UK: Profile - Sipko Huismans of Courtaulds.

The chief executive of Courtaulds talks to Chris Blackhurst in the classless language of international business.

Ten minutes into lunch with Sipko Huismans, the Dutch-born chief executive of Courtaulds, the chemicals group, and I drop a clanger - one that he has heard many times before, but a clanger, nevertheless. And one, he says, that only an Englishman would make. We are talking about Maastricht, or rather I am listening to a broadside against John Major for not stating the case for the Treaty forcefully enough, when I put my foot in it.