Welcome to Declassified, a weekly column wanting on the lighter aspect of politics.
First there was vaccine envy. Now there’s vaccine heart envy!
If, like me, you obtained your vaccination in what gave the impression to be a 1970s leisure heart constructed out of breeze blocks and designers’ tears, then you definately’ll have solid envious glances at Romania, the place Pfizer photographs are being provided to everybody who visits the 14th-century Bran Citadel, believed to have impressed the vampire’s lair in Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula.”
“We wished to point out individuals a distinct approach to get the needle,” Alexandru Priscu, the advertising and marketing supervisor at Bran Citadel in Transylvania, advised AP. You even get a “vaccination diploma” illustrated with a fanged medical employee brandishing a syringe in addition to free entry to the citadel’s torture rooms, that includes a whopping 52 devices of torture (the identical quantity as at a Mumford & Sons live performance).
Talking of torture … individuals queuing for the vaccination at Residence Park stadium in Plymouth in southwest England obtained a shock once they reached the tip of the road solely to find that, due to a stewarding mishap, that they had unintentionally queued up for Plymouth Argyle Soccer Membership season tickets as an alternative of the jab. And so they thought they have been solely in for a couple of seconds of ache!
Talking of disagreeable pricks … Richard Tice, chief of the Reform UK get together, which you will keep in mind from its days because the Brexit Get together, went on the radio and introduced that he was opening a pub with the actor Laurence Fox, who, a couple of days later, would get about 11 votes within the London mayoral election, ending behind Niko Omilana, a YouTuber whose manifesto included proposals reminiscent of “Any McDonald’s with a damaged McFlurry machine can be shut down and became low lease housing” and who known as for anybody sporting three-quarter-length trousers to be sentenced to demise.
“Will probably be the house of free speech and right-wing comedy. It’ll solely be British meals, no vaccine passports, no masks,” Tice mentioned of his deliberate pub. Sounds beautiful, doesn’t it? Though “British meals solely” is likely to be an issue in order for you a slice of lemon in your gin and tonic. Or something with rice or pasta or, if we’re actually being sticklers for historic accuracy, potatoes, as they have been first cultivated in Peru. Possibly it’s finest to have a cheese sandwich earlier than you go.
In the perfect custom of British pub names, the Reform UK chief mentioned the institution can be known as The Fox & Tice. It sounds about as interesting a vacation spot for a pint at The Slaughtered Lamb from “An American Werewolf in London” or the Mos Eisley cantina in Star Wars.
CAPTION COMPETITION
“What number of presidents does this Convention on the Way forward for Europe have?”
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Final week we gave you this photograph:
Thanks for all of the entries. Right here’s the perfect from our postbag (there’s no prize apart from the present of laughter, which I believe we are able to all agree is way extra beneficial than money or booze).
“We’ll all the time have Ankara,” by Tom Morgan.
Paul Dallison is POLITICO‘s slot information editor.