Chocolate as a weapon, curing COVID with a hairdryer — and eating camel penis – POLITICO
Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.
So much for Swiss neutrality.
This week a man in Scotland used a personalized Toblerone bar to beat someone over the head during a robbery linked to the theft of £1.2 million worth of cryptocurrency (remember crypto? It was huge in 2021 among all the worst people).
I’m not a criminal mastermind (honest, officer) but pretty sure that having a weapon with your name on it isn’t the greatest move when trying to commit a violent robbery. You could, however, eat the evidence.
Many people would describe Boris Johnson’s time as British prime minister as criminal, but calling him a mastermind feels a step too far. This week there were several explosive revelations about Johnson during the U.K.’s coronavirus inquiry, including that he asked scientists if COVID-19 could be killed by blowing a hairdryer up your nose.
Britain’s chief medical officer, Vidal Sassoon, was unavailable for comment.
The claim about Johnson was made by his former top aide, Dominic Cummings.
Cummings, who is as bitter as a barrel of lemons, also this week referred to Johnson as being in “Jaws mode wank” during the pandemic — an apparent call-back to the former PM’s love of mayor Larry Vaughn from the film “Jaws,” who fights to keep the beaches open despite a shark killing people. And Cummings also described the governing Cabinet at the time as “useless fuckpigs.” Actual British pigs are suing for defamation because of the reputational damage of being compared to Matt Hancock.
Speaking of Hancock, the critters of Australia are believed to be contemplating strike action after Nigel Farage said he was considering signing up for “I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here,” a long-running British reality TV show that Hancock appeared on last year. The show sees contestants shipped off to the Australian jungle to take part in stomach-turning “Bushtucker trials,” such as eating purified sheep testicles and bush-pig sperm. One of Hancock’s trials was to eat a camel’s penis, which he described as being “soft and crunchy at the same time.”
Back in 2017, Farage reportedly turned down a £750,000 offer to go on the show because he is “not a blithering idiot” and he would “rather go fishing.”
Farage, who is now seemingly having second thoughts on whether he is a “blithering idiot,” said he’d be fine in the jungle because he was “used to going through tough times and living with snakes of all different sizes” during his two-decade spell as an MEP.
In the words of the writer (and occasional contributor to this publication) Otto English, it would be good to see Farage “eating bollocks rather than speaking it for a change.”
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“French plans to increase the retirement age for working dogs have not gone down well.”
Can you do better? Email [email protected] or on Twitter @pdallisonesque
Last time we gave you this photo:
Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best from our postbag — there’s no prize except for the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far more valuable than cash or booze.
“Ursula and Charles hearing from the American ambassador to the EU that she will keep her job for another mandate and that he will become Secretary General of the U.N.,” by Paul Cartuyvels.
Paul Dallison is POLITICO‘s slot news editor.
