Pod save the queen!
Just a few weeks after the new president made gift gaffes in his offerings to the British prime minister, the Obamas extended an iPod to Queen Elizabeth II yesterday.
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The engraved digital media device came with video footage of her last visit to the United States and included 40 Broadway show tunes, including “Aquarius” from “Hair” and songs from “Rent” and “Annie.”
Unfortunately, Her Majesty is already believed to own the music-and-video gadget — a silver Mini she got in 2005, according to The Daily Telegraph.
The iDud of a gift came during President Obama’s visit with Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, at Buckingham Palace, where they sipped tea and posed for photos.
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The Obamas also gave Her Majesty a rare songbook autographed by famed composer Richard Rodgers.
In return, the queen gave the first couple a signed photograph of herself and Philip in a silver frame — a gift she’s extended to many people over the decades.
Earlier in the day, Obama had talked up how much he was looking forward to meeting the monarch, whom he praised as a pillar of “civility.”
Obama and wife Michelle reportedly brushed up on etiquette on the plane trip to England for the G-20 summit, which begins today.
In the royal presence yesterday, the president y bobbed his head slightly, but his wife skipped a curtsy.
Instead, the queen extended her hand for shakes from them, and they accepted — which is considered an acceptable, if informal, practice, etiquette experts said.
The visit was widely rated a smash hit in the British press, especially compared with the last meeting between Obama and a British leader.
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On March 3, the president gave British PM Gordon Brown and his wife a set of DVDs as their first gift, along with cheap models of US military planes for Brown’s children. To compound the shabbiness of those presents, the discs turned out to be unusable in England.
After that embarrassing episode, the iPod was scrutinized.
“I probably wouldn’t have gone with something that’s quite as contemporary and folksy as an iPod — I thought it was a little casual,” said Susan Fitter Sloane, who operates an etiquette consulting business called Global Manners.
However, she said it was “lovely” that the footage from the queen’s 2007 US visit was downloaded onto the gadget, making for a personal touch.
Sloane said she would have recommended something from Obama’s hometown of Chicago, such as a work by a well-known artist.
Jacqueline Whitmore, another manners consultant and the author of “Business Class: Etiquette Essentials for Success at Work,” agreed that the queen deserved better.
“Let’s face it, she has everything, and what she doesn’t have she can probably buy,” Whitmore said. “[But] that would not have been the gift I would have chosen.”
The iPod “tells me he had a hand in selecting that because of his love for technology. I don’t think that is necessarily her love,” Whitmore said.
Leaving the palace, the president said, “It was a wonderful visit. Her Majesty is delightful.”
Before the guests could arrive, the queen’s staff had to ask the driver of Obama’s bulletproof car to move it out of the way, because it was blocking the driveway at Buckingham Palace.