Welcome to Declassified, a weekly column looking at the lighter side of politics.
Brexit Day is finally upon us and it’s … a bit underwhelming.
After all the negotiations and recriminations, all we’ve had is Christopher Pincher, a junior minister, becoming the last-ever U.K. minister to take part in an EU meeting as a full member when he attended the Foreign Affairs Council, and some people getting angry about the third most-valuable British coin.
The author Philip Pullman was annoyed at the new Brexit 50 pence because of a missing comma in the coin’s wording: “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations.” Pullman called for a boycott of the coins in protest. Far be it from me to argue with a man whose “His Dark Materials” trilogy has sold in excess of 18 million copies, but he’s wrong about the grammar. He would have been perfectly fine to complain about the font, however, which is hideous — and surely the perfect Brexit typeface is Comic Sans.
The Brexiteers may have coins but they don’t have bongs, as the campaign to raise money for Big Ben to bong on January 31 finally admitted defeat this week (and donated the more than a quarter of a million pounds raised to military charity Help for Heroes).
Tory Brexiteer and Big Ben campaign cheerleader Mark Francois should have set his sights a little lower, perhaps by organizing a one-time staple of northern British pubs, the meat raffle (that’s a raffle in which the prize is, er, meat. In swanky London they probably had a hummus raffle). Meanwhile, the EU has brought back an idea to stop minting one- and two-cent coins, according to the Commission’s draft work program for the year. Bad news for those who like to pay with small change kept in a sock. Speaking of coins and of meat…
DOS AND DONT’S
DO: Look out for Einstein
Switzerland has released the smallest gold coin in the world. The coin is just 2.96 millimetres in length and weighs 0.063 grams. Technically each coin is worth a quarter of a franc but as they made just 999 of them, and they feature Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out, they will be worth an awful lot more than that.
DON’T: Drive a sausage
An 8-metre-long Wienermobile was pulled over by police in the U.S. state of Wisconsin for failing to obey traffic laws. The driver of the vehicle, which was promoting a brand of hot dogs, was given a verbal warning for failing to move out of the way to let law enforcement get past. Rumors that the driver feared the wurst were unconfirmed at the time of going to press.
CAPTION COMPETITION
“You’ll make a perfect successor. Don’t worry, I’ll do all the work.”
Can you do better? Email [email protected] or on Twitter @pdallison74
Last week we gave you this photo:
Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best from our post bag (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).
“See! Nothing up my sleeve” By Maria Laura Franciosi
Paul Dallison is POLITICO‘s slot news editor.