US:Queen Elizabeth II yesterday ended a six-day visit to the United States during which President George Bush donned white tie and tails for the first time since entering office but also displayed his propensity to put his foot in it.
On the White House lawn on Monday, Mr Bush suggested that the queen, who is 81, was more than 200 years old and had celebrated the founding of the US in 1776.
When he corrected himself - he meant the bicentennial celebrations in 1976 - Mr Bush gave the queen a broad wink, eliciting a distinctly frosty look. "She gave me a look that only a mother could give a child," he said. The state dinner in honour of the queen was the most elegant event of Mr Bush's six years in the White House, as 134 guests feasted on Dover sole and spring lamb in a dining room decked out in white and gold.
First Lady Laura Bush said before the dinner that she had enlisted secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to help her persuade the president to wear white tie and tails for the event.
"Dr Rice and I took it upon ourselves to talk him into it, because we thought if we were ever going to have a white-tie event, this would be the one. And so he was glad to wear white tie.
"But I don't know about the rest of our guests, especially the ones from Texas. They're probably having to go out and rent theirs this afternoon," she said.
On the final day of her trip yesterday, the queen and Prince Philip visited a Nasa space centre before heading to a children's hospital and the national second World War memorial. Last week, they toured the island of Jamestown in Virginia where, 400 years ago this month, 104 English people founded America's first permanent English settlement.