He had been electioneering in the city, where he delivered the commencement address at Barnard College, a women-only liberal arts college affiliated to Columbia University. According to a report in the New York Times, Obama was shifting the focus from his recent endorsement of same-sex marriage to what he portrayed as a “lifelong belief in the essential role of women”. A NYT / CBS News poll has suggested most people (Sixty-seven percent of those surveyed) think Mr. Obama’s unexpected commitment to same-sex marriage had been made “mostly for political reasons,” while 24 percent said it was “mostly because he thinks it is right.” The Obama campaign wants to pin Mitt Romney on the socially conservative ground he was forced to fight for in order to win the Republican nomination. Since Obama’s endorsement, Romney has re-iterated his opposition to same-sex marriage.

The sight of Air Force One, parked in a corner of JFK, and – as my taxi left the airport and joined the slow traffic heading for Manhattan – Marine One circling over the airport escorted by two US Marine Chinooks, was a reminder of the sheer muscle available to the incumbent President.

The UK’s most successful Paralympic athlete of all time, Tanni has won 11 gold Paralympic medals since 1992. Not only is Tanni incredibly talented at what she does on the track, she’s also hugely engaging and inspirational off the track. She’s been very involved in London’s preparations for 2012, having been part of the original bid’s committee and now on the main organising committee. Tanni has many wonderful anecdotes about the past seven years as the ideas turned into reality. It will be fascinating to hear her insights so close to the run-up to the Opening Ceremony in July.

As a huge fan of Niall’s books, from The Pity of War (Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1998) to Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 2004), I for one will be looking forward to hearing what he’s got on to say on The Rule of Law and its Enemies (the title of his lecture series).

The first lecture will be broadcast on BBC Radio Four on 19 June, followed by the next three on June 26 and July 3 and July 10.

Sassoon’s success is a true rags to riches story – a boy who spent his early years in an orphanage but whose life changed course due to an apprenticeship at a Whitechapel barbers and his invention of the ‘bob’: he went on to build a £300m global hairdressing empire.

As he also states in his book, Bounce, he believes that everyone’s brain begins from the same starting point and that it depends on how much effort we put in, alongside the context and exposure to different skills, that make the difference in setting out who is good at table tennis or maths. Matthew argues that the idea of excellence being primarily (or exclusively) delivered by natural talent/genetic inheritance is seductive but that it’s, at best, misleading, and, at worst, destructive. As students around the country prepare for GCSEs, A-Levels and university exams, it’s an interesting thought.

John and I talked about Obama’s re-election campaign, and his vulnerability to factors outside his control – John’s two black swans. These are, in no particular order, the threat of an Israeli strike on Iran in September (taking advantage of Obama’s immersion in a difficult election race); and the intensifying crisis in the Eurozone (as a Greek default looks more likely, the whole edifice is looking fragile – an uncontrolled collapse would likely wipe out America’s economic recovery).

As well as running for President, Obama is also running to be leader of the free world, and it is developments outside the US that threaten to knock his campaign off course, and even lose him the race.

As the BBC’s North America Editor Mark Mardell points out, this version “lacks the punch of the original”, which was particularly clever in that it played on the double meaning of the word “labour”. In a country where such huge amounts of money are raised for and spent on political campaigns, is a lesser imitation of a well-known slogan the best that can be done? It remains to be seen whether this campaign will have the success of Mrs Thatcher’s in 1979.