I don't know how you feel about the times we live in, the developments we are exposed to, and the unfolding spectacles we witness. My default reaction these days: It's all too much.
Which is why I have found it very difficult over the past months to write anything here, let alone to publish it - just in case you were wondering, Constant Reader.
I am now encouraged to resume my blogging by good friends who are generous enough to claim they miss reading my ramblings. So, Gary, Graham, and Nick - this one is for you!
But then, what better week to confront my demons than this - book-ended as it is by the unelected UK Prime Minister's speech on what "Brexit means Brexit" actually does mean on Tuesday and the U.S. President-Elect's (now President's) inauguration on Friday.
But since everything there is to say on both has been said, and by experts (less popular though they are these days, at least in Little Britain), commentators, and pundits much more knowledgeable than your author, I would love to be able to steer clear of adding my views on Theresa May and Donald Trump. Plus, it's such a beautiful day...
This exercise in self-discipline is not going to be easy, and at the outset I can't really promise I will see it through. In fact, I know I will not - as do you.
It does remind me of a song dating all the way back to 1929 (when it was first recorded and performed, long even before my time, by one Nick Lucas) that then became a one-hit wonder success for Tiny Tim (1932 - 1996) in 1968: "Come tip-toe through the tulips with me." Tiny Tim? Ring a bell? Yes - a character in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843).
Tiny Tim, born Herbert B. Khaury, was an American singer of Russian-Lebanese descent. He became famous for three things: his hair, his ukelele, and his falsetto voice. His stage name was ironic - he was tall (1.85m) but gangly. He was married three times, and had one daughter, born 1971 and named, you've guessed it, Tulip Victoria Khaudry. - The latest recording of "Tip-Toe Through the Tulips" is as recent as 2013 when Haruomi Hosono released a cover version... in Japanese!
Just for fun, here are three other singers with names referring to their built: Fats Domino (born 1928: "Blueberry Hill", "I'm Walkin'", "Whole Lotta Lovin'"); Little Richard (born 1932: "Tutti Frutti", "Slippin' and Slidin'", "Good Golly Miss Molly"); and, of course, the great Meat Loaf (born 1947: "Bat Out of Hell"; "I'd Do Anything for Love"; "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" - and many, many more, including a fantastic cover version of Literature Nobel Prize laureate Bob Dylan's "Forever Young").
I couldn't resist. What a great visualisation of a sentiment shared by many (not all, admittedly). The stuff you find on social media...
This is from The Telegraph, one of the staunchest Brexit supporters in the media, so not suspicious of being anti-May, anti-Johnson, anti-Davis, anti-Fox.
Meanwhile, the financial services industry plans to move thousands of jobs from London's City to locations in the EU - Paris, Luxembourg, Frankfurt.
So, a new Lost Generation paying dearly for their parents' and grandparents' failure to win the football game while there was still time and then resorting to that desperate last-moment "Hail Mary" pass?
The future, of course, will tell. And famously, it is one of the most difficult things to predict.
But the question must be asked.
Contrary to the British, the Americans at least will have the opportunity in four years' time to make amends and elect a new President, in case Number 45 will not have worked out. They can act should they feel Buyer's Remorse.
A number of folks over there who still haven't got over the election result are predicting "he won't last the first four years". Again, I wouldn't bet money on it. Statistically, the likelihood is firmly in "Hail Mary" territory as there has only been one in 44 American Presidents since 1789 who had to leave the office prematurely for reasons other than death.
The stuff of pub quiz questions: Who was it?
The hapless Richard Milhouse Nixon of course (Number 37) who stumbled over the Watergate scandal and resigned on 9 August 1974.
If so inclined, check out the whole story. To this day, regardless of the merits of the case itself, it continues to be a prime example of how NOT to manage a crisis.
To say Trump starts the job with a lot of credit and confidence of the American people in his ability to do it well would be a gross overstatement - as outrageous as many of his own pronouncements over the past months and in his Inauguration Speech. "American carnage"? Really?
In fact, he enters the White House with the lowest ever approval ratings for an incoming President. At 70 years of age, he is also the oldest, but I'm not sure how relevant this is, except that it's strange the 320 million Americans couldn't come up with anyone younger. Hillary Clinton is 69.
