TRUMP ON TOUR
ONE of the many splendid things about Air Force One, besides the gym, the special edition M&Ms and the electro-magnetic pulse shields, is that it can be refuelled while in the air. This means the US president could, in theory, stay at 36,000 ft forever. Looking at the runaway success Donald Trump is making of his first foreign trip, that might not be a bad idea.
I say “runaway success”, but in truth the achievement bar had been set fairly low. Some were simply hoping he would keep the diplomatic incidents to single figures. As it is, he has scored some notable PR wins. His stop-over in Saudi Arabia resulted in £270 billion worth of deals, according to the White House. While it is not quite reopening the coal mines again, as he promised during his campaign, it is not to be sniffed at. Then it was on to Israel where, his underwhelming guest book entry at Yad Vashem (“So amazing…”) aside, the visit was incident free. Even his public chastisement of NATO members not paying their way will have gone down just peachy at home.
One of the stickiest moments was always going to be the visit to the Vatican, to a Pope who had criticised candidate Trump for his views on migrants, his climate change scepticism, and his support for a border wall with Mexico. “Not Christian,” Pope Francis said of the wall. “Disgraceful,” responded Mr Trump.
The first pictures of Mr Trump with wife Melania, daughter Ivanka, and the Pope were indeed odd, with everyone, bar a beaming president, looking as if their next appointments were three hours of bunion removal. But by meeting’s end, and after chats with the First Lady and First Daughter, everyone was smiling. Mr Trump was positively fizzing. “Honour of a lifetime,” he tweeted. “I leave the Vatican more determined than ever to pursue PEACE in our world.”
Though Donald Trump has long had the money to travel wherever he wants, he is a homebody through and through. Since his birth at the Jamaica Hospital Medical Centre in Queens on June 14, 1946, save for the odd business trip and jaunts to his Florida home, his world has largely consisted of the five boroughs that make up New York. Going from down in the dumps Queens (as was) to glittering Manhattan has been his greatest journey. Even when he made it to Manhattan he did not go native. A recent BBC Radio 4 documentary, Trump at Studio 54, reveals that he must have been the only patron of the New York disco for the rich and fabulous who did not do drugs or drink. He didn’t even dance.
Later, once he had moved into Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, he would commute from his penthouse suite to his offices a few floors below. Besides golf, his main hobby is watching television. Contrast this with Barack Obama. Another life lived solidly stateside for the most part, but now he seems to have caught the travel bug. The former president and his wife Michelle were seen earlier this week in Siena, Italy, enjoying la dolce vita, en route to his charity speaking engagement in Edinburgh last night.
There is a good reason, of course, why Mr Trump might wish he could stay away a while longer. Make that five good reasons – the number of committees currently investigating alleged links between the Trump campaign and Russia.
But maybe, just maybe, he has also realised that abroad is not a complete “hell hole”, as he once dubbed Brussels. It helps that as president he has been travelling in his own luxury bubble, home comforts all around him. Hosts on this trip were told to have his favourite brand of ketchup to hand at dinner. One can’t really imagine him slumming it anywhere five star, never mind three. But presidential class travel: that will do nicely.
His grand tour ends today in Sicily, scene of the G7 summit. As other people pack his case for home, there is a fleeting chance he might wonder what it would be like to linger longer. If this diehard New Yorker truly has the travel bug there is no telling where it might take him. Trump for UN Secretary General one day? Stranger things have happened.
HOW GREEN DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?
FIRST the must-have luxury garden building was a shepherd’s hut. Lynda Snell in The Archers commissioned one, and next thing you know, David Cameron had followed suit.
The former prime minister’s hut was painted in Farrow and Ball; Lynda’s was an Eddie Grundy bodge-it job. If the latter is still standing by Christmas, I’ll take the lead in the Ambridge panto (yes, even if they do stage that long threatened production of Last Tango in Paris meets Sleeping Beauty).
At the Chelsea Flower Show this week, shepherds’ huts were blown aside by the new must-have garden structure: a treehouse. Complete with electric lights and a window in the floor to look on to the garden below, this bespoke structure can be yours for just £80,000.
It is lovely, but with outdoor spaces, I find, it is all about the imagination. That wall in my garden that looks as though it is falling down through lack of care is in fact an homage to an old farmhouse in Provence I once saw in a painting; those weeds are a reminder that life will always find a way; and as for that old satellite dish round by the bins, it tells me that life is all a matter of perspective and that my garden, if looked at from outer space, probably looks just dandy.
YOU'VE GOAT TO BE KIDDING
HOW boring is the gym? All that waiting for machines, running on the treadmill like a depressed hamster. Do you ever wonder how much lovelier it would be to exercise with a goat? Of course you do.
Happily, someone has invented goat yoga. Lainey Morse, a farmer from Oregon, keeps goats. She also knows a yoga instructor. Why not combine the two, she thought. Before you could say, “You’ve goat to be kidding me” and other ruminant-related puns, she started classes, found they were hard to bleat (sorry), and posted the idea online. Now the craze has reached the UK with a farm in Devon, having herd (I’ll stop in a minute) about the new discipline, offering classes for £25 a pop.
Goat yoga is simple: you do the usual moves, but with a goat on your back. “The longer you are still,” says Donna McCheyne, the teacher holding the first UK classes, “the more likely they are to climb on you, which encourages people to be calm and relaxed.” Their hooves also give an ace massage. If nothing else, it’s a giggle and therefore good for you.
I smell a market opportunity here for Scotland. Probably not farmyard-themed yoga. I don’t think having a Highland Coo on one’s back would get past health and safety. But midge boxercise, all those flailing arms, could be a runner …
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