Obama's gift faux pas

I didn't read this at the time but it did raise a smile. There are few things worse than giving someone a gift only to find out the person returns a much, much better present in return.

Apparently Gordon Brown present President Obama with a pretty splendid & historic gift :

Mr Brown's gifts included an ornamental desk pen holder made from the oak timbers of Victorian anti-slaver HMS Gannet, once named HMS President.

Mr Obama was so delighted he has already put it in pride of place in the Oval Office on the Resolute Desk which was carved from timbers of Gannet's sister ship, HMS Resolute. Another treasure given to the US President was the framed commission for HMS Resolute, a vessel that came to symbolise Anglo-US peace when it was saved from ice packs by Americans and given to Queen Victoria.

Barak Obama dvd boxset for Gorden Brown

To return the gift with something that could have been picked up in ASDA probably caused a few red faces in The Whitehouse.

Gordon Brown avoid humiliation...

...By having a non-embarrassing ringtone. That could have been pretty bad if he had the bidie song or something like that :

Gordon Brown was interrupted by his own mobile phone while addressing political and business leaders in Davos.

The prime minister's mobile rang twice during his speech at the World Economic Forum, leading Mr Brown to note that the caller was "persistent".

But he disappointed his audience by not disclosing the caller's identity.

The incident revealed that Mr Brown uses an old Nokia ringtone on his phone - made famous by comedian Dom Joly on his satirical show Trigger Happy TV.

Shortly into his speech about the global economic crisis in Switzerland, a phone started ringing.

The prime minister admitted: "I am afraid it is my phone."

When asked by a reporter who was calling, he replied: "I am not telling you."