George W to Barack: With love, from me to you

An outgoing President leaves a letter behind in the Oval Office for his successor. Traditionally, the contents remain between the two. This time, though, David Randall can exclusively reveal what's in George W Bush's valedictory note to the 44th Commander-in-Chief

(AFP/ Getty)

Dear Barracks,

If you're reeding this then you obviously found the keys under the flowerpot. There's just a few things you and Mish should know about the old place. First, the cistern in the ground-floor washroom is a real bitch – it needs one short tug, and then a long one. The photocopier's nearly out of ink, the funny thing in the closet is a trouser press (dang me if I could ever work out how you stood in it), and the window cleaner comes on the third Thursday. And don't ever rapidly open and close the blinds in the second-floor bathroom. Apparently it's some kind of secret service signal. We also carried out a few modifications to the family quarters that you may want to take a rain check on – the mini-bars we put in the girls' rooms, for instance, and the Hurricane Katrina novelty shower-head. Maybe that was a mistake. Oh, and Laura says she left her Wii Fit in the bedroom. She'll send someone round to collect it. (Her password is 'LauraB' if you want to check it out.)

As far as the Opal Office goes (I never did figure out why they call it that), we had to change all the carpets after Clinton moved out. You should have seen the state of them! God knows what he was doing in here. The desk is kinda useful – the pretzels are in the bottom left-hand drawer, the John Wayne DVDs in the drawer above, and there's a key to the six-pack fridge in the pen tray. The pack of cards is top right. If you need something to write with, I'm told there's a good stationer's downtown. Oh, and there's a computer with Internets on it somewhere.

Forwarding mail should go to The Bush Ranch, Crawford, Texas. If it looks like a bar tab, just send it to Cheney (about time the old skinflint paid for something), and if it's from either of the Blairs just toss it. If I never get another one of her begging letters as long as I live, it'll be too soon. Finally, don't get the two buttons under the desk confused. I once rang for a beer and nearly took out Tehran.

From one chief to another,

George