Could somebody please tell Gordon Brown not to smile? Well, at the very least not to grin. He tried a grin during the family photo with the G20 leaders and the Queen yesterday and it was, well, creepy.
His was a Hannibal Lecter I'm-going-to-rip-out-your-liver-and-eat-it-with-fava-beans-and-a-nice-bottle-of-Chianti-ff-fff-ff-fff-ff smile. It was the sort of rictus you would imagine him wearing as he roasts Jacqui Smith on a spit over hot coals. It was not a comfortable smile at all. At full beam it was a terror, a slit of lips and incongruous teeth. He put it on half-beam for the actual photograph itself, but it was still creepy.
Gordon Brown's face is Heathcliffian, best given over to dourness and mood, like a dark grey cloudy sky threatening torrents of thunder and passion. Like Eeyore and Jack Dee, this face is not for smiling.
GB was at it again this morning as the G20 leaders arrived in London's Docklands. The camera hovered as leader after leader arrived in armoured tanks, while a blond woman flitted to and fro looking nervous.
"Smile Gordon!" she seemed to hiss after a while.
So Gordon smiled and put a nation off its cornflakes.
Barack Obama, meanwhile, like the new cool kid at school, provides a grin full of charm and confidence. This grin is everywhere, accompanied by its beautiful fragrant female version in the form of wife Michelle.
The pair are like new exotic fruit on the supermarket shelf; all glossy and shiny and juicy and delicious within. All the other fruit are jostling to be the ones to sit next to them and bask in the beam of their glory.
MO, arriving for breakfast yesterday with GB and Mrs GB, was polished and lovely in a beaded sequined cardigan. Number 10 has never seen such glamour so early in the day. GB looked flustered and grinned a normal grin for once, even managing not to look surly as the Presidential magic dust glittered around him.
Then it was off to the Palace for the First Lady and the First Man to meet the Queen as all good folk should. BO and MO towered in their glory above the tiny doll-like Toytown Queen. While the Duke of Edinburgh, his ears hearing details of the No. 10 breakfast meeting while his eyes gazed upon the Obamas, said what was undoubtedly fermenting in his un-PC brain: "How can you tell them all apart?"
Meanwhile the good old Brits were doing as good old Brits should and having a riot. What fun to march through the City and burn an effigy of a banker*. Bankers** looked on from the rooftops above in amusement as the rioters, bored with boring old fire and chanting in fancy dress, took a major dislike to the Royal Bank of Scotland. They smashed their way in and pinched a few computers while a lone peaceful protester pleaded with them to calm down.
The police, meanwhile, looked on with their video cameras (as is the modern way) and jostled a few demonstrators. Blood was shed on both sides and all eventually went home happy, ready to do the same again today.
* That's bankers as spelt with a w.
** Again the W is taken as read.
