I was sitting in Heathrow Terminal 2 last Wednesday, having arrived a couple of hours early for a short flight to Dublin. I had installed myself in Eat, where I was enjoying a bowl of porridge and doing my emails, when I came upon a link to the latest ad for the Clinton campaign.
Normally I would have ignored it: the US election has become so ugly that the only rational response is to pretend it isn’t happening. But as I had time to kill I clicked on the link and there was Barack Obama, his handsome face alert and amused, speaking to camera. “My greatest strength? Probably that I’m always early.”
The president went on to explain that he likes to turn up early for every meeting, speech and press conference. “My commitment to being early isn’t just good for me. It’s good for the nation. It’s good for the world.” At this I started nodding so violently that the man next to me looked up to see what was going on.