Commentators feared that the King might be the punchline of this state visit – not that he would deliver them with such aplomb, writes Samuel Fishwick N o one expected the jokes to flow at the King's speech during an awkward summit at a particularly bleak moment in American-British relations – but flow they did. So well, in fact, that it was almost as if everyone was in on the joke. “As Oscar Wilde said,” Charles said, opening what turned out to be a tight 30-minute set to America’s elected