Now this is much more fun than a history lesson: our chauffeur-driven limo, with police motorbike outriders, is giving the traffic the Red Sea treatment, and look at this – we’re just flying along to the airport. Could this be what they call the American Dream.

Can you hear the ‘Star-spangled Banner’ now pumping out of our super-charged sound system, putting us in the mood for our trip to the USA?

Hello: our driver’s winding the glass screen down to ask us if we’d like him to juice up the volume and learn all the US presidents on our way to the plane.

That’s a ‘yes, please’, chauffeur.

Did you get a look at him, by the way? You didn’t? Well, let me just knock on the glass and give you another chance to inspect.

A Jaws called George who washes himself tons? He’s George Washington, the first president of the US of A.

On the subject of founding fathers, get an eyeful of the specimen opposite us over the drinks cabinet here in the back, this big apple on the loo. He’s been using the ‘john’, as he insists on calling it, for most of our journey.

Do apples remind you of man’s original sin? No? Me neither, but they are associated with Adam and Eve, aren’t they? This apple on the john is Adam’s, it’s John Adams.

For apple, in other words, read Adams. So John Adams, an apple on the john, is our second president.

Well, this is good news: we’ve nearly arrived at the departures drop-off point outside the airport. You can see the taxi rank coming up on the right now.

But there’s no space in the taxi rank, by the looks of things, because a huge train has gone and taken up every available spot. If I’m not mistaken, it’s Thomas the Tank Engine.

He’s quite a looker, this tank engine. He’s covered in delicious fresh Jaffa cakes, just asking to be nibbled at. He’s a Thomas with Jaffas on: Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the US.

We’ll need some help with these bags of ours; that’s the bare minimum we’ve come to expect after the limo ride. Good – here comes a porter with a trolley.

This guy reminds me of George Clooney off ER, but that might just be the medical uniform. And what’s that in his belt? By golly – our medicine man, whoever he is, is carrying a massive black revolver. The gun indicates that he’s a James.

This is a little convention of ours. Think Jesse James or James Bond, both of whom enjoyed their guns, to nail this association – and for the rest of this walk, know that anyone carrying a gun is called James. Where there’s a gun, we’ve got a James on our hands.

So who is this medicinal James, then? Well, he’s James Medicine of course, or rather – James Madison. The gun-carrying medicine man next to Thomas, on the pavement, is the fourth US president, James Madison. But, oh dear, there seems to be a problem.

Look over there by the revolving doors: a luscious woman – a dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe – has popped up and she’s waving a brutal-looking revolver at us.

It’s an alluring scenario – her skirts are billowing up, revealing soft white thighs; her perfume carries delightfully on the wind; she smells of peaches; her lips are in a mind-bending pout.

That it’s a Marilyn Monroe with a gun tells us that it’s James Monroe holding us up here. A cheery hello, then, to James Monroe, the fifth president. And then let’s get out of here; she’s beginning to fire! She’s taken down the doctor!

Dive in here, after me – into these revolving doors.

At least we’re safe here, even if we do find ourselves jammed into a small triangular space with another piece of fruit on another stinking loo.

After John Adams, Washington’s deputy, I’d rather thought I’d seen my last fruit on the john for the day.

This one at least looks a bit different to the last: yellower, more lumpen. I don’t know if the reader knows what a quince looks like, but it’s basically just this: a yellow and lumpy variant on the apple. This here apple on the john strikes me, therefore, as a quincy apple, or, if we’re to carry on calling apples Adamses, a Quincy Adams.

So, we’ve now met our first six US presidents.

George Washington was the shark, Jaws, washing himself tons while driving our limo. Our co-passenger, who was an apple sitting on the john, was John Adams. We were then forced to park in behind Thomas the Tank Engine with Jaffas on; that was Thomas Jefferson. As we sought a trolley, the Clooney-esque gun-toting medicine man to our right helped us out – he was James Madison – and we were trundling on our way to the doors of the departure hall when Marilyn Monroe stopped us in our tracks, waving another gun at us. That was James Monroe. We went it alone from there, escaping into the revolving door with the quincy apple on the loo, John Quincy Adams.

