my friend the sarkozyste

In a serie of unexpected "my friend the..." (I might do one on "My friend the materialist", but I don't feel I have enough material), let's look at A, a co-worker of mine, whom I wouldn't really describe as a friend at all actually, but whom I appreciate all the same.
A is a weird character through and through. He has a peculiar look - greasy heair, shoulders covered with dandruff, suits that seem to come from a second hand shop and usually don't fit expected colour schemes, and sports shoes. He talks funny, because he's austrian, and from the centre of Vienna at that, and he treats people with instinctive haughtiness - although I still haven't figured out if it was instinct or acting. He can be absolutely rude and disagreeable - but I have no problem with that, because I know that I can be absolutely rude and disagreeable with him in return. He came to my desk this morning, smelling a little funny, and explained he'd just been woken up and had spent all of Sunday at work and slept in the conference room on the sort of shrink's sofa that was recently aquired for our pregnant ladies to settle down on. We've just spent a month working together on a study for the French ministry of ecology, and today was the last day for this project - as well as for another project I worked on with my supervising researcher, E. There was still plenty to do for both projects, and my day was pretty full - as has been the whole of April, really. In any case, it's over now and I'm taking a lot of time off.
But as I was reading the last of the study for the French people, A came to me and handed me the book he had kept under his eyes while writing the study over the past couples of weeks. I couldn't imagine how he could work with this photo glaring at him at all time, but he did. And now, he passed it over to me. I'm still not sure if he meant it as a thank you for helping him with the project, or as a joke, or simply because he's finished reading the book and has no use for it anymore. In any case, I asked him why he was so fascinated with Sarkozy and how come he was right wing. I said he wasn't right wing, but France needed a strong authority to take care of it. I'll have to discuss at another time what exactly isn't right wing about him then, but I was interested by the simple division over the same person - he would see him as a solution to unruly revolution-longing france, I see it as the source of provocation and trigger of rebellion. I AM starting to see though how some people can be so positively fascinated by the guy.

J. called me this morning to ask whether I could take his procuration and vote for him on Sunday. I didn't think it would work, seeing as he's on the lists at the Düsseldorf consulate, and indeed the attempt failed. One less vote for Royal.