Expensive Toys

My mother has to buy a present for her great-grandson, my great-nephew, who is two. I'd been playing with Odi's kids earlier and suggested she give him an empty Kleenex box. The truth is that up to a certain age kids really aren't impressed by toys that come with batteries. Something like the Kleenex box will do just as well. Look, you can put things in it and take them out again,  you can wear it as a hat, you can rip it up...

Remember Eeyore with his burst balloons and empty hunney jar?

Another great game we were playing yesterday afternoon was "throw the ball into the waste paper basket". 

Mr Obama Comes To Lunch

I'll hand it to Cameron: he's very good at the PR. The barbecue in the garden of Number 10- with Obama dishing out burgers- was very, very feelgood. It reminded me of the love-in with Clegg in the same venue a year ago. Only then it was Cameron doing all the alpha-male patting and now it was Obama. At one point- after the photo-call on the doorstep of No 10-  Obama guided Cameron into his own house- as if he- Obama- were the host and not the other way round. I wonder whether this ritual of patronage and submission-  the top dog does the touching, the underdog allows himself to be touched- is something they perform consciously.

So now we have a new word for the Transatlantic relationship. It is no longer merely "special", it is "essential". I wonder whether this rebranding will catch on.