Emerging from the doors, we’re going to need to pay a visit to that information desk you can see over there beneath the giant ‘I’ descending in yellow from the ceiling. It looks pretty user-friendly, this information point – it’s nothing less than a converted ice-cream van.

Let’s stroll over. But, wait a second, what’s going on here? We’re being queue-barged by a man moonwalking on his hands. His hands make the whishy-fist-whishy-fist-wishy-fist sound of a snake scuttling across the desert sands.

But this is the oldest trick in the book: he’s facing as though he’s leaving the queue, but his moonwalk moves take him to the front. Nobody suspects a thing, eh? I don’t think so.

As if we need another reason to forgive him, you’ve got to admit he bears a striking resemblance to Michael Jackson. As far as I’m concerned, this hand-walking Jackson lookalike, this Handrew Jackson, is welcome to queue-barge as much as he pleases. Yes, you go on now, Handrew.

Andrew Jackson is our next president.

Things aren’t going too well at our information desk.

For a start, the guy behind the window is a Martian. That’s just not helpful.

Secondly, his van is burning, it reeks of barbecued alien flesh, and the flames are licking out of the top. The Martian’s inhuman screams send a shiver down your spine.

I don’t think we can get much sense from this Martian in a van that’s burning, so we’ll pass on from Martin Van Buren, the next president, to seek out our check-in desk by ourselves. How on earth are we going to find it now?

But look – that guy there has got tickets for American Airlines; let’s follow him, if only for the entertainment value. He is quite a sight: a wad of dollar bills hopping along with big bendy strides on little rubbery legs. He has his son in his arms and he’s throwing him up and down in the air as they bumble along. The son’s a disgusting-looking creature, a mangy featherless hen covered in green body hair.

So, our guide is a William, and his hairy son is a hen. So that makes him William (with a) Hen (for a) Hairy-son, or William Henry Harrison – our next president.

Rather kindly, Harrison lets us check in first, waving us past to the front of the queue.

There’s just one person in front of us; he’s at the check-in desk itself, having a fiery argument with the lady behind the counter, quite eye-catching in that polka-dot dress. We’ll take a closer look at this woman in due course.

But what about the man! It’s John Lennon, if I’m not mistaken – but there’s no guitar in sight. Instead, he’s checking in a whole bunch of bathroom tiles. They weigh a lot, these tiles, and this is the source of the argument. It seems that John will have to pay a surplus-baggage charge for them.

Disgusted at the very idea, he’s decided instead to remove a few of the tiles from his luggage, and to decorate the front of the check-in desk. He’s sticking them on now. This is terrific. The desk is being transformed by the fetching pink tile-work, a map of the US if I’m not mistaken.

The lady behind the desk in her polka-dot dress, meanwhile, is not reacting kindly to this act of guerrilla decoration from Mr Tyler.

Well, look at her now! She’s taken out a pistol and she’s furiously firing it into the air, pausing between fusillades to poke John in the ribs. The bullets are K-shaped, which is pretty cool.

This woman, then, is a gun-slinger in a polka-dot dress who pokes her customers. Attention, please: she is James (for the gun) K (for the shape of its bullets) and Polk (for both the pokes and the polka-dot dress). After John Tyler, our next president is James K Polk.

As we check our own bags in, Polk has a piece of useful advice. Listen to this: we either ‘look smart or get the treatment from security’.

Since we respect her dress sense, we’ll take her advice seriously, and before we go through to the departure lounge, we’ll now nip into the Tie Rack shop by the security passage. It’s a typical airport shop – hundreds of ties arrayed in bright displays. Perfect. In we go.

But it gets better.

As the sugar ripples over his body, it leaves in its wake a perfectly fitted suit. A double-breasted one, I’m afraid, but still incredible to see saccharine becoming suit.

This man who can do this, who is he?

The man who magically turns saccharine into suits is the legendary saccharine tailor. He’s also known as Zachary Taylor, and he’s the next president.