Of course we wish everybody good health, including and not least POTUS, whoever it may be, but again, the question must be asked in the context of what kind of a person the Vice President is - famously, only one heartbeat away from the Oval Office. If nothing else, Mike Pence at least looked the part.
Which brings me neatly to my hero Joe Biden, the outgoing Vice President who I still believe would have beaten both Clinton and Trump and made a great President himself. That said, he is 74. I rest my case.
But I do recommend you read this piece from The New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/magazine/joe-biden-i-wish-to-hell-id-just-kept-saying-the-exact-same-thing.html?emc=edit_ta_20170117&nlid=48122091&ref=cta&_r=0
What did Barack Obama say about his Vice President when he surprised him at what was deemed to be a farewell press conference by bestowing on him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, with distinction, the highest civilian award the United States, on 12 January 2017: "As good a man as God ever made." And: "The best Vice President this country has ever had."
And to him belonged for me the most telling, touching, and memorable closing image of the whole Inauguration Ceremony. While Barack and Michelle Obama flew out by helicopter, Joe and Jill Biden got into a car and were driven to Washington's Union Station. His famous final scene was on the platform, carrying his own overnight bag, and boarding a train.
That train took him back home to Wilmington, Delaware. He has been commuting for 44 years - some 8,000 three-hour round trips. The United States' 47th Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. goes by the nickname of "Amtrak Joe".
Please check out why - it's a story of love, responsibility, and dedication. It's also one I have written about here before.
So, out with the old and in with the new. Change, let's be honest about it, can be good. But psychologists will tell you people don't tend to embrace it. To seek it proactively, they must feel things are pretty bad. And like the Quarterback, at his wits' end, resort to the "Hail Mary".
It's ironic Barack Obama campaigned and was elected on this theme: "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
Make of it what you will, but what an about-turn within eight years - with Change ironically being the common theme.
Little Britain's Brexiteers are now jubilant that their Prime Minister will be the first foreign head of government to visit the new President. They are waxing lyrical about how she will be the "Maggie" [Thatcher] to his own Ronald Reagan.
"Maggie May"
A great song by Rod Stewart - and no, the lyrics are for once not in any way pertinent, relevant, or applicable. Just the name in the title.
Having trampled rather than tip-toed through the tulips up to here, I may as well end on the theme of "Special Relationships", namely the one between POTUS Nr 44 and the German Chancellor.
We have forgotten they did not hit it off straight away.
Dr Angela Merkel was anything but amused that Barack Obama chose to hold a mass election campaign rally in Berlin on 24 July 2008 - when he was nothing more than the first-time junior Senator for Illinois and Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.
The German Chancellor would not permit him to erect his podium, presidential-style, with the Brandenburg Gate as backdrop, instead "relegating" his open-air, rock concert type event to the Strasse des 17. Juni, the wide avenue linking the Brandenburg Gate with the gold-topped Victory column at the other end, which traditionally serves as the venue for the Love Parade music festival and mass viewings of the German team's games during the football World Cup and European Championship tournaments. An estimated 200,000-strong crowd came and cheered enthusiastically, providing priceless TV images for his audiences back home.
Here are some of the things the man who was to be elected a few months later said on that day: Listing major global problems, he postulated, "No one nation, no matter how large and how powerful, can defeat such challenges alone." He expressed his belief in "allies who will listen to each other, who will learn from each other, who will, above all, trust each other." Rhetorically, he asked, "Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law?" And, poignantly, "Will we welcome immigrants from different lands?"
Finally, on the threat of climate change: "This is the moment we must come together to save this planet."
Obama's successor, President Donald Trump, in a nutshell: "America First!"
After a rocky start to their relationship, over the eight years of his Presidency, Merkel became Obama's closest partner, most important international ally, and, from all we know, personal friend. Unsurprisingly therefore, she was the last person he called before leaving Office (and the Oval Office).
I don't know if Barack Obama is a fan of Star Trek. But I can well imagine his farewell words to her may have been: "Live long and prosper!" I hope she does.
