No need for DVDs: The gifts Barack Obama could have given Gordon
Brown
<http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/03/12/no_need_for_dvds_the_gifts_barack_obama_could_have_given_gordon_brown>
Posted By: Toby Harnden <http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden> at
Mar 12, 2009 at 16:22:51 [General
<http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/cat/general>]
Posted in: Foreign Correspondents
<http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/go/category/view/Foreign%20Correspondents>
Tags:
When Prime Minister Gordon Brown called on President Barack Obama, he
came bearing gifts <http://www.butasforme.com/tag/hms-resolute/>: a pen
holder carved from the timbers of HMS Gannet, a sister ship of the HMS
Resolute, from which the "Resolute Desk" in the Oval Office
was fashioned; the framed commissioning certificate for HMS Resolute;
and a first edition seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill by Sir
Martin Gilbert.
In return, Mr Obama gave Mr Brown a box set of DVDs
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1159627/To-special-friend-Gordon-25-DVDs-Obama-gives-Brown-set-classic-movies-Lets-hope-likes-Wizard-Oz.html>.
White House officials and the State Department's Office of Protocol
<http://www.state.gov/s/cpr/> seem to be in need of a little inspiration.
So here are a few ideas from the Telegraph of the kind of presents they
might consider next time (check with the legal owner first, though) in
what could develop into an escalating transatlantic tit-for-tat gift
exchange:
1. A framed letter
<http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/psf/box37/t335m05.html> from Franklin
D. Roosevelt to Winston Churchill dated 10 August 1944 expressing
gratitude him for the thoughful presents he had sent him. "My dear
Franklin," the letter began. "Thank you very much for your letter of
July 10 sending me the most interesting naval signatures and papers
relating to some early Churchills, together with the visiting card
signed by my Father in 1886 when, as you know, he was Chancellor of the
Exchequer. Much as I should like to keep the naval documents myself, I
feel that the Admiralty should have them for their permanent records."
2. The original "Laws Rules and Order of the Poor Boxes Society"
<http://www.scots-charitable.org/scots-charitable/menu1/index1.html>
signed in Boston on January 6th 1657 by 28 "Scottish men". The founders
stated that "our benevolence is for the releefe of our selves being
Scottishmen or for any of the Scottish nation whome we may see cause to
helpe". The Scots' Charitable Association
<http://www.linknet1.com/scots-charitable/index2.htm> remains to this
day, the oldest charitable organisation in the United States.
3. The toe bone
<http://pittsburgh.about.com/od/museums/tp/dinosaur_timeline.htm> of a
/Diplodocus carnegii/ dinosaur found near Sheep Creek, Wyoming on July
4th 1899. The long-necked sauropod dinosaur was named after Andrew
Carnegie, the American industrialist, businessman and philanthropist who
was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, which is in the Dunfermline East
constituency that Gordon Brown represented when first elected to
Parliament in 1983.
4. A cue from the 1817 billiard table
<http://www.bybeeweb.com/family/chap14.htm> once owned by John Matthews
Jr, who founded Glasgow, Kentucky. Well known for its annual Highland
Games, Glasgow in Barren County, Kentucky is one of the myriad American
settlements named after places in Scotland. Its name was given to it by
John Matthews Jr who hailed from Glasgow, Scotland - Gordon Brown's
birthplace.
5. A framed 1878 letter
<http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=magbell&fileName=271/27100108/bellpage.db&recNum=0>written
to the Scottish-born American inventor Alexander Graham Bell by his
assistant Thomas Watson
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_A._Watson>while Bell honeymooned in
Britain in 1878. The letter outlines the progress of the newly-formed
Bell Telephone Company, improvements made on the telephone, and
developments by rival inventors. Bell was born in Edinburgh, where
Gordon Brown went to university.
6. A pewter flagon <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3882224> from the site
of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America.
The flagon, which dates from before 1620, bears the initials P, R and E
on its thumbrest, may have belonged to Richard and Elizabeth Pierce, who
arrived at Jamestown on board "a faire ship, the Neptune"
<http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Enccaswel/families/willis.htm>,* *which
set sail from London in 1618.
7. A letter
<http://www.reportboston.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=21:mayflower&catid=17:newspaper&Itemid=6>
signed by King James VI and I of England, complete with his royal seal,
regarding "the good shippe called the Planter", which sailed from
Kirkcudbright in 1622 two years after the original Pilgrims sailed from
England in the Mayflower. This was the first known transatlantic voyage
from mainland Scotland to America.
8. A signed first-edition copy of /The Affluent Society/
<http://makewealthhistory.org/2008/06/24/the-affluent-society-by-john-kenneth-galbraith/>written
in 1958 by the liberal American economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Upon
learning of his death last year, Gordon Brown paid tribute to him
<http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article711709.ece>,
saying: "John Kenneth Galbraith was a brilliant economist and writer and
a great friend of the United Kingdom, and his books will be widely read
in generations to come."
9. A chart of the Atlantic from the secret Map Room
<http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/ww2gal97.html> set up in the White
House in 1941 by President Franklin Roosevelt. The map, and one of the
Pacific, was updated several times a day to show the positions of enemy
and allied forces. The locations of the Big Three leaders were indicated
by special pins - a pipe for Josef Stalin, a cigarette holder for FDR
and, of course, a cigar for Winston Churchill.
10. For Sarah Brown, a silver and turquoise squash blossom necklace
<http://jewelry.oneofakindantiques.com/6056_native_american_squash_blossom_silver_and_turquoise_necklace_1.htm>
made in the American south-west. One of the most recognizable American
Indian jewellery designs, the squash blossom necklace was not
traditional until after the arrival of Europeans, when Navajo
<http://www.native-languages.org/navajo.htm> silversmiths adopted the
crescent-shaped "naja" of the Spanish. The earliest Navajo squash
blossom necklaces were silver only*;* the now-familiar turquoise inlay
patterns were a Zuni <http://www.native-languages.org/zuni.htm>
innovation in the 19th century.
Thanks to Rachel Ray <http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/rachel_ray> and Nick
Greene <http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/nick_greene> for their help with
this list.
Of course, some might wonder whether lavish gifts are appropriate in
these dire economic times. And I wonder whether the HMS Resolute
commissioning certificate was Gordon Brown's to give. Isn't it a
national treasure?
<http://my.telegraph.co.uk/quincunx>
Obama should really be handing out presents from his homeland: an
elephant foot umbrella stand, perhaps, or a zebra skin rug. In return,
Brown could offer a haggis and a pot of marmalade.
*Quincunx * <http://my.telegraph.co.uk/quincunx>
March 12, 2009
07:19 PM GMT
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