The first news conference with President Biden was calm, measured... and a tiny bit dull

Biden didn’t want for star-power. There was J Lo, singing her heart out on the West front of the Capitol, and the national anthem was performed by Lady Gaga. She looked like she was wearing the red carpet that Trump had walked on before boarding AF1. She also had a gold microphone and gold earpieces (I confess: I had earpiece envy). But I’m sorry Lady G, you were upstaged. You weren’t the sartorial star of the show. No that honour went to the firebrand Left-wing senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, 79. As he sat by himself, face mask in place, all attention was focused on his hand-knitted mittens. They were practical, comfortable and just the thing on a cold morning — and they spawned a 1,000 memes.

The first news conference of the Biden era was calm, measured and a tiny bit dull. What an exercise in contrasts. Four years ago, I was at the first of the Trump era. It was a Saturday evening, and was called with little notice. There weren’t many of us in the room. The President’s spokesman, Sean Spicer, barrelled in and berated us all for our reporting, told us the patent untruth that the crowd size for Trump’s inauguration had been the biggest in history — and stormed out without answering a single question. I was sitting next to The Guardian’s correspondent, David Smith, who’d previously been their man in southern Africa. He leaned over to me and said: “It’s like being back in Zimbabwe.” I think we’ve swapped Crazytown for Dullsville.

It has been a gruelling few weeks and my family pass on a tweet they’ve spotted where a woman has said “Jon Sopel on the TV looks like he hasn’t slept for three years, but is still quite handsome.” My daughter adds caustically: “Well, she’s half right.”