NPR carries an AP report which says, "President Barack Obama reassured Prime Minister David Cameron on Saturday that his frustration over the mammoth oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is not an attack on Britain as the two leaders tried to soothe trans-Atlantic tensions over the disaster."

That may be so, but I notice that Mr John M Deeley, who finds it necessary to translate his anglicised name back into the Irish, quips, with reference to England's goalkeeper's fumble that gave the US football team a draw in their first match in the World Cup, "Goalie: The only position on the pitch where hands are permitted. Of course they were the hands of an Englishman. Perhaps they were soaked in crude oil."