Meanwhile...

Gordon Brown strode down the steps from his plane (GB1) onto the JFK tarmac. Unrestrained cheering broke out in the teeming crowd of spectators. 'We've seen nothing like it since Beatlemania,' remarked a harassed cop, holding back the excited throng. Greeting the Great British Leader on the tarmac, an excited George Bush embraced him with a fervour that almost brought a tear to the eye of the stern-faced son of the manse. Later, as they stood in the open limo for the tickertape parade along Broadway, Bush lifted his British hero's arm aloft in mutual triumph... And then Gordon woke up.
There's bad timing, very bad timing, and Brown's visit to the US. Not only is the Pope - that representative of an outworn and moribund creed, famously lacking in battalions - getting all the attention and the brouhaha, while the man known to the Great American Public as Gordon Who? slips in all but unnoticed. There's also an impending visit from the South Korean leader, the frenzied build-up to the Pennsylvania primary - and, back home, disgruntlement and sharpening of knives amid economic panic. Heaven knows what Brown will go back to. Blair, typically, has timed his visit perfectly for next week when all is quiet and he can bask in the limelight. Och weell...