Sketch: Presidential pose given a boost by the ‘courtesy’ visit of a foreign high heid yin

And there are few politicians on these islands – as he insists on calling Britain – more adept at turning a damaging situation to his advantage.

So when coalition insiders made it clear that Thursday’s meeting with the Prime Minister was being undertaken as a “matter of courtesy”, Mr Salmond was quick to pounce.

“I thought it was an interesting view put forward,” he said yesterday.

“Courtesy visits are usually what prime ministers do with foreign heads of state. I don’t know if that’s what Downing Street meant to imply.”

In truth Mr Salmond and Scottish Secretary Michael Moore were more akin to two football managers after yesterday’s talks at St Andrews House, which coincidentally lasted about 90 minutes. They had both been watching the same game, but seemed to come up with wildly divergent views in their post-match analysis.

For Mr Salmond, the SNP’s preferred date of autumn 2014 was now pretty much settled, with no “real argument” remaining over the timing. For Mr Moore, it should be sooner, with no reason why it couldn’t be held a year earlier.

And while Mr Salmond believed that the role of elections watchdog the Electoral Commission had been resolved, Mr Moore insisted that more work was needed to ensure its role was carried out on a statutory footing.

Perhaps the biggest gulf between the two men was over who’s calling the shots. Mr Moore didn’t like being referred to as a monkey to David Cameron’s organ grinder in a later interview, and while Mr Salmond was more diplomatic, the message was the same.

“I think the Prime Minister makes the decisions,” he said. Mr Moore insisted: “The Prime Minister has been clear from day one that he asked me to bring forward the proposals on the referendum.”

The talks had been rescheduled after Mr Moore’s recent bout of chicken pox and this did prompt unkind jibes from assembled hacks yesterday about “germ warfare” and “headless chicken pox” as negotiations ran over by more than half an hour.

When they finally did break up, the First Minister emerged first, sporting a multi-saltire adorned tie and taking up a carefully choreographed spot in front of a saltire plasma screen. A cynic might have thought the Nationalists were trying to get a message across.

The tie may be changed for Thursday’s meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron in Edinburgh, when the whole circus surrounding the talks will be replayed. But unless there’s a shift in approach among the protagonists, there’s little likelihood of any breakthrough on the biggest decision to face Scots in 300 years.

And President Salmond? He’s already said he’ll let the monarch stay head of state.