American political history has some curious byways. I have just been

looking at the intersection of ten-pin bowling with presidential politics.

Lyndon Johnson, for example, was a lousy bowler because his arse was too

big. To be a good bowler, you need to swing your bowling arm back and then

forward in a vertical plane. Johnson couldn’t do this because his rear end

got in the way. To get the swinging arm past his hips, he had to twist the

arm slightly, spoiling his action. This is according to the memoirs of one of his Secret Service agents.

I had always thought that Richard Nixon was the one who installed a bowling

alley in the White House basement (paid for by Bebe Rebozo, according to

rumor at the time), but apparently Truman had one. Harry, however, to judge from this picture, was a very poor

bowler — no clue about form, the wrist all wrong.

Nixon, by contrast, was an elegant bowler with excellent form, as can be

seen in this picture.