Obama's 500

OK I know the guy is important, but to have an entourage of 500 people with you when you travel to the G20 summit, is almost as preposterous as Maria  Carey’s demands when she and her ‘support group’ hit town.

Why have a team of chefs with you? What’s wrong with Downing Street chefs then? Were they worried he’d be served a Full English for his breakfast with Gordon Brown which would incite the fury of the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish?

Ok – having a couple of doctors/physicians with you might make sense as they’ll know the ‘ins and outs’ of the body of the ‘most powerful man in the world’ and might be useful if the worst happens, but word is he had enough medical personnel with him to staff a small hospital!

Most people will know about Air Force One but there’s actually two of them  (two jumbo jets) and I don’t know if both arrived at Stanstead on Tuesday but if they did and they caused some delay to Ryanair’s flights, you can just imagine Michael O’Leary, the rather rude boss of the budget airline, saying a few things. ‘What the **** is happening? Who the **** is hogging the runways. Who the **** does he think he is? Two ****ing jumbos – I hope he’s paid his ****ing landing fees’. And so on.

Then we get to the 200 secret service (SS) agents. I’ve been watching them on the telly. When Michelle Obama, who has her own compliment of minders, visited a hospital, I noticed that one of the SS tried to push away a women who was just a bit close to the First Lady. She protested but was pushed away again. Turned out she was one of the receiving dignitaries at the hospital! Then, when Barack Obama had finished a speech somewhere during the afternoon, as soon as he stepped away from the podium, an SS lackey rushed in to pick up his papers, presumably so no one could get their hands on them and see his doodles, which no doubt would have had funny pictures of Gordon Brown scrawled on them and little quips about his ‘bunker mentality’ etc etc.

No matter how you try though, it’s difficult to work out what the 500 do (some papers say it’s 600) but they must have a budget of a small developing country – like the UK – ha ha !  And who controls all these people? Does somebody count them back onto the two jumbos when they’re leaving to ensure nobody is left behind? I also suppose that if you’re a bit of a fantasist you could have, with the right haircut and your trousers two inches too short, wandered into London bars last week, say you’re part of the President’s ‘ring of steel’, let the girls feel the bulge of your weapon and generally have a good time.

But, and it’s a big but, I bet this has nothing to do with the President. The ‘administration’ will have taken over and he’ll probably not even know that there’s 499 people walking behind him. One thing I did notice however, and it was heartwarming. All day on Wednesday, a stream of world leaders and various statesmen and stateswomen entered number 10 Downing Street to meet Gordon and Mrs Brown. Of the hundred or so people who wandered through that glossy black door, only one stopped to say ‘hello’ to the doorman and shake his hand. That person was Barack Obama. What a guy!