I've so far refrained from commenting on Giftgate, as I like to call the PR furor that was stirred up after Gordon Brown visited the Obamas last month and brought along lovely, thoughtful historical gifts. It was Obama's gift to Brown that caused the uproar--a set of 12 great American films on DVD, which, according to some reports, were the wrong region and don't even run on British DVD players.
But I had to laugh while watching live BBC footage the other night of Barack and Michelle Obama's meeting with Queen Elizabeth II after the presenter solemnly announced that President Obama had brought for the queen ... an iPod. Now it should be noted that it's a very nice iPod, with photos of Her Majesty's 2007 American visit already uploaded and also accompanied by a rare songbook signed by great American composer Richard Rodgers. But an iPod? Really? After all, the queen is a rather elderly woman and, as technologically savvy as both of my emailing, texting grandmothers (both younger than the queen) are, I can't imagine either one of them joining the iPod revolution. My friends and I had fun the next morning imagining the queen and her iPod.
"She'll be the same queen," Trevor said, "it's just that in all photo shoots from now on you'll notice her subtly bobbing her head and tapping her feet to the music nobody else can hear."
The L.A. Times says we should give Obama a break on the gift gaffes because, after all, we all struggle with gift giving. But I'm more enamored of this idea by Chicago Tribune cultural critic Julia Keller--from now on, the president should give only books.
P.S. I like the breadth and humor of the Daily Mail story I link to in the first paragraph, but the story does contain a cringeworthy error, referring to that "famous line ... from Casablanca, 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.'" Casablanca? Hello! You don't even have to see the film to know that it is from Gone With the Wind. Maybe the Brits need those DVDs after all.
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