After Michelle Obama’s shock hug at the Palace, perhaps we can call it "shouldenfreude": the unanticipated delight that Americans take in the royal etiquette misfortunes of their countrymen. It is a relief to find that Americans can be just as snobbish as the British. They would be unbearable to live with if they weren’t.

For Republicans, the sight of Mrs. Obama draping an arm affectionately over the shoulders of the Queen confirmed her crass arrogance. For Obama fans, it reaffirmed her common touch. "I’m a hick from Indiana and even I know you don’t touch the Queen," a hick from Indiana told CNN, just after they’d read out another email from a viewer gushing that while "humans are mostly made of water, Michelle is made of electricity".

Fortunately for the Queen this wasn’t literally the case; but, regardless of political persuasion, everyone wanted to know what the British monarch thought of America’s first couple. Perhaps it is because she is a mainstay of international statesmanship, or because tea at Buckingham Palace was the crowning moment of the first black president’s historic journey.

This was the big story over here, not the G20 summit. The picture of the Queen with an Obama on either side (the ultimate tourist snap) made the front of all three New York tabloids. I can’t remember when that last happened. British ex-pats were grilled on television about what they thought the Queen made of the Obamas. The charlatans among them pretended that they knew. You might have thought the renewed popularity of anti-tax "tea parties" would have reminded Americans that, since 1776, they are supposed no longer to care about such things. Oh, but they do.