Writing in the Financial Times (you may have to register), John Lloyd produces yet another column about the iconoclasm of Larry Summers. But Lloyd also gets into print the kind of story that so many people at Harvard could tell about Summers, but which generally don’t get printed, because they make newspaper editors uncomfortable. (You’ll never find this kind of thing running in the Times, for example. It’s too raw, too honest.)

Summers had been invited to a dinner party by a member of the Harvard faculty. As was his wont, he dominated the conversation. But as the evening reached its closing stages, he seemed to grow bored. Clasping his hands behind his neck, he lowered his face to the table - and stayed that way….

I’d love to hear from readers on this one. First, does anyone know who hosted the dinner party in question? And second, does anyone else have a similar story about Summers’ curious behavior?

I wrote about this side of Summers a bit in Harvard Rules—I described, for example, Summers falling asleep at speeches by Mikhail Gorbachev and Pervez Musharraf—and some readers thought that the material was irrelevant and/or unfair. Obviously, I disagreed: When you’re in a leadership position, matters of style and manners can matter very much. In fact, the point struck me as so obvious that I was surprised anyone even argued it….

Can you imagine if the president of the United States attended a state dinner, put his head on the table, and fell asleep? They’d call in the presidential physician….