The best gifts ever? Being named after drugs and declaring war on … – POLITICO Europe

Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.

Whats the most important gift you can give someone? Perhaps its to give your child a great name something cool but not weird, and not one of those names that everyone has, like Methamphetamine Rules!

What? Yes, an Australian journalist has called her son Methamphetamine Rules (Meth for short?). What were the parents thinking? Methamphetamine is obviously a girls name!

Kirsten Drysdale said she was testing whether the authorities had the power to change a babys name if the one submitted by the parents was deemed offensive or unacceptable. Drysdale said she was mulling between Methamphetamine Rules and Nangs Rule, which is the Australian slang for nitrous oxide canisters that some people use to get high. Thank goodness they didnt pick the latter, or the kid would have been bullied mercilessly!

Politicians dont have to worry about naming a child when they visit their counterparts, but they do need to bring a gift. The European Parliament has a vault where diplomatic giftsare kept. Items down in the vault include a pot of French mustard and a Huawei smartphone given to European Peoples Party chief Manfred Weber in 2013 thats clearly recording all of the important events at the Parliament. Nothing of interest has happened yet but its only been a decade.

This week, Keir Starmer leader of the U.K. Labour Party and next British prime minister barring a complete meltdown visited Emmanuel Macron and very subtly threw shade at the French president with his choice of gift.

Starmers present for Macron was an Arsenal football shirt and Arsenals club crest is a cannon pointing at France (if you stand with your left arm facing France). On the back of the shirt was Macron 25, a clear reference to the Battle of Sandwich in which the English defeated the French on August 24, 1217. As everyone knows, the next day August 25 the English forces celebrated by eating sandwiches (probably). Shots fired by Starmer!

Macron is a football fan he supports Olympique de Marseille but that Arsenal shirt was 100 percent put in the bin within 10 minutes of Starmer leaving.

A day after Starmer was allowed into the Elyse via the tradesmans entrance, the red carpet was rolled out for King Charles, with an itinerary that included a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe and a banquet dinner at the Palace of Versailles (where royals have always enjoyed a warm welcome). Apparently, the choice of dinner venue was a close-run thing between Versailles and a branch of Flunch.

Listen, if you promise never to try and sneak into the Concerned Women event ever again, I wont call the police.

Can you do better? Email [emailprotected] or on Twitter @pdallisonesque

Last time we gave you this photo:

Thanks for all the entries. Heres the best from our postbag theres no prize except for the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far more valuable than cash or booze.

And now, for my friends to the right, I will perform a double backflip U-turn on my climate-change policy, by Tom Morgan.

Paul Dallison is POLITICOs slot news editor.

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The best gifts ever? Being named after drugs and declaring war on ... - POLITICO Europe