PLUMBING WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA

Today, we replaced a bathroom tap. This involved me being upside down in the bathroom, huffing and puffing and hoping I wasn't about to drop a heavy adjustable spanner on my face.

I'm sure this is why it's better to get someone in to do this. Five minute jobs ought to take, ooh I don't know, five minutes, and probably not three hours. Oh and it probably shouldn't result in you being so sweaty you might as well have left the water on.

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"My mom told me she used to come down to the ocean when she was pregnant," said Barack Obama on his documentary about National Parks. He was on a Hawaiian beach. "She'd come down here, think and reflect. Maybe that's why I'm so calm," he said. The sweeping camera cut to his feet sinking into white, wet sand; trousers turned up around his ankles. The water lapped around his toes as he casually strode along the beach.

Calm. Cool. Collected. I bet that guy was excellent in the situation room. World War III could be about to kick off, and Obama would have been the leader in the chair, settling everyone down and focusing them on courses of action that aren't about to blow up the planet. I imagine that temperament is exactly what you need in a President, rather than some hothead with sticky fingers. But don't let me get into that.

What I thought of when I saw Barack taking his time along the beach, was how awesome it must be to be like that, even if you're not the President. Even if, say, just for the point of argument, you've got to change a hot tap in the bathroom because the old one is leaking and there's about to be a hosepipe ban.

I have a hard time bringing a sense of calm, purposeful resolve into the room when I'm sweating on the bathroom floor and the wrench is slipping out of my clumsy fingers.

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We got it done anyway. I righted myself, switched on the water and everything worked just as expected. I'm not sure my wife is as confident in my raw-fingered plumbing though. The first thing she said was that it would be better if we didn't use it, especially as we'll be moving in a few weeks. She's placed a cup under the sink to test whether it's leaking from the pipe.

I don't know whether Michelle Obama would have done that. Ah well. To be honest, Barack would probably have just called a plumber in the first place, wouldn't he?  That's certainly the coolest, calmest, most collected thing to have done.