It looks at first like a textbook case of a Government official putting his foot in his mouth but it all hangs on whether we are talking five years or 50.
You do not need to read this column to know that there has been a bit of an uproar about an interview that our financial secretary, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, gave to a Singapore English language newspaper.
It quoted him as suggesting that Hong Kong and Singapore should consider adopting a common currency and, most importantly, that he used the words 'we are thinking in terms of a horizon of five to seven years'.
Not so, said the Hong Kong Government's news distributor, hurtling out a correction as quickly as it could. He was actually talking about the very long term and said that if it took Europe 50 years to set up a common currency it would take much longer in Asia.
Now forget for a moment all the other noise about how Mr Tsang reportedly said he felt 'brave and courageous' about thinking the unthinkable and about how the subsequent correction said our Government 'has no intention whatsoever' of tinkering with the Hong Kong dollar's link to the US dollar.
What counts is whether he said five to seven years or whether he said 50. Five to seven is foot in mouth. Fifty is the proper sort of long-term strategic thinking that a person in Mr Tsang's position is paid to do.