John Harris: But did the Pope also know that Pele was the public face of Viagra?

As it turned out, the former Cardinal Ratzinger did not have a clue who he was talking to. In response to the age-old fallback of the baffled - "Where are you from?" - Pele made reference to his origins in Brazil, before a papal aide came to the rescue. "Holy father," he said, presumably walking the line between gentle enlightenment and heretical impudence, "Pele was the world's greatest footballer." Whether he added "and now he is seeing out his twilight years as the public face of Viagra" is an interesting question.

At a stroke, we gained a penetrating insight into the cultural disposition of the new papacy. It should have come as no surprise: after all, while Pele was scoring all those goals and the Western world was entering the rock age, he was the chair of something called Dogmatic Theology at the distinctly un-groovy University of Tübingen. Thirty-odd years on, the frivolity of sport and pop culture will surely have little attraction for a man who has announced a drive to harden papal doctrine and make sure the world's Catholics do as they're told.

In a funny way, I quite respect that. Geopolitics, admittedly, can probably do without a revival of the ethics of the hair shirt - but, in such doom-laden times, those who aspire to high office would do well to learn from the Pope's apparent haughtiness. Take the hapless Angela Merkel, campaigning for the German chancellorship to a soundtrack pilfered from the Rolling Stones, having not realised that "Angie" is about trying to keep a relationship together while taking lots of hard drugs. Consider Michael Howard, whose lamentable man-of-the-people act revolved around strange claims to be a fan of Liverpool FC (and, as I recall, of Bryan Adams). Indeed, cast your mind forward to the climax of the Tory leadership contest, and it all gets a bit much: should David Cameron win, the Conservative Party will be led by a man who has been known to go on about his love of Desperate Housewives and Snow Patrol.

Much of this can be blamed on our eternally swinging Prime Minister. Early on in the New Labour Project, friends who had been at Blair's court told me a standard opening gambit was "Do you like football?" In his early time at No 10, Blair sipped champagne with Noel Gallagher, George Michael and Alex Ferguson. And so it has gone on: as the world burns, we are still seemingly governed by a gang of people who wear £90 swimming trunks, watch Sky Sports while referring to their team as "we", drink designer lager from the bottle and are doubtless looking forward to buying the new Franz Ferdinand CD "for the car". Whither the school of leadership built around fustiness, silence and Radio 3? One can only hope that when Mr Blair meets the New Pope, Benedict XVI might dispense a private homily designed to put him on the right track (in Latin, preferably).

Last week brought an example of a more dignified way of doing things. At a Buckingham Palace reception for figures from the music industry, the Queen was reportedly introduced to the folk-rock titan Richard Thompson, whose fans (like me) refer to him as the "British Bob Dylan". According to Thompson, the exchange ran as follows:

"What do you do?"

"I'm a singer-songwriter."

"Oh, you do both! At the same time! How wonderful for you!"

Hats off, I say.