Long life | 29 October 2015

The Metropolitan Club in Washington is so close to the White House that President Obama chose to walk there for lunch on Tuesday through Lafayette Park while his motorcade followed behind. The lunch was described in the media as ‘secret’, and American reporters were frustrated by the refusal of the White House and the club’s staff to divulge anything whatsoever about it. But nothing the President does is really secret, and his visit was certainly not secret to me, since I was staying in the club at the time under a reciprocal arrangement between the Metropolitan and the Garrick in London, of which I’m a member.

As I had been warned in advance, security men visited my bedroom with sniffer dogs to check it for explosives; and when I returned from a morning walk, airport-type security was in place at the front door. I had to empty my pockets and be patted up and down, though the man doing the patting showed good manners bordering on deference, which seemed in keeping with the club’s pride in its ‘tradition of social civility’.