Eschewing the grandeur and trappings of his predecessors, he arrives for meetings with heads of state in a blue Ford Focus; he wears old shoes; he astonishes members of the global public who have written to him by picking up the phone and calling them himself.
Because what it means to me is: 'You, Mindy Kaling, have all the trappings of a marginalised person.
For all its bourgeois trappings, Lyon was then, and is now, a pretty violent place – far nastier, in my experience, than Marseille.
With three separate working sessions, two photo-calls and a press conference by Obama scheduled at Camp David, there will be plenty of opportunity to display the trappings of friendship.
Yet in between the traditional trappings of a jamboree, Kazimierz Piechowski, or Kazik as he likes to be called, will tell them a story few in the UK have heard – how, during Nazi occupation, scouts their age were murdered in the streets, while others like him were sent to concentration camps to witness the horror of Hitler's Final Solution.
As is common in such awkward situations, the outward trappings of the relationship appear undisturbed, for now at least, as shown by Barack Obama's homage to Abdullah in Riyadh on Tuesday.
Her visit, which has many of the trappings of a state visit rarely offered to a head of government, contrasts with the low key reception for the French president, François Hollande, at the Anglo-French summit last month at RAF Brize Norton.
With its sun-tanned, besuited officials, in fact, the event had all the trappings of an international dentists' convention.
Perhaps it was a bold, metaphorical design statement - a woman, uncertain of her role as wife, madonna and whore, expressing her sexuality by hurling the trappings of her repressed womanhood across the void into the 21st century.
But hidden beneath the trappings of apparent prosperity are familiar signs of trouble: declining enrollment, rising tuition, debt and an endowment that is largely restricted.
His bank balance was only part of his wealth: he also owned several villas around Italy with prosperous estates and vineyards attached, as well as the usual trappings of the elite, such as 500 citrus-wood tables with ivory legs, all alike – perfect for lavish dinner parties at which he could entertain 1,000 of his closest friends.
