“THE American dream.” Few phrases trip more readily off the tongues of US politicians, especially presidents.

Embodying the idea that anyone, regardless of class, creed or colour, can succeed by hard work, the concept is part of the American psyche. And why not? It is wholly admirable and led, in the 20th Century, to the US being the most wealthy and powerful nation on earth.

But, flip the American dream and you find another phrase cherished by very many Americans, and which has the same roots: The right to bear arms. America is now shocked to the core by what that has led to.

The common origin of both phrases is the US’s pioneering era. The founding fathers had nothing but their own endeavours with which to shape a secure and prosperous future for themselves. Nothing except guns, that is.

Guns – bearing arms – explain how the West was won. The success involved virtually annihilating the native Americans. So you might suppose that, while always eager to celebrate the spirit of enterprise that inspired the creation of their own homeland, today’s Americans would want to bury the shameful crushing of indigenous people that went with it – courtesy of bearing arms.

Not a bit of it. Guns can be bought almost like candy. The 52-year-old mother of the killer who shot her, 20 children and six teachers, owned five guns, three of which her son took on his rampage.

In the recent Presidential election, guncontrol was hardly mentioned. President Obama would almost certainly have lost had he threatened tighter control. He now promises some action, but strong resistance is already forming around claims that the real issue is mental health.

If nothing is done, it is easy to foresee a massacre one day of perhaps 100 or more children, or maybe people in the street. Perhaps only then will the US see that the right to bear arms is a tradition best consigned to history, where it perhaps doesn’t occupy a proud place anyway.

VERY different news from across the pond. The upright piano on which Dooley Wilson played As Time Goes By to Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the classic wartime film Casablanca sold the other day for £373,500.

A British jazzman who died recently, Stan Greig, drummer and sometimes pianist with Humphrey Lyttelton and others, always insisted that any “bar pianist” could get by anywhere in the world as long as they could play As Time Goes By, Misty, and The Entertainer.

The last one is out of character with the other two. For a lovely medley I would substitute Laura.

STILL in the US: you may not have heard of him, but Joseph Woodland, a US design engineer, who has just died, aged 91, invented the barcode. The idea dawned when he drew four parallel lines in sand with his fingers, then realising that lines of different width could be coded. The first barcode, on a packet of Wrigley’s chewing gum, was swiped in 1974. I first came across barcodes in a small family-owned supermarket near Rye in 1986. Curiously, that same year, in the same county, I saw my first car boot sale and first big round hay bales.

Which doesn’t lead me nicely to wish readers happy Christmas. But I do so anyway.