We pass to the back of the shop to try on some new clothes. But as we draw back the changing-room curtains… oh no, cover your eyes, this is truly monstrous.

I’m confronted by an expanse of lard here, rolls and rolls of it. An incredibly fat man, with a bucket at his side, is wedged on the bench at the back of the cubicle. I know it doesn’t sound too bad, but I haven’t told you the half of it. From the folds of his lard emerges a pipe with a tap at the end. His fat, a splutter of globular lard, is pouring out and splattering down into the bucket.

The guy’s evidently having some kind of improvised liposuction. (And I never knew this, but human fat really stinks – of blue cheese, it seems. Close your nostrils as well.) He’s following the level keenly as the bucket fills up with his fat. This is quite exciting; it’s fast approaching the point marked ‘Personal Best’ on the side of the bucket.

There it goes! And listen up – the fat man’s got an announcement to make:

I’ve no evidence with which to contradict this claim from Millard Fillmore, our next president.

So – that takes us to the end of the presidents who could be said to have worked out Jacksonian Democracy. We’ve seen them arranged all around the departures hall. Let’s review them.

First, there was Andrew Jackson himself, the man who walked backwards but appeared to be going forward, and passed us on his hands on the way to the information van.

There we met Martin Van Buren, the Martian in that van that was burning.

We ended up making our way to check in with the help of a jumping wad of dollar bills and his hairy son, a hen. That was William Henry Harrison.

At the desk itself, a tiler who looked suspiciously like John Lennon was trying to check his tiles on to the plane, and was getting rid of the surplus by decorating the front of the check-in desk. This didn’t impress the lady in the polka-dot dress, who poked at John Tyler with her gun firing K-shaped bullets; her name being James K Polk.

We took Polk’s advice and went to Tie Rack to smarten ourselves up, but things were a little odd there.

First, there was the naked customer being dressed with a magic bag of sugar by Zachary Taylor, the saccharine tailor. Then there was the guy in the changing room at the back having his annual liposuction session and noticing how his lard filled more of the bucket than the previous year – that was Millard Fillmore.

Over all this time, Michael Jackson’s greatest hits have been pumping out over the airport PA system. This has been the era of Jacksonian Democracy, after all.

Or what?

Well, look here to the side of the queue to see what happens to people who don’t obey the rules!

A Frenchman’s been pierced clean through with a huge, sharpened baguette – and left hanging in midair. Unable to escape from this crusty prong, he just flails his arms and curses away in French.

‘Merde,’ says the pierced Frenchie, Franklin Pierce, our next president. All Frenchmen are called Franklin in this airport, I should stress. Make a note of it.

We’re at the X-ray machine now, but the man in front of us seems engagingly unaware of the basic principles of aircraft security. If he puts that six-foot iron cannon of his through the machine, it’ll be detected and then confiscated. Should we warn him?

Nah! Let’s see what happens. This could be comic.

In he pops the cannon now, looking quite nonchalant as he saunters to the other end to collect it.

And our cannon smuggler’s being muscled to the side to be interrogated by a bearded guard – let’s listen in:

‘Is this your cannon, sir?’

‘It is.’

‘Are you aware that no combat weapons are allowed on international flights?’

‘I am, officer.’ (Awkward pause.) ‘But this isn’t a very dangerous cannon, I promise. Let me show you.’

The passenger now presses a little button on the top of the cannon. As he does so, a plastic gun fires out on a spring from the end, and from the plastic gun a little flag with the word ‘BOO’ follows.

How extremely funny: it is a James – BOO – Cannon, a cannon that fires a gun (a James) from the end, that then goes ‘BOO’. James Buchanan is the next president.

The chap charged with interviewing Buchanan doesn’t seem at all amused, however. Get a load of that scowl!

We have no bags with us, so all we have to do is go through the metal detector. Passing through, however, it starts bleeping. And even removing our belt, keys and nose rings won’t stop it going off. It looks like they’re going to have to call out the body-search team.

Let’s hope it’s no one we know; that would be so embarrassing.

