If one is President Barack Obama, paying a formal visit with the first lady to our Queen Liz II at Buckingham Palace, as the Obamas did last week, what does one give her majesty?
One iPod, loaded to play.
One rare songbook signed by Richard Rodgers.
Roll over Hammerstein, tell Tchaikovsky the news: This is a queen who has knighted the likes of Sir Elton John and Paul McCartney, so one wonders whether the iPod or the songbook got the first run.
Now, my spies tell me that the queen is believed to already own an iPod -- a 6 GB silver Mini version which she is "said to have bought in 2005 at the suggestion of Prince Andrew.''
But Obama's gift did come loaded with video footage and photographs of the queen's 2007 visit to Richmond, Jamestown and Williamsburg, Va.
In return, the queen gave the president a silver-framed signed photograph of herself and the Duke of Edinburgh - apparently a standard present for visiting dignitaries.
The word from an Obama aide on background that the president has provided the queen with a portable music player still begs the question: What else is in the shuffle?
Purple Haze perhaps?
No word yet from the palace as to whether the queen has tapped the playlist yet, or whether she likes her presidential iPod better than the one the prince got her to buy or better than Prime Minister Gordon Brown liked the boxed set of movie DVDs that the president gave the prime minister in Washington.
These people are the clowns of gift giving. Do they put any thought into anybody but themselves?
can't be easy though, choosing a gift for royalty.