David Cameron is going to teach me the rules of cricket, Barack Obama jokes
Barack Obama joked last night that David Cameron would teach him the rules of cricket in return for a trip to a university basketball match in Ohio on the first evening of the Prime Minister's official visit to America.
Mr Cameron became the first foreign leader during the Obama presidency to travel on board Air Force One, the official Presidential aircraft, an honour that British officials said was intended as a deliberate “compliment” to the prime minster.
Mr Cameron is understood to have spent hours swotting up on the finer points of basketball for the university fixture between Mississippi Valley State and Western Kentucky.
His aides say he has been frantically learning about “bracketology”, an American obsession trying to predict who will win basketball games.
In a joint interview at half-time, the Prime Minister admitted that he was struggling the follow the quick moving game. "It's pretty fast and furious.[I imagine so, for a guy who's used to a sport where it takes five days just to complete one lousy game...] It's hard to follow sometimes exactly who's done what wrong," he said, adding that the President was helping to keep up with action and to fill out his brackets sheet.
A laughing Mr Obama replied: "He's going to teach me cricket because I don't understand what's going on with that."[Well, nobody can be all bad...]
Mr Cameron also used the nationally televised interview to promote the London Olympics, promising that Britain would be "rolling out the red carpet for the whole world".
"Everything is on time and on budget, all the stadia are built and everything's ready to go. We're just ready to welcome a lot of people to London," he said.
The pair were greeted with loud cheers from a boisterous crowd as they entered the arena. Mr Cameron, wearing a dark-coloured polo shirt, sat beside Mr Obama who also looked relaxed in a checked shirt.
The two engaged in animated discussion, apparently about the player’s techniques. At times, Mr Obama also appeared to be explaining aspects of the game to Mr Cameron as they sat huddled next to each other.
They had travelled together to the city of Dayton on the one-hour flight which the two leaders spent entirely in the president’s on-board office talking, according to White House aides.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... jokes.html
