Next time there is a US Presidential inauguration can you please schedule it so it doesn’t coincide with return from school time in the UK.

Why? Because that’s the time when the TV is occupied by Cbeebies (Kids TV). We had the mother of all battles with our kids who weren’t interested in Obama being sworn in, what his Mrs. was wearing or even how lovely his daughters are.

No they wanted Fireman Sam, Handy Manny or anything but Mr. President. We decided we weren’t going to miss history for Harry and his bucket full of whatever so we tried to keep the TV on Sky News on as long as we could hold the enemy, hoping to see the moment of swearing in.

“Why this going on so long, too boring!” said my girl during the mimed classical quartet peformance.

Finally as the tension grew at the Whitehouse and in our house, my son switched off the TV in protest right as the critical moment. We couldn’t get the TV back on quick enough due to a dodgy remote control so we missed Mr. O and accomplice fluffing the oath live. We conceded defeat to the Beebies and had to watch the highlights later on Newsnight before, war weary, we retired to bed. What an exhausting day and we didn’t even have to attend five balls.