'farrago' is a legitimate word in English, although it is considered somewhat archaic.
It is most often used to refer to a confused mixture of things, like a hodgepodge or an odd assortment. For example, you could say: "The market stalls were a farrago of colorful knickknacks, produce, and wares."
My favourite American comic strip was Terry and the Pirates, a wonderful Oriental farrago of Chinese warlords, dragon ladies and antique pagodas that had the added excitement for me of being set in the China where I lived, an impossibly exotic realm for which I searched in vain among Shanghai's Manhattan-style department stores and nightclubs.
The ghastly suggestion of this farrago is that however much the British prime minister wants to lead his European partners to the light, and however much they may approve of his chosen path, most won't follow Mr Cameron in any circumstances.That is deeply worrying for Mr Cameron's renegotiation strategy.
Had not the newspaper coverage of the Litvinenko murder been a farrago of exaggeration, misunderstanding and hypocrisy?Well perhaps it had.
The author of the "Communist Manifesto" of 1848 considered fox-hunting "the greatest physical pleasure I know", the apogee of English culture and, less convincingly, a source of useful ideas for managing the revolution.What lessons should be drawn from this farrago?
While it lays bare the authoritarianism of Mr Putin's regime, this farrago has also shown something just as troubling: shambolic incompetence.
The whole debt-ceiling farrago has demonstrated just how difficult it will be to achieve significant medium-term consolidation incorporating both entitlement cuts and tax increases given America's truly dysfunctional political system.But, like my colleague, I doubt that a credit downgrade would be disastrous.
It has not been used to check the discrete actions of a huge number of individuals, which together have a broad effect.In this section The reluctant dragon Thou shalt not The Farage farrago A little bird told me Gravy train After the big house The empire strikes back ReprintsThis invites a host of hard questions.
Mr Bush starts with one big advantage: the charge that he knew all along that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction seems to be a farrago of nonsense.
In a year it will suggest more powers for the Welsh Assembly government.In this section The reluctant dragon Thou shalt not The Farage farrago A little bird told me Gravy train After the big house The empire strikes back ReprintsIf Westminster adopts the proposals, as it seems minded to, Wales will get the sort of powers Scotland has had since 1998.
Mr Justice Sedley, presiding over a judicial review in 1995, described one government consultation document as "a farrago of equivocation devious and deeply unattractive in its presentation and reasoning .That pattern of behaviour appears to be continuing.
Yet over the horizon, in Westminster, there is a rising threat to Mr Sharma's peace.In this section The reluctant dragon Thou shalt not The Farage farrago A little bird told me Gravy train After the big house The empire strikes back ReprintsAs Britain inches towards the EU exit, many Conservatives wonder whether the Commonwealth might provide the template for an alternative trade regime.