Declaration of interest: The following is taken from the Facebook page of my daughter, Greta. She published it without knowing I was writing this blog post.
The quote Greta chose, "You're better than the whole damn bunch put together", is of course from The Great Gatsby.
I am now encouraged to resume my blogging by good friends who are generous enough to claim they miss reading my ramblings. So, Gary, Graham, and Nick - this one is for you!
But then, what better week to confront my demons than this - book-ended as it is by the unelected UK Prime Minister's speech on what "Brexit means Brexit" actually does mean on Tuesday and the U.S. President-Elect's (now President's) inauguration on Friday.
But since everything there is to say on both has been said, and by experts (less popular though they are these days, at least in Little Britain), commentators, and pundits much more knowledgeable than your author, I would love to be able to steer clear of adding my views on Theresa May and Donald Trump. Plus, it's such a beautiful day...
This exercise in self-discipline is not going to be easy, and at the outset I can't really promise I will see it through. In fact, I know I will not - as do you.
It does remind me of a song dating all the way back to 1929 (when it was first recorded and performed, long even before my time, by one Nick Lucas) that then became a one-hit wonder success for Tiny Tim (1932 - 1996) in 1968: "Come tip-toe through the tulips with me." Tiny Tim? Ring a bell? Yes - a character in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843).
Just for fun, here are three other singers with names referring to their built: Fats Domino (born 1928: "Blueberry Hill", "I'm Walkin'", "Whole Lotta Lovin'"); Little Richard (born 1932: "Tutti Frutti", "Slippin' and Slidin'", "Good Golly Miss Molly"); and, of course, the great Meat Loaf (born 1947: "Bat Out of Hell"; "I'd Do Anything for Love"; "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" - and many, many more, including a fantastic cover version of Literature Nobel Prize laureate Bob Dylan's "Forever Young").
May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay
Forever young
Which sums up just about everything we can and should wish each other and, importantly, wish our children - not just on that artificial occasion at midnight on 31 December.
And that's why Bob Dylan was finally awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, one of the very few good things to have come out of that year if you ask me.
Speaking of music: A year ago, on 18 January 2016, Glenn Frey died, aged only 67.
I was fortunate enough to see and hear his close friend, congenial soul mate, creative alter ego Don Henley live last summer in what was his first solo concert since Frey's death. A very touching experience that I admit brought tears to my eyes when Henley performed some of the countless Eagles classics. But then, I'm a sentimental soul.
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine three weeks earlier, Henley had confirmed the dissolution of the band. No more Eagles.
Take It Easy, Glenn. I'll see you on that corner in Winslow, Arizona!
And here's to the memory of Natalie Cole, David Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, George Michael, Rick Parfitt, and many many others whose songs have accompanied us through our lives, in good times and bad.
So let's once and for all bid farewell to a true annus horribilis.
I couldn't resist. What a great visualisation of a sentiment shared by many (not all, admittedly). The stuff you find on social media...
But life must be lived forward while understood only looking back, a wise saying goes. As the great F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940) wrote in the closing lines of his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Don't wait anymore for The Great American Novel - it's been written and was published in 1925. Just take my word for it, expert or not.
F. Scott Fitzgerald on writing (a mere selection of three quotes):
"Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy."
"Cut out all the exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke."
"You don't write because you want to say something. You write because you have something to say."
We should all observe that last principle.
F. Scott Fitzgerald finished only four novels, along with a number of short stories. He died young, aged 44. He is generally considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.
He is also a member of what has been called the "Lost Generation", those that came of age during World War I. Among them were literary giants like Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Sherwood Anderson, John dos Passos, John Steinbeck, and William Faulkner - to name just a few.
Will future historians and sociologists identify a new Lost Generation in those that came of age in our time? And asking the question is not scaremongering.
For the first time since World War II at least, in the western world it is no longer a foregone conclusion that the children will be better off than their parents - far from it. The world we leave them is nothing to be all that proud of. In this context, voting for Brexit and electing Donald Trump clearly reflect a deep sense of frustration in wide parts of our societies.
Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and no supporter of the election winner, summed up admirably what carried Trump to the White House: "He heard a voice nobody else heard." But that was the voice of those who should be getting ready to pass on the ball to the next generations, their children and grandchildren. And then graciously step out of their way:
So was what they chose to do instead in reality an expression of their own helplessness, a desperate last-moment attempt at reversing the trends of their own lifetime and thereby preventing the creation of a Lost Generation?
In American football, this is called a "Hail Mary" pass: With the clock running down, and out of options, the Quarterback throws the ball downfield over 50, 60, 70 yards or more, in the hope somebody up front will catch it for a game-clinching Touchdown. The term became popular after a December 28, 1975 play-off game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings when Dallas Quarterback Roger Staubach, a Roman Catholic, said in an interview about his game-winning long Touchdown pass, "I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary."
Unsurprisingly, the chance of a receiver actually catching such a ball is statistically very small. It's nothing but a last-ditch effort with little chance of success.
But it's not all doom and gloom everywhere. Some would have had cause for celebrations this week. Whether they actually did or not, I don't know. I would have.
For instance, the small but delightful nation of Slovenia, a proud and reliable member of the European Union, had every reason to party, politics aside, having peacefully taken the White House in the person of Melania, the new First Lady of the United States (aka FLOTUS). - Please bear with me: according to the archives, this photo of her was taken on my birthday in 2016.
Married on 22 January 2005, she and POTUS have one son together, Barron William Trump, born 20 March 2006. He's the poor kid that almost fell asleep on his feet when he had to stand on a stage, way past his bedtime, to witness Dad's acceptance speech in the early hours of 9 November 2016. This time, Barron was awake.
More than that: Barron was the star of the show if you ask me. A tall ten-year-old taking it all in his stride and having a good time, if a tad bored and distracted at times, but who could blame him - it did go on a bit. To me, he is now the mascot of Team Trump. And remarkably, for the first time in 54 years the nation has a First Son again in the White House - it's all been girls lately. Barron's "predecessor", of course, was "John John", John F. Kennedy, Jr, born 1960, who sadly died in an airplane crash in 1999.
Melania by the way has taken the brave decision to stay in New York City with Barron for the first months of her husband's Presidency so that their son can finish the academic year at his present school. This is a very good principle, the call of a responsible parent. So, I've decided I like Melania.
But then, Trump Tower on 5th Avenue is not exactly a dump, and it is home. And Melania may well be a little overawed at the prospect of residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, aka the White House, something she surely never ever saw coming. She should, however, not wait too long with moving in as otherwise all the rooms may have been taken by her husband's sprawling family from his previous two marriages. What a retinue.
So, will those "Hail Mary" passes succeed? It's very early days, especially of course for the 45th POTUS, but I wouldn't necessarily bet on it.
On 23 June, the day of the fateful Brexit vote, the Pound Sterling was worth 1.30 Euros.
As I am writing this, it stands at 1.15 Euros. That's a drop by 11.5 percent. Against the U.S. Dollar, it's gone down by 17 percent.
That's bad for UK imports, so prices will rise, and for British holiday makers abroad. In theory, it's good for exports of course, making goods from the UK cheaper, but then - what does the Prime Minister's new World Champion of Trade actually sell?
We should all observe that last principle.
F. Scott Fitzgerald finished only four novels, along with a number of short stories. He died young, aged 44. He is generally considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.
He is also a member of what has been called the "Lost Generation", those that came of age during World War I. Among them were literary giants like Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Sherwood Anderson, John dos Passos, John Steinbeck, and William Faulkner - to name just a few.
Will future historians and sociologists identify a new Lost Generation in those that came of age in our time? And asking the question is not scaremongering.
For the first time since World War II at least, in the western world it is no longer a foregone conclusion that the children will be better off than their parents - far from it. The world we leave them is nothing to be all that proud of. In this context, voting for Brexit and electing Donald Trump clearly reflect a deep sense of frustration in wide parts of our societies.
Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and no supporter of the election winner, summed up admirably what carried Trump to the White House: "He heard a voice nobody else heard." But that was the voice of those who should be getting ready to pass on the ball to the next generations, their children and grandchildren. And then graciously step out of their way:
It's your world now, use well the time
Be part of something good, leave something good behind
The curtain falls, I take my bow
That's how it's meant to be, it's your world now
It's your world now, it's your world now
The Eagles, "It's Your World Now" (Long Road Out of Eden, 2007)
This is the final song on the second of two discs of the Eagles' last album. It was written and sung by Glenn Frey.
This is the final song on the second of two discs of the Eagles' last album. It was written and sung by Glenn Frey.
So was what they chose to do instead in reality an expression of their own helplessness, a desperate last-moment attempt at reversing the trends of their own lifetime and thereby preventing the creation of a Lost Generation?
In American football, this is called a "Hail Mary" pass: With the clock running down, and out of options, the Quarterback throws the ball downfield over 50, 60, 70 yards or more, in the hope somebody up front will catch it for a game-clinching Touchdown. The term became popular after a December 28, 1975 play-off game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings when Dallas Quarterback Roger Staubach, a Roman Catholic, said in an interview about his game-winning long Touchdown pass, "I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary."
Unsurprisingly, the chance of a receiver actually catching such a ball is statistically very small. It's nothing but a last-ditch effort with little chance of success.
But it's not all doom and gloom everywhere. Some would have had cause for celebrations this week. Whether they actually did or not, I don't know. I would have.
Married on 22 January 2005, she and POTUS have one son together, Barron William Trump, born 20 March 2006. He's the poor kid that almost fell asleep on his feet when he had to stand on a stage, way past his bedtime, to witness Dad's acceptance speech in the early hours of 9 November 2016. This time, Barron was awake.
More than that: Barron was the star of the show if you ask me. A tall ten-year-old taking it all in his stride and having a good time, if a tad bored and distracted at times, but who could blame him - it did go on a bit. To me, he is now the mascot of Team Trump. And remarkably, for the first time in 54 years the nation has a First Son again in the White House - it's all been girls lately. Barron's "predecessor", of course, was "John John", John F. Kennedy, Jr, born 1960, who sadly died in an airplane crash in 1999.
Melania by the way has taken the brave decision to stay in New York City with Barron for the first months of her husband's Presidency so that their son can finish the academic year at his present school. This is a very good principle, the call of a responsible parent. So, I've decided I like Melania.
But then, Trump Tower on 5th Avenue is not exactly a dump, and it is home. And Melania may well be a little overawed at the prospect of residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, aka the White House, something she surely never ever saw coming. She should, however, not wait too long with moving in as otherwise all the rooms may have been taken by her husband's sprawling family from his previous two marriages. What a retinue.
So, will those "Hail Mary" passes succeed? It's very early days, especially of course for the 45th POTUS, but I wouldn't necessarily bet on it.
On 23 June, the day of the fateful Brexit vote, the Pound Sterling was worth 1.30 Euros.
As I am writing this, it stands at 1.15 Euros. That's a drop by 11.5 percent. Against the U.S. Dollar, it's gone down by 17 percent.
This is from The Telegraph, one of the staunchest Brexit supporters in the media, so not suspicious of being anti-May, anti-Johnson, anti-Davis, anti-Fox.
Meanwhile, the financial services industry plans to move thousands of jobs from London's City to locations in the EU - Paris, Luxembourg, Frankfurt.
So, a new Lost Generation paying dearly for their parents' and grandparents' failure to win the football game while there was still time and then resorting to that desperate last-moment "Hail Mary" pass?
The future, of course, will tell. And famously, it is one of the most difficult things to predict.
But the question must be asked.
Contrary to the British, the Americans at least will have the opportunity in four years' time to make amends and elect a new President, in case Number 45 will not have worked out. They can act should they feel Buyer's Remorse.
A number of folks over there who still haven't got over the election result are predicting "he won't last the first four years". Again, I wouldn't bet money on it. Statistically, the likelihood is firmly in "Hail Mary" territory as there has only been one in 44 American Presidents since 1789 who had to leave the office prematurely for reasons other than death.
The stuff of pub quiz questions: Who was it?
The hapless Richard Milhouse Nixon of course (Number 37) who stumbled over the Watergate scandal and resigned on 9 August 1974.
