POPPADUMS AND A RIGHT PROPER PICKLE: Boris Johnson has decided to cancel his jaunt to India. This comes after one of his “tech assistants” pointed out that he could conduct business via the medium of the video call.
Johnson decided to console himself by having a takeaway chicken tikka masala, that most Indian of dishes. He will wash it down with a bottle of Indian lager brewed in Burton-on-Trent.
This means that the English newspapers are now free to report on the scale of the latest covid variant outbreaks on the subcontinent.
Johnson has pronounced himself “disappointed” not to be travelling in person. He had been looking forward to boffing the air hostesses and the Bollywood starlets, and dressing up in a sari.
He had also been scheduled to dress up at the British Prime Minister and deliver a speech. This was designed to curry favour with “our former colonial subjects”, expecting them to “welcome old friends back into the fold”, and to obtain the recipe for lamb biryani.
Instead, Johnson will have to make do with his oven ready chicken tikka masala in front of EastEnders, and hope that Carrie doesn’t have a headache again.
The actual meeting will now be a virtual one. Johnson is banking on the success of his world beating strategy. What he is planning to say is a mystery, even to him.
Insiders, carefully bribed by an investigator in no way connected to LCD Views, gave a coriander-laced flavour of the likely form of words Johnson will use:
“I say, my good fellows, erm, yes, well, why don’t we let bygones be bygones, water under the bridge, wiff waff, that sort of thing, we have to draw the line somewhere, like between India and Pakistan, ha ha, erm, well, yes, erm, no, well, erm, so now we are the best of chums, give us what we want or we will have to colonise you again!”
The Indian government is expected to cave in to this persuasive rhetoric, say the insiders. Indian government insiders insist that they will just mute Johnson and let him blather on without having to listen.
Our influence on the world has certainly changed since Brexit. That’s the takeaway.