Duck.

Mr Smith doesn't think he has ever seen a President of the United States move so fast ... very deft.

But how could the Secret Service let someone chuck two shoes at the President? One maybe ... but two?

Flak Jacket Two.

Mrs Smith has just pointed out to Mr Smith that Mr Brown already has a flak jacket as recently modelled by the PM during his weekend visit to British forces in Iraq, hence the reason why he didn't need to buy the gift of a Presidential leather jacket from George Bush.

Nice machine gun Gordon. Any targets in mind?

Get ready to Rumbles.

Mr Smith reads that that former Army officer and now Member of the Scottish Parliament, Mike Rumbles, has apparently been asked whether he is prepared to return from retirement to support efforts in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"A politician has criticised the armed forces after being asked if he would consider serving abroad - some 13 years after he retired from the Army.West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine MSP Mike Rumbles, who was a major in the Royal Army Education Corps, received a letter from the Ministry of Defence asking if he would consider putting his name forward as a volunteer to serve on foreign soil.He turned down the offer, which would have meant he might be called upon to leave his post in parliament and return to the Army, possibly in Iraq or Afghanistan."

Mr Smith makes the point that never minding supporting the fight for democracy in Iraq or Afghanistan, sending Mr "let's get ready to " Rumbles away from the Scottish Parliament would probably be doing Scottish democracy a bit of favour as well.

Bush's Baghdad Palace.

Mr Smith notes the renewed interest in the media about the new American Embassy in Baghdad.

A recent article by the Guardian reported that "Rising from the dust of the city's Green Zone it is destined, at $592m (£300m), to become the biggest and most expensive US embassy on earth... It will cover 104 acres (42 hectares) of land, about the size of the Vatican. It will include 27 separate buildings and house about 615 people behind bomb-proof walls. Most of the embassy staff will live in simple, if not quite monastic, accommodation in one-bedroom apartments."

Already it has been christened Bush's Palace, a parody of the naming of the palaces that were used by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. But if things in Iraq go wrong and America is forced to withdraw then who will be left to occupy the 27 buildings? This is one building project that makes the £420 million Scottish Parliament building look like a wise long term property investment. The only "insurgents" they have to worry about in downtown Edinburgh are the local neds, and they only carry Buckie.