Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.
This column is taking a two-week break/checking into rehab. On the agenda for the holidays: Swimming in the Seine; fact-checking with Elon Musk; and couch shopping with JD Vance.
An exclusive extract from the diary of Carles Puigdemont:
Waterloo, Belgium, late 2017: “I might be in exile here for a while. Going to order some DVDs [younger readers, ask your parents]. Thinking of getting ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, ‘Nuns on the Run’, and as many Scooby-Doo episodes as I can get my hands on.”
It was at that moment, dear reader, that the seeds were sown for the incredible drama we saw this week when Puigdemont triumphantly returned to Spain and stuck the proverbial middle finger up at his opponents (the political equivalent of the football fan who threw a pig’s head at Luis Figo after he had moved from Barcelona to Real Madrid).
Before this week’s shenanigans, Puigdemont had seemed like yesterday’s man: he’d stopped being an MEP, had lost a regional election to the Socialists, and was staring at a future that perhaps included playing Paul McCartney in a low-rent, Wallonia-based Beatles tribute band. Then, for a few hours on Thursday, he was like James Bond (Jaime Bond?).
Everything Puigdemont learned about sneaking back into Barcelona came from that DVD haul. ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ is a classic tale of biding your time and planning your big move (28 years in the case of Andy Dufresne — played by Tim Robbins in the movie — and seven years in the case of Puigdemont — played by Javier Bardem in the movie adaptation of this week’s events that I’ve just pitched to Netflix).
‘Nuns on the Run’, which I believe won the Oscar for best picture (are you sure? Ed), meanwhile, features a timeless example of evading authorities when Brian and Charlie (played by Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane) disguise themselves as nuns and go, er, on the run. This week, police sealed off Barcelona Zoo, presumably to find out if Puigdemont had disguised himself as a lion (like that time a zoo in China was forced to deny suggestions that some of its bears were people dressed in costumes).
But the most important purchase Puigdemont made was Scooby-Doo.
It’s basically politics in cartoon form (albeit with a talking dog and a massive stoner) in which the public and media are the members of the Mystery Machine gang (as I’m making up the rules, I’ll be Velma and you can be Shaggy) and politicians are the various supporting characters, one of whom will eventually remove a mask to reveal their true identity before uttering: “I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids.”
It’s also a glorious farce, in which people appear and disappear at a moment’s notice; conspiracy theories abound; identities are changed; and plots twist and turn with abandon. And we saw all of that in Barcelona on Thursday, with a manhunt, a fugitive, a cop arrested for helping Puigdmont escape; and an occasional break for a massive sandwich (in this case, a bocadillo de tortilla).
A side note. If you hadn’t been to your home country for seven years, you’d have to stop and get something tasty to eat that’s not readily available in your home country, surely?
Accomplice: “Carles, I can see the French border!”
Puigdemont: “Wait, are they selling botifarra amb mongetes? We have to stop.”
Accomplice: “Nooooooooo.”
CAPTION COMPETITION
“French government’s sponsorship deal with deodorant firm raises eyebrows.”
Can you do better? Email [email protected] or on Twitter/X @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.
“I dipped this in the Seine. Dare to sniff?” by David Francis
Paul Dallison is POLITICO’s deputy EU editor.