An incredibly tall security official, Abraham Lincoln’s deputy, duly steps forward.

And, bless my soul, I think we do know him! But it’s all right – we don’t know him personally, just by reputation.

It’s Magic Johnson, the basketball star!

Oh my God, look at the size of his hands! They’re absolutely vast!

Whooooah! Magic Johnson lifts us off the ground now, and, in a single movement, he’s searched the entire surface of our body.

How? He’s rolled us back and forth like a tubule of Play-Doh between his palms. That felt like a spell in a tumble dryer.

Fortunately, he can’t find any weapons, this hands-on Johnson character (this ‘Handrew’ Johnson) and he drops us dizzily back to ground level.

Andrew Johnson, Magic Johnson with big hands, is the next president after Lincoln.

We’re just about through now; it only remains for us to have our passports checked. Approaching the booth, it sounds as if two bears are mating inside.

This military man who emits grunts, who grunts his way through the US national anthem – he’s US Grunt, or Ulysses S Grant.

Now, let’s quickly review this last sequence. First we had the Frenchman of whom an example had been made in the run-up to the X-ray machine. He’d been totally pierced by a sharpened baguette. He was Franklin Pierce. Then there was James Buchanan having a bit of fun with security with his BOO-cannon. Abraham Lincoln, manning the X-ray machines, didn’t seem that amused by Buchanan’s antics, and interrogated him. The linkin’ bra-hams were the least intimidating part, I’d say.

Then we ran into problems as we got bleeped passing through the metal detector; Magic Johnson with huge hands, Andrew Johnson that is, gave us a full body search.

After that ordeal, we were able to proceed to passport control, where Ulysses S Grant was having such an amusing time grunting his way through the US national anthem.

So we’re finally through and free to enjoy the departure lounge. First things first: let’s have ourselves a bit of duty free.

And look – excellent news. There’s a shop just over there in front of us.

But wait a second – there’s an innovative ferryman just here, providing a crossing service. He’s added a rudder to a standard Ford automobile, and he’s offering lifts across the bee haze.

We get into the ruddered Ford and cross the bee haze. And this man with a ruddered Ford for the bee haze? He’s actually Rutherford B Hayes, our next president.

Having forded the bees, we trample ashore just short of the duty-free emporium. Fantastically, outside the doors they’ve got a prize raffle for one of those delicious cars, a Jaguar – check the way it spins round on the revolving stage.

The Jag is being pretend-driven by an actor dressed up as Garfield the cat. You haven’t quite reached the top of the career ladder, have you, if you find yourself dressed as a cat in an airport. Whoops – did I say that out loud? Yes, I did, and Garfield’s angrily whipped out a pair of guns!

Phew. That was a close shave. Who on earth does that guy think he is?

Safely inside, catching our breath, we can work out that the guns obviously mean he thinks he’s a James. A James Garfield, presumably, what with the outfit. And the car’s got to be a clue too: JAG, these are surely his initials. So, all in all, it must be James A Garfield.

James A Garfield in his Jag marks the transition into a new phase in the presidency, known as the Golden Era. And how appropriate that this duty-free emporium should be advertised with the (misleading) caption ‘Gold in here!’ We are now standing inside at the end of a long aisle running off to the right, parallel to the shop windows.

But, before we go down the aisle, look, directly in front of us, right beyond the doors… there is the most enormous chest of oak and iron. What is a chest doing here? Could it be full of treasure?

Why don’t you lean over and get a closer look? Go on, stop looking shy. Why not try and open it?

Pow!

Whoops – sorry! I had no idea the lid would fly open so suddenly, whacking you on the chin like that. At least the floor’s a good spot from which to watch this amazing burst of light, and the not unholy vision of King Arthur, jack-in-the-box, looming above us.

In summary, then, that wasn’t a chest of treasure at all, but rather a chest o’ Arthur or Chester Arthur, the next president.

I must say that I do enjoy a bit of interior foliage. Too few people keep lawns in their sitting rooms, too few lemon trees dangle over beds; there’s too much wallpaper in this world and not enough ivy, don’t you think?

