The Prime Minister compared himself to Mark Twain yesterday to show us how hip and groovy he is. Yes, I know, extraordinary. I know that I shouldn’t presume to know what Mr Twain would have thought of Mr Brown’s very first press conference. He may have been dead for almost 100 years but, in his case, this may not mean much. Mr Twain did, remember, write his autobiography from the grave (now that’s a ghostwriter). He could have been there.

I think Mr Twain would at least have been flattered at the mention. But also baffled.

I am sure that, in his wildest dreams, he would never think of writing The Adventures of Gordon “Huck” Brown. Indeed Mr Twain may have thought Mr Brown’s comparison to be libellous. He would have approved of that.

But, even had he been alive, the 11am start time would have been too early for the great man (I speak of Mr Twain, not Mr Brown). Mr Twain preferred to stay in bed until noon, dictating away, clad in his dressing gown, propped up on giant snowy pillows.

On this basis, and much much more, I think we know what Mr Twain would think: he would find our Prime Minister to be utterly exhausting in every way. For there is no doubt that the Prime Minister is a menace to loungers everywhere. Mr Brown has never been propped up on a snowy pillow until noon. In Brownland, pillows are for fighting with between meetings to set up reviews into global warming, flooding, political funding, trade, poverty and everything else but the Euro. It can only be a matter of time before Mr Brown has to set up a review of his reviews.

Mr Brown took questions for 70 minutes, answering everything entirely too fully. He pummelled us with detail. He pelted us with thoroughness. It really was like being in a hailstorn of worthiness. One journalist who asked about the Turkish election may have expected a rather bland response. “I spoke to Prime Minister Erdogan this morning,” shot back Mr Brown.

That morning? When? For he had told us once or twice (OK, 35 times) that he had been to Gloucestershire and back to see the floods. He said this with the same tone of awe that he uses when he says he has been to India and back. He was full of praise for everyone in the faraway land. Then a real live Gloucesterman, from a local paper, asked a pointed question about the floods. Mr Brown welcomed him like a long-lost brother. Gordon only wished he had met him when he had been in Gloucester “minutes before!” Minutes? Mr Brown loves zipping around the country. So if you are flooded, prepare to be visited by Mr Zippy.

After an hour it was we, the journalists, who were crying for mercy. He wanted to go on and on. (This is a chronic problem with Prime Ministers, as he should know.) He was asked if he was going to call a snap election and came over all pious. “It may be a pastime for people to talk about polls,” he intoned, as if he weren’t almost rabid on the subject. “What’s on my mind is how we can make the country stronger, better and fairer.”

But, he was asked, are you a killjoy? You’ve tampered with casinos and cannabis. Are you going to stop 24-hour drinking?

At this Gordon, extraordinarily, tried to pretend he was louche. “You’ve got to remember that I came to London in 1983,” he noted. “I’ve been in London a bit more than 20 years.”

Has he? Does Fife know? But Mr Brown was off piste and nothing could stop him now. “I am reminded of a story by Mark Twain when he went to Nevada,” he said, as if they knew each other. Mr Twain, he noted, had had a very Puritan, very church-going background. “He arrived in Nevada and he found drinking and gambling and womanising. And he said, ‘This was no place for a Puritan and I did not long remain one!’”

Everyone laughed. Well, what else was there to do? Mr Brown then announced a review of 24-hour drinking. For some reason, this put me in mind of another of Mr Twain’s thoughts on Puritans: “I haven’t a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices.” Now, I wonder what Mr Brown, great drinker, gambler and womaniser that he is, would make of that?

Premier points

During the session Mr Brown covered a range of other issues:

Russia He renewed his demand for Russia to hand over Andrei Lugovoy, the prime suspect in the Litvinenko murder. At one point he called the suspect “the culprit”

The euro Mr Brown ruled out membership for the foreseeable future, saying that the decision not to join had been right for Britain and for Europe

The new job “There’s a new challenge every day. The excitement of the job is I’m trying to respond to the need for change in this country.” He said the pressures of the job meant “you are not able to watch the sporting events you want to”

A snap election “While it may be a pastime for people to talk about polls, what’s on my mind is how we can make the country stronger, better and fairer”

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