Barry Soper: The trouble with being blip on the radar

That's the trouble with being a blip on the radar screen at the bottom of the Pacific. When anyone remotely famous visits our shores we fall over ourselves to get a glimpse of them and that's all anyone who wasn't invited to the dinner for of Barack Obama got when he was here last week.

Obama kept his distance at telephoto lens length, unlike Bill Clinton when he was here in the 90s doing walkabouts and posing for photos. But then Clinton was in office and Obama wasn't.

Clinton was the diplomat while Obama was here for the half-a-million-dollar pay cheque and a couple of rounds of golf with his old buddy John Key. Even though Obama now has no power other than celebrity it didn't stop a formal welcome at Government House and an audience with Jacinda Ardern.

There was no payback for New Zealand from either event. The current American Administration wouldn't have been impressed.

The next former political celebrity scheduled to visit, again on a money-making stopover, is Hillary Clinton who'll regale you of tales of her battle against Donald Trump if you're prepared to part with two to five hundred bucks a seat on May 7. She promises an evening giving insights to "an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rules."

Insiders say she'll even pose for selfies, but with a hefty price tag. Try to find out how seat sales are going and you come up against a brick wall. The Aussie number given comes up with an invalid response with the 0800 giving you a voice with an assurance someone will get back to you. No one has.

And given her reason for being here, will our Prime Minister fawn over Clinton as she did Obama? The Don most certainly would not be happy if she did and wouldn't be of a mind to give the metal tariff exemptions we're currently asking for.

No Ardern should stick to her own celebrity patch, like the Ed Sheerans of this world. She tells us she couldn't get to any of his shows so she cheekily invited him around home for tea and scones. His people talked to her people and bingo, the 27-year-old British Labour loyalist was on her doorstep, staying for an hour, for part of it talking about babies.

It's the first time the pair have met but last November Sheeran reached out to the new Prime Minister asking to be hooked up with New Zealand citizenship.

Ardern came back with a quiz establishing his credentials; does he like pineapple lumps (which from last week are now being made in Australia) and was he aware of what jandals are and would be wear them?

Now that's Prime Ministerial!