Bush spoke of setting a fire and taking that fire to every corner of the world. Interesting choice of phrase: does this indicate that he intends to burn down the planet? Perhaps something along the lines of taking a torch of liberty to the dark places of the world would have worked a little better (really, speechwriters ain’t what they used to be, are they?). And I loved the phrase about ‘preparing Americans to live in a free society’. That would infer that they aren’t living in one now, George. Regardless of how you feel about the man most folks admit that he has had some slick speech writers on his staff. Perhaps they all had bad colds putting them off – well they will insist on holding an inauguration in January in the open air.

The BBC News 24 coverage came, as most news channels now do, with the inevitable info bar towards the bottom of the screen. This one proclaimed the inauguration coverage (well, duh…) and below this a smaller text bar helpfully informing the viewer that ‘President Bush was elected in November’. May I refer readers to my earlier exclamation of ‘well, duh…’? I find these info bars annoying at the best of time, but when they have nothing whatsoever to add, why have them on the screen? How dim do they think news viewers are? It’s not unique to the Beeb by any means – pretty much all news organisations do this now – but it is sad that even the best news broadcaster in the world now assume viewers are as thick as a sock full of custard…