But this here aisle, a glorious avenue of trees, pleases me greatly.

These trees, interestingly, have meat cleavers growing from their branches, glinting viciously in the light. This aisle is a grove of cleavers.

It represents Grover Cleveland, does this grove o’ cleavers, who was the president following Chester Arthur.

And now something unique in American presidential history occurs: in the middle of this president, in the middle of this grove, there is another president. In other words, Grover Cleveland’s spell as president is interrupted; he serves on two non-consecutive occasions.

We can see him clearly in the centre of the grove of cleavers, bending over what looks to be his son, a terrifically hairy young boy.

What’s he bending over this unusual infant for, you may ask?

Well, the answer is that he’s bending to pour jam into his hairy son.

What?

You see – his name is Ben jam in Harri son; he’s bending to put jam into his hairy son. Benjamin Harrison is our next president.

Treading softly past so as not to disturb him, we of course enjoy a second stint in the grove of cleavers, Grover Cleveland.

The shelves have been very helpfully labelled to stave off confusion. The labels on the aisle read Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland.

Harrison, by the way, is the grandson of the chap who helped us find check-in, the guy made of dollar bills juggling a hairy hen who turned out to be his son: William Henry Harrison.

There’s one just next door to the duty-free emporium. Let’s go get us some dollars.

Hey you! Come back! I wouldn’t queue-barge an animal like that, sunshine. Come back and join us in the line behind, or you’ll find yourself stampeded!

The mucky animal already exchanging some money at the booth looks kind enough, but one never can tell, you know.

It’s Nelly the Elephant (the one who packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus). But, dear me, since leaving the circus, she’s become terribly mucky; she’s really plastered in muck.

She is a mucky Nelly, or, for short, mucky N’ly. For even shorter, she’s a McKinley. And with all these dollar bills she’s just acquired for her holiday, she’ll become a William McKinley. She now drops them all on the floor and rolls around, so that the bills stick in the muck all over her, covering her completely.

It really couldn’t be clearer that this is William mucky N’lly, or William McKinley.

Once President McKinley’s finished, we can get our own money. As we hand over our notes to be changed, we see that the chap behind the counter is a teddy bear dressed in a loose felt suit.

Anyhow, Theodore Roosevelt slides us over a wad of dollar bills and we’re good to roll.

So, for a bit of a recap: we headed into the Golden Era of American history in a ruddered-Ford ride through the bee haze with Rutherford B Hayes. In the Jag outside the duty-free shop we saw James A Garfield, a gun-toting variant on Garfield the cat.

Inside the misleadingly advertised ‘Gold in here!’ duty-free emporium, we first met King Arthur emerging from his chest, that was Chester A Arthur. Next we walked the length of the grove of cleavers – Grover Cleveland – in the middle of which we noticed the presence of a man bending to put jam in his hairy son. That was Benjamin Harrison, the guy dividing Grover Cleveland’s two terms. So the aisle went Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland.

Emerging from the duty-free emporium, we went next door to get some foreign currency. William McKinley was the mucky Nelly with dollar bills stuck all over, and the teddy bear behind the counter was Teddy Roosevelt, which we knew from his loose felt suit.

Now, then: our flight’s quite soon, so we need to be off to the departure gate. Let me have a quick look at the tickets. Oh, how typical! We’re leaving from gate number seventy something. We’re going to need to take the airport monorail shuttle.

The doors to the shuttle aren’t far and the board says we’ll just have to wait a couple of minutes for the next train.

Look – this is exactly what I’m talking about – an exceptionally fat wad of dollar bills is walking busily towards the doors. He’d better look where he’s going if he wants to keep that nose intact.

The first wooden hoe (the first hoe-wood, so to speak) is catapulted up by his foot and rattles into his snout. Ouch.

Confused, he carries on towards the doors, trying to escape a phantom assailant.

The next hoe-wood hits him even harder, going splang into his now bloodied face.

But he’s panicking, picking up speed now.

Poosh! Thwack! Plonk!

