What Camilla could do for Michelle Obama

America's First Lady, Michelle Obama, arrives in London tomorrow and readers of certain newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic would be forgiven if they didn't realise her husband, Barack Obama, was traveling with her on Air Force One, such is the excitement. As revealed here last week, she arrives with her own entourage, including bodyguards and hairdresser. She also comes, it seems, with nothing but praise and adulation ringing in her ears.

As the Observer's man in Washington, Rupert Cornwell, wrote yesterday: "Two months into her husband's term, Michelle is a superstar in her own right. Her every appearance is a major news event; her every move is tracked by an army of bloggers. Her fashions, her hairdos, not to mention her choice of presidential pet, command headlines worthy of Jackie [Kennedy] in Camelot's heyday."

One of her secrets is her ability to poke fun at her husband - a talent few recent First Ladies have exhibited. "He doesn't understand fashion," she told an interviewer recently. "He's always asking: 'Is that new? I haven't seen that before'. It's like, Why don't you mind your own business? Solve world hunger. Get out of my closet."

How long she can keep this up, and not become frustrated by the confines of the First Ladyship, nobody knows. "I have a more fun job than he does," she told a group of Washington high school students the other day. Yes, but...

Before tea with The Queen at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday, Michelle and her husband are due to meet Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, who famously has never worked a day of her life. "Michelle is a woman who studied law at Princeton and went on to become a community organiser and hospital administrator in Chicago," said a Washington reporter due to cover her London visit. "Maybe her meeting with Camilla will snap her out of it."

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