HOW can our world leaders ever hope to sort out global recession and the threat of nuclear war when they can’t even handle a simple meet and greet?

It was like musical chairs on the steps to Number Ten when Mr and Mrs Obama called the other day. Barack, Michelle, Gordon and Sarah shuffled around and around, greeting each other awkwardly while at the same time working out the best line-up for the cameras. And they did this not once, but twice. You’d think they could have worked out the choreography for a little thing like a presidential visit.

It would be easy to blame all the clumsiness on Gordon Brown. He doesn’t come across as the sort of chap who’d make an easy first acquaintance.

But then Michelle Obama scandalously dared to lay hands on the Royal personage. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, she actually touched the Queen, and was not turned to stone. Some have even suggested the Queen started it, but that’s surely stretching credulity.

Perhaps Michelle got away with it because it’s been done before, by at least a couple of Australian premiers, one of whom was dubbed the Lizard of Oz as a result.

He’s not the only one, though. Nicolas Sarkozy can’t keep his hands to himself, although in his case he at least keeps it in the family. When the Obamas dropped in to see the French president and his lovely wife, the former supermodel Carla Bruni, the cameras caught Monsieur Le President giving his wife an affectionate bottom-pat.

Now, Sarkozy may have many qualities, but he is not the most conventionally handsome of men. When it comes to the marriage stakes, there’s no denying that he’s done all right for himself. He probably has to keep pinching Carla to make sure he isn’t dreaming.

As for Carla, all she has to do to get a reality check is to look down, because with a husband so much on the short side it’s flat shoes from here to eternity for her. He must have something to make her give up the Jimmy Choos.

Taking the Garibaldi for potty greetings, however, must surely be the Italian President, Silvio Berlusconi. He got up the Royal hooter far more than the Americans at the recent G20 shindig by breaking loose from an official photocall with Her Maj and trying to attract the attention of the leader of the free world by hollering: “Mr Obama!” at the top of his voice, prompting the Queen to recoil in what the commentators kindly described as mock horror.

He’s a frisky one, that Silvio. One of his party tricks is playing hide and seek, which he once did at an official meeting with the German Prime Minister, Angela Merkel, popping out from behind a column to surprise her and her passing entourage. How she laughed at his high jinks... which is more than could be said when he kept her waiting at another meeting so that he could finish his mobile phone call. What a charmer.

Silvio may be starting to live down calling the US President, among other things, ‘tanned’, but he also caused a stir when meeting Obama’s predecessor.

It’s a tough call to upstage George W Bush in the clumsy stakes, but Berlusconi was so eager to pay tribute to him that he smashed a lectern while moving to embrace him. “That’s what too much love can do,” he joked.

So. Mull all this over and consider whose finger you’d like on that nuclear button. Maybe a spot of chilly Scottish reserve would be best, after all. And let’s face it, Gordon doesn’t look the type to be touchy-feely about anything.