Aussie bumps Barack and his brood

Who’s sleeping in Obama’s bed? John Howard, the former Australian Prime Minister, has inadvertently bumped the President-elect and his young family from Blair House, the luxurious Washington mansion.

The 119-room residence is the official presidential guesthouse and is where incoming presidents often stay before their inauguration.

The Obamas have had to take up digs in the nearby Hay-Adams Hotel because of a previous booking. It emerged that Mr Howard, a leading member of the “coalition of the willing”, who once said that Obama’s Iraq policy would encourage terrorists, will stay at Blair House on January 12, before receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bush.

Not wishing to be “the man who bumped Obama”, Tony Blair, who is also to receive the Presidential Medal, declined an invitation to stay at Blair House. He is expected to bed down at the British Embassy instead. Assuming no further clashes, the Obama clan will finally have the run of Blair House next Thursday.

“Have just had a very strange Facebook Friend request from Lib Dem MP Jenny Willott,” twitters Iain Dale, the political commentator. “I don’t know her. Do you think I have pulled?” Well, she used to run Lembit Öpik’s Westminster office, so she could make an entertaining date.

“I see the Obama team are planning to get a TV doctor to lead the nation’s medical care,” blogs Justin Webb, the BBC’s North America editor. The nomination of Dr Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and CNN correspondent for surgeon general, set Webb thinking: “Wow! My colleague Robert Peston for Chancellor of the Exchequer?” Why would the BBC business editor give up his influence over the markets?

It was a contractual obligation for Dennis Waterman to “write the feem tune, sing the feem tune”. But, shockingly, when Five revives Minder with a new cast, it will dispense with Waterman’s version of his theme, I Could Be so Good for You . The track has been “punked up” by Scottish rockers Attic Lights. “There was no point in referencing Dennis’s version,” singer Kev Sherry tells us. “It’s a new programme, for a new era.” A nice little earner, too.

Postscript

Daniel Craig is apparently unimpressed by Noel Gallagher’s demand that the Bond star should play the Oasis man on screen. “I can play the guitar better than he can so I don’t really know how that’s going to work,” the actor said at the premiere of Defiance.

Craig’s co-star Liev Schreiber has become a big premiere attender since his partner Naomi Watts gave birth. “The baby’s great. He’s getting up every three hours . . . but it’s nice to get a full night’s sleep in a hotel.”

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