a pistol.

'So! Battenberg you finish behind my back, yes?'

And they might have killed one another there and then if Mum and I hadn't intervened.

'Hamlet!' I said. 'Killing Bismarck won't get your father back, now, will it?'

'Otto!' said Mum. 'Killing Hamlet won't alter the feelings of the Schleswiggers, now, will it?'

I took Hamlet into the hall and tried to explain why sudden retributive action might not be such a good idea after all.

'I disagree,' he said, swishing his sword through the air. 'The first thing I shall do when I get home is kill that murdering uncle of mine, marry Ophelia and take on Fortmbrass. Better still, I shall invade Norway in a pre-emptive bid, and then Sweden and — what's the one next to that?'

'Finland?'

'That's the one.'

He placed his left hand on his hip and lunged aggressively with his sword at some imaginary foe. Pickwick made the mistake of walking into the corridor at that precise moment and made a startled plooock noise as the point of Hamlet's rapier stopped two inches from her head. She looked unsteady for a moment, then fainted clean away.

'That conflict management specialist really taught me a thing or two, Miss Next. Apparently, my problem was an unresolved or latent conflict — the death of my father — that persists and festers in an individual — me. To face up to problems we must meet those conflicts head on and resolve them to the best of our ability!'

It was worse than I thought.

'So you won't pretend to be mad and talk a lot, then?'

'No need,' replied Hamlet, laughing. 'The time for talking is over. Polomus will be for the high jump, too. As soon as I marry his daughter he'll be fired as adviser and made chief librarian or something. Yes, we're going to have some changes around my play, I can tell you.'