If so inclined, check out the whole story. To this day, regardless of the merits of the case itself, it continues to be a prime example of how NOT to manage a crisis.
In fact, he enters the White House with the lowest ever approval ratings for an incoming President. At 70 years of age, he is also the oldest, but I'm not sure how relevant this is, except that it's strange the 320 million Americans couldn't come up with anyone younger. Hillary Clinton is 69.
Of course we wish everybody good health, including and not least POTUS, whoever it may be, but again, the question must be asked in the context of what kind of a person the Vice President is - famously, only one heartbeat away from the Oval Office. If nothing else, Mike Pence at least looked the part.
Which brings me neatly to my hero Joe Biden, the outgoing Vice President who I still believe would have beaten both Clinton and Trump and made a great President himself. That said, he is 74. I rest my case.
But I do recommend you read this piece from The New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/magazine/joe-biden-i-wish-to-hell-id-just-kept-saying-the-exact-same-thing.html?emc=edit_ta_20170117&nlid=48122091&ref=cta&_r=0
That train took him back home to Wilmington, Delaware. He has been commuting for 44 years - some 8,000 three-hour round trips. The United States' 47th Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. goes by the nickname of "Amtrak Joe".
Please check out why - it's a story of love, responsibility, and dedication. It's also one I have written about here before.
So, out with the old and in with the new. Change, let's be honest about it, can be good. But psychologists will tell you people don't tend to embrace it. To seek it proactively, they must feel things are pretty bad. And like the Quarterback, at his wits' end, resort to the "Hail Mary".
It's ironic Barack Obama campaigned and was elected on this theme: "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
Make of it what you will, but what an about-turn within eight years - with Change ironically being the common theme.
Little Britain's Brexiteers are now jubilant that their Prime Minister will be the first foreign head of government to visit the new President. They are waxing lyrical about how she will be the "Maggie" [Thatcher] to his own Ronald Reagan.
"Maggie May"
A great song by Rod Stewart - and no, the lyrics are for once not in any way pertinent, relevant, or applicable. Just the name in the title.
Having trampled rather than tip-toed through the tulips up to here, I may as well end on the theme of "Special Relationships", namely the one between POTUS Nr 44 and the German Chancellor.
We have forgotten they did not hit it off straight away.
Dr Angela Merkel was anything but amused that Barack Obama chose to hold a mass election campaign rally in Berlin on 24 July 2008 - when he was nothing more than the first-time junior Senator for Illinois and Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.
The German Chancellor would not permit him to erect his podium, presidential-style, with the Brandenburg Gate as backdrop, instead "relegating" his open-air, rock concert type event to the Strasse des 17. Juni, the wide avenue linking the Brandenburg Gate with the gold-topped Victory column at the other end, which traditionally serves as the venue for the Love Parade music festival and mass viewings of the German team's games during the football World Cup and European Championship tournaments. An estimated 200,000-strong crowd came and cheered enthusiastically, providing priceless TV images for his audiences back home.
Here are some of the things the man who was to be elected a few months later said on that day: Listing major global problems, he postulated, "No one nation, no matter how large and how powerful, can defeat such challenges alone." He expressed his belief in "allies who will listen to each other, who will learn from each other, who will, above all, trust each other." Rhetorically, he asked, "Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law?" And, poignantly, "Will we welcome immigrants from different lands?"
Finally, on the threat of climate change: "This is the moment we must come together to save this planet."
Obama's successor, President Donald Trump, in a nutshell: "America First!"
After a rocky start to their relationship, over the eight years of his Presidency, Merkel became Obama's closest partner, most important international ally, and, from all we know, personal friend. Unsurprisingly therefore, she was the last person he called before leaving Office (and the Oval Office).
I don't know if Barack Obama is a fan of Star Trek. But I can well imagine his farewell words to her may have been: "Live long and prosper!" I hope she does.
Declaration of interest: The following is taken from the Facebook page of my daughter, Greta. She published it without knowing I was writing this blog post.
The quote Greta chose, "You're better than the whole damn bunch put together", is of course from The Great Gatsby.
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