Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.
As we all know, Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights states that it is “both reasonable and acceptable, if coming across someone playing guitar on a beach or in a public park, to smash said guitar over their annoying head.”
Alas, it appears that passengers on an easyJet flight out of Poland clearly weren’t au fait with their human rights and didn’t take the approved action when a Singaporean man and his suspiciously happy friends began singing a Christian worship song at 30,000 feet. Perhaps they were hoping for divine intervention to protect them from COVID, as only one person in the video clip of the incident is wearing a mask.
Also, this was a flight on easyJet, a company that would (and perhaps already does) charge you extra for breathing! What’s the surcharge for praising God? And are you allowed to put a guitar in the overhead lockers?
Most people on social media seemed distinctly unimpressed by the mid-flight religious sing-song, with Ilhan Omar, a member of the U.S. Congress who is Muslim, tweeting: “I think my family and I should have a prayer session next time I am on a plane. How do you think it will end?”
The inflight singer was identified as Jonathan Neo, who was on his way back from Poland, where he had seemingly been performing for people who had fled the war in Ukraine and were holed up at Polish train stations. Haven’t these people suffered enough?
Speaking of having unnecessary things forced upon us: Emmanuel Macron’s hairy chest. From the man who was photographed in a hoodie for the authentic “I’m just the same as Volodymyr Zelenskyy, vote for me” look, now we have the “I’m just the same as late-70s Bee Gees, vote for me” look!
The main task for Macron and his rival for the French presidency, Marine Le Pen, is to try to win over those people who voted for someone else in the first round, especially the supporters of leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who finished third. Are left-wingers particularly swayed by hairy chests? Both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels did have impressive beards, so there’s a reasonable chance they also had hairy chests. Does anyone in The Left group in the European Parliament have an answer to this pressing question?
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“How nice to see the two main candidates in the 2020 U.S. presidential election finally getting along.”
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Last week 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.
“Your parents, when they can’t agree on what to order,” by Shivang Gupta
Paul Dallison is POLITICO‘s Slot News Editor.
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