When I read your piece on Presidential footprints, I was reminded of a business trip to Ottawa taken in the mid 1990s and coinciding with a visit to our Capital by Bill Clinton. As you know, the airspace within a few hundred miles of the airport is closed for a few hours around the President's time of arrival and departure and of course the roads anywhere near the Man's motorcade route are blocked. As you can imagine, flight schedules were completely thrown off and the traffic congestion was horrendous (Mr Clinton arrived during the morning rush hour and timed his departure to coincide with the evening rush)

I did make it back to the airport in time to witnesses both Airforce 1 and the other Airforce 1 taxing in front of the terminal – hundreds of displaced and disrupted passengers gave the President a piece of their mind and a wave with an extended finger as he passed by.

Perhaps you should attempt to quantify the carbon emitted by the thousands of motorists stuck in traffic jams caused by the Presidential passage and the amount of hot air emitted by people whose travel plans are disrupted during these "state" visits.

Peter Boles