This is utterly daft. This William, this wad of dollar bills who keeps stepping on hoe-woods, must be William Hoe-wood Daft, or William Howard Taft.

William Howard Taft is our next president.

Finally – the doors are opening, and we can enter the shuttle. But this is no public-spirited way to use a cramped monorail carriage: a tennis player is taking up a whole row of the seats with all his wooden Wilson tennis racquets.

Let’s go and sit at the front of the train, well away from this man with his wood-row of Wilsons.

Hmm… Is it just me or do your feet feel a little heavy?

Suspiciously so. Urrgh. The whole floor of the train is thick with a layer of slowly hardening glue.

And this is interesting – there are lots of live rabbits on the floor that appear to be struggling, in this hardening glue, to unstick themselves.

Thank goodness we’ve arrived at our stop. The doors open and first through them, and on to the escalator beyond, is a swaggering fridge.

Watch how, vainly, he turns to face us so that we can all get a good view of his hard white body and designer underwear.

The man’s name is Calvin Koolidge, this cooling fridge who wears Calvin Klein underwear. And Calvin Coolidge is our next president.

At the top of the escalator (this is just soooo exciting) we’re just yards away from the first-class lounge. Yes, I did say first class. Oh yes.

Carbon footprint, schmarbon footprint.

Talking of footprints, we’ll be making some soon: the ground running up to the lounge’s glass doors is covered in sherbet. Fizzletastic!

Unfortunately, there is an airport worker doing his best to hoover it all up. This man is Herbert Hoover. He hoovers up sherbet, that’s how we know. Herbert Hoover is the president after Calvin Coolidge.

Good. Let’s revise our last bunch of presidents, then.

First off the train was the cool fridge with the designer underwear, he was Calvin Coolidge. And immediately at the top of the escalator was the president we just met hoovering up sherbet. That was Herbert Hoover.

We’re doing splendidly, and we’re on the finishing straight.

Return your mind to our present location at the top of the escalator, and follow me as I tread my way over the sherbet.

Make sure to shut the glass door into the lounge behind the last of you and then take a moment to admire the scene.

It’s properly cool, this. Presidentially so. There are all sorts of goodies here.

The best thing of all, perhaps, is that this lounge has a snooker table. And there’s a game going on. Let’s check it out.

A Frenchman’s on cue. He’s got a terrific beret, and he’s just breaking now, having placed the ball on the D. Thwhack!

This Frenchman is a Franklin, of course. But that’s not his full name. The loose felt surface of his snooker table tells us that he must be Franklin Loose-felt, or, rather, Roosevelt.

So this Franklin playing from the D on a loose-felt table is Franklin D Roosevelt, our next president.

But things keep getting better in this lounge. Look, over there, an incredibly hairy man is playing at a piano next to the bar.

His hair is gleaming white because he keeps lots of chewing gum in it – he plays a four-hour set, after all, and needs to sustain himself.

Who is this man who chews his own hair? He is the hairy-chew man and he’s happy to confirm this for us. ‘It’s true, man,’ he says. ‘I’m the hairy-chew man.’

Harry Chewman, or, rather, Truman, is our next president. A man who chews on the gum he keeps in his hair: a hairy-chew man.

We leave him to tinkle away on his piano and move on to the bar. Drinks are free here, apparently. And since the first rule of life for economic man is never to pass over a freebie we’ll be getting stuck in. Oh yes.

And when we quiz the barman he tells us that this isn’t just any old white ice tower – it is ‘dee white ice tower’. Or Dwight Eisenhower, if we prefer. Dee white ice tower of Dwight Eisenhower is our next president.

We settle down right by the boarding desk in the corner with an iced cocktail to hand. (Obtained by pouring a bottle over Dwight Eisenhower and collecting the ice-cold liquid that trickled to the bottom. Lush.)

We’re waiting for the announcement that we can board our flight.

A deafening crackle, and the PA system bursts into action. ‘The flight to JFK International is now boarding…’

Passengers with special tickets get to go first. No, don’t sigh and complain; we’re among the passengers who possess such tickets. Ha!

