Perhaps it’s because it has been so long since there was a proper M&A battle involving a doyen of the FTSE 100, but there’s a somewhat surreal aspect to the latest blockbuster. It’s hard to say what’s odder: BHP’s strange bid for Anglo American or Anglo’s weird attempt to rebuff the Aussie miner’s approaches.  BHP has effectively said Anglo is a sprawling mess and suggested it should be broken up for parts. Anglo has armed the barricades by coming up with its own plan to get rid of everything but its iron ore and copper assets. It’s a bit like trying to fend off the advances of a hungry cannibal by offering to carve. Let’s recap. At the end of April the Aussie miner made an all-share £31bn offer to buy Anglo as long as the UK-listed miner, if it didn’t mind awfully, disposed of its platinum and iron ore assets in South Africa first. Anglo said it did mind: the price was too low and the deal too complicated. BHP came back with an improved offer of £34bn, a pretty decent 30pc premium on where Anglo’s shares were trading before the takeover interest became public. In response, Anglo’s chief executive Duncan...