‘And Gordon the Barbarian saw his enemies strewn before him, and their women ravaged and houses burnt. And a great, animal roar came from his throat. It became a bellow, and as the Great Conqueror’s mouth opened wide, it released a cackle to curdle the blood of any who might dare to oppose him’.

On the other hand, said the Ten Downing Street site, it’s a picture of the Prime Minister laughing politely at a constituent’s joke.

Blimey, is it? Looks suspiciously like a deranged Ostrogoth to me. Not that I’ve met many of them you understand, but on the other hand I’ve never met anyone who laughs politely like that.

Does it really matter how a Prime Minister photographs? And I suspect the answer is ‘not if now and then he looks normal’. But Brown never does. It’s easy to make Cameron look daft, for example, but most of the time he manages to look keen and absent at the same time – which captures him quite well I think. Nick Clegg looks like the kid in class you always wanted to thump: he would pull out a packet of condoms for effect, or brag about getting to second base with Thelma Dean. And then be cheeky to a teacher, causing the whole class to get a detention. But again, he always looks like that.

With Gordon, it’s like snapping a person with multiple personality disorder. One minute he’s Heathcliffe, then he’s Mr Anorak, Rain Man, Al Capone, Flashman or Rugger Puff.

Even with Lord Mandelson, when it comes to his photographic persona very little changes: stick a sub-conk square moustache on his face, and he is Hitler to the life. When he frowns, he looks serious. When he laughs, he looks triumphalist. The camera never lies about the Great Dissembler. But with Gordon, even the lens is confused.

The other politician from the recent past with this varietal quality was Tony Blair, but with Tony it was always conscious: he struck the pose required for the occasion: be he a mourner of the Princess of Hearts or returning Hollywood star in Sedgefield, the face, the tan, the limbs and all other parts of the body language were just waiting for the camera to click him into posterity.

But whereas Blair was the perfect chamelion, Brown is the eternal schlemiel. It just never turns out right for Gordon in front of an Olympus. Which makes me wonder if we shouldn’t have a competition (once Gordon has gone back to being in camera rather than on camera) to see who among David Bailey, Annie Liebowitz and all snappers up to Zack Arias or perhaps the multimedia David Hockney could capture the real Gordon Brown.

If, that is, the final result didn’t frighten the children. And if he exists.