Pushing to the front of the queue, we hand ours over to the steward behind the ticket machine. And, since JFK is a very personable airport, they’ve actually sent JFK himself to inspect our tickets. A very handsome man, and what a pleasure to have John F Kennedy himself taking such care over proceedings!

‘Is it true, President Kennedy, that you won a Pulitzer Prize?’ we ask him.

John F Kennedy thus waves us through and down the enclosed ramp towards the vehicle idling on the tarmac, waiting to take us to our plane. This ramp is lined on both sides with Boris Johnsons who are saluting us in a most amusing fashion.

It’s lined by B Johnsons?

Yes, it is.

They’re saluting?

Some of them.

Then this ramp must be President Lyndon B Johnson. Indeed.

And here’s another surprise. Descending from the tunnel on to the tarmac, we clatter straight into Richard Gere.

‘Look where you’re going, pretty boy,’ we say to him, adopting a friendly tone in the hope he’ll introduce us one day to Julia Roberts.

Richard smiles thinly, but looks uncomfortable.

And I can see why – he’s got a little boy under his arm. And listen to the boy crying out. He blubbers, ‘Richard, don’t steal me! I’m somebody’s son.’

Richard nicking a son: Richard Nixon, our next president.

Great, now that’s over with we can climb into the wonderful golden Ford that’s been laid on to ferry us to the plane. It’s the same one that Nixon recently failed to thrust the nicked son into.

Take a look at this marvellous open-top machine, gleaming beautifully in the sunshine in front of us. The best feature, surely, is the comedy red nose that’s been stapled on to the bonnet.

It reminds us of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.

A gold Ford with Rudolph’s nose in the middle of the bonnet must be being driven by G(era)ld Rudolph Ford, if I’m not mistaken. Hello, Gerald R Ford!

It’s not long till our flight takes off! Let’s go!

Urrgh. But why are we slowing down so soon? We seem to be having tyre problems… and, look, who’s this taking advantage, shooting past us on the right-hand side?

He appears to be on an electric cart. Yes, you can see the distinctive golf-buggy shape, he’s definitely an e-carter, this person overtaking us.

And, what’s more, he’s carrying a sawn-off shotgun. Oh please don’t shoot us, whoever you are!

It certainly could. James E Carter is the president overtaking, or rather taking over from, Gerald R Ford.

The e-cart is now well in front; he’s gunning for the best seats, the cad.

Stay calm, people! A member of the American Airlines staff, who’s seen this violent overtaking manoeuvre from the plane, no doubt, has emerged with a large and futuristic weapon in his hands. Hurrah for Ronald McDonald and his ray-gun!

Look at those great blue electrical flames that now leap from the nozzle of the ray-gun.

Glorious justice! Ronald has stunned the e-carter, who has – crunch! – nobbled his buggy on the steps of the plane. That’ll give Carter something to think about.

And this Ronald with a ray-gun is presumably Ronald Reagan, our next president.

Why not indeed?

In the pilot’s seat, that’s the one on the right, sits a large shark. When I say seat, by the way, what I really mean is a bush, for the shark (it’s Jaws again, by the looks of things) evidently likes to pilot his plane while seated in a large bush. What kind of bush, you might ask? Well, it seems to be a sherbet bush – there are packets of sherbet all over it.

Our pilot is George (Jaws) Herbert (sherbet) Bush (bush).

And who is the co-pilot, sitting to the left of George H Bush? I’m pretty sure we can recognize this one: it’s Bill Clinton. In case you don’t know him, let me describe the guy. He resembles a very shiny set of dollar bills: some bills that are a glintin’ in the light. Bills glintin’ fairly accurately describes Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton is the president after Bush the elder.

‘I want to have a go!’ cries the mini-shark.

This little boy has a large W on his shirt – and I do believe that he’s our pilot’s son. The boy resembles his father, I’d say, in almost all respects except that he’s much smaller and knows much less about controlling an aircraft.

But it seems the elder shark is a very indulgent parent, for he now vacates the bush and, despite almost everyone’s objections, he invites the little boy to have a go at piloting the plane through take-off.

