IT MUST be a tad surreal when you're the most powerful nation on the planet and the only characters you can rustle up to challenge Barack for control of the White House answer to the name of Mitt, Newt, Rick, Jon, Flip, Chuck, Rock, Hank, Wizz or Trump.

Okay, so I cheated with that last one. Trump is, of course, multi-billionaire Donald's surname. But when you've got all that money and the top of your head bears a remarkable resemblance to a cross between a ruined omelette and an abandoned birds' nest, you've probably forfeited the right to be taken seriously. Not that we can talk when our own unholy trinity all choose to be known by the matey diminutives Dave, Ed and Nick. It can surely be only a matter of time before they blur into one amorphous coalition known as Dednik.

That's the kind of codename which seems to appeal to the FBI, the CIA or whichever arm of the secret service has the task of maintaining America's real or imagined world domination.

Mind you, it took them more than a decade to find Osama when he was virtually right under their noses, and 16 years to capture octogenarian gang leader James 'Whitey' Bulger who wandered unscathed and at will through his homeland's post-September 11 airport security, and once even took a tourists' day trip around his former abode at Alcatraz.

Rumour has it the FBI was the buyer when that photograph of Billy The Kid sold for £1.4m last weekend. They're apparently demanding to know if it's a good likeness and how recently it was taken.

n Talking of deserving to be locked up, prime candidates are clearly the anonymous authors of the Royal College of Psychiatrists' report which wants to restrict anyone over 65 to a half pint of beer or a small glass of wine a day.

This is, of course, totally ludicrous. What planet are these shrinks living on? Surely they're aware that millions of over 65s can no longer afford to drink a half pint of beer or a small glass of wine every day.

Blimey, the next thing they'll be banning oldies from watching the Olympics. Oops, I forgot, that already applies to all ages doesn't it?

n IN HIS latest bid to divorce the Conservative Party from its traditional supporters, what brattish spite Dave managed to muster in his snarling "you do the fighting and I'll do the talking" rebuke to Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, First Sea Lord, and Air Chief Marshal Sir Simon Bryant, second-in-command of the Royal Air Force. So who do you suggest does the dying then Dave?