Just in case you have any uncertainties remaining, let’s take a look over our whole presidential journey, right from the very beginning.

We began in a limo that was piloted by a Jaws washing himself – George Washington; facing us in the back, we had an apple on the passenger loo, or ‘john’. The next president, then, was John Adams, since apples are associated with the biblical Adam.

We unloaded behind a Thomas the Tank Engine with Jaffas on, and it was next to this Thomas Jefferson that we met James Madison, the gun-wielding medicine man, and saw the beginnings of the fire fight he had with the luscious James Monroe, with her iconic, billowing skirts.

In the revolving doors into the airport, we were squeezed in with John Quincy Adams, a quince-like apple on another john, and we then headed for the information van opposite. On the way, we were delighted to be queue-barged by the king of pop moonwalking on his hands, Andrew Jackson.

Not that it mattered, anyhow: the Martian in the van that was burning, Martin Van Buren, was totally incapable of telling us anything coherent.

Lucky we found William Henry Harrison, the wad of dollar bills with his hairy son, to take us to the American Airlines check-in desk.

There we saw John Tyler tiling the front of the desk in pink. He was being served, as we were too, by a polka-dot-dressed lady, who fired K-shaped bullets from her gun: that was James K. Polk.

On to security, where Jacko’s music (and with it Jacksonian Democracy) was no longer being played, but rather an atmosphere of conflict was building up.

First Franklin Pierce, the Frenchman, was pierced by a sharpened baguette. Then, at the X-ray machine, was James Buchanan: he was arrested for his silliness by the iconic Abraham Lincoln (whose bra-hams were linkin’).

Andrew ‘Magic’ Johnson searched us with his enormous hands after we subsequently bleeped the metal detector, and we then had that amusing experience of having our passports stamped by Ulysses S Grant, who grunted his way through the US national anthem.

Before we reached the Golden Era, our last test was to pass through that bee haze, which we did by fording it in a ruddered Ford. The boatman was Rutherford B Hayes.

Outside the duty-free emporium, at the other end of the bee haze, we saw James A Garfield in his Jag. When he shot at us, we ran into the shop. There, our attention was grabbed by the presence of a large chest, which flipped open to reveal King Arthur. He and his trunk were Chester A Arthur – a chest of an Arthur.

Into a grove o’ cleavers next – in the middle of which we found a man bending to pour jam into his hairy son, Benjamin Harrison. He was the president who divided Grover Cleveland’s two terms in office.

After leaving the emporium, we went to change some money, and found that mucky Nelly at the exchange booth, covered in dollar bills: that was William McKinley. He was being served by the odorous teddy dressed in loose felt: that was Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt.

Inside the train, there was Woodrow Wilson of course, the chap selfishly hogging a row of seats for his wooden Wilson tennis racquets, and at the very front of the carriage we found a warren of rabbits stuck in hardening glue. That was Warren G Harding.

We can zoom from here to the end, because we’re good at the last bit.

Calvin Coolidge was the fridge looking cool on the escalator; Herbert Hoover was the man hoovering up the sherbet at the top. Inside the first-class lounge, Franklin D Roosevelt was playing snooker on his loose-felt table and we met that hairy-chew man, the guy who chewed his own hair. He was playing piano near dee white ice-tower: Harry S Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. And we were soon on the move again, past JFK and that line of B Johnsons (Lyndon B Johnson) down to Richard Gere, criminally trying to nick someone’s son and hide him in a golden Ford car. That was Richard Nixon and, after, Gerald Ford.

We enjoyed our lift from Gerald Ford and even though we were overtaken by the gun-handling electric carter, we still got on to the plane first, because James E Carter was zapped by Ronald Reagan’s ray-gun from the plane’s steps.

An instant later and we were in the cockpit, where we saw Jaws in his pilot’s bush of sherbet – George Herbert Bush – and Bill Clinton in the second pilot’s seat. It was only right at the end, with George H Bush’s mini-shark son taking the controls, that we actually ran back to take our seats for takeoff.