‘Leo will probably need to go to the White House with a naggin in his socks’
Friends: everything was great, the show was a hit, morons everywhere sang ‘Smelly Cat’ at each other. But then it all came to an end and Joey got his own show and it was rubbish as it soon became clear that Joey only worked with others around.
So Friends is Europe — Ross and Rachel are the Republic and the North of Ireland, Theresa May is Gunther, Joey is Britain, Boris Johnson is Smelly Cat and all of this only worked as one great show with many annoying characters. Just like Europe.
6. Cuisine
The aforementioned cremated steak and ketchup is just one of the delicacies Trump enjoys, along with meatloaf (the dish, not the singer... we hope), KFC and up to 12 Diet Cokes a day. As a GP and cosmopolitan urbanite, Varadkar will struggle to sit through any such gorging without expressing concerns for Trump’s intestinal wellbeing, so perhaps it might be best to skip dinner altogether.
Just tell Trump he has given up food for Lent before producing rosary beads and mumbling a few decades while Trump inhales a pizza in one go. While the medic in Leo may be pleased Trump is a teetotaller, he will probably need to go to the White House with a naggin in his stars ’n’ stripes socks just to get through the day without losing his mind.
7. Outings
Going for a jog with Justin Trudeau may be good for both international relations and the human heart, but it seems unlikely Trump is going to be donning his lycra onesie and going for a trail run through Yosemite with Leo.
It might be best to adapt the more achievable exercise goals of Jane Austen characters, and take a turn about the room rather than do anything that might require effort or be in any way beneficial to the human body.
Staying indoors is also a healthier option as it makes it harder to get shot. Also, given Trump’s fear of steps, it might be best to hang back a bit in case he tries to grasp Leo’s hand, as he did with Theresa May. We want to keep him on side, but we have our limits.
8. Business deals
Should Trump bring up Ireland’s tax issues, as he has done in the past by naming us as a tax haven, it would be best to simply play poor Paddy and claim the money was only resting in those corporate accounts and that Leo will look into it before he gets home, and that if the kind Mr Trump was looking for a few strong lads to help build that wall of his, Leo happens to know a few thousand Irish who are already in America just waiting to help out if only they could get their visas sorted.
9. A pensive mood
Perhaps the biggest stumbling block to a cordial meeting in the White House will be the fact that current VP Mike Pence belongs to the hard right of American fundamentalism. Pence, who calls his wife ‘Mother’, says that gay marriage heralds a societal collapse, opposed the repeal of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy of the American military and fought laws that tried to end employment discrimination against LGBT people.
Our Taoiseach has vowed to raise the issue of gay rights with Pence and we wish him the very best of luck with that as, once again, Pence is a man who calls his wife ‘Mother’.
10. The return
When you are a guest, it is customary to invite your
host over. In this case, however, we should all be burying the Child of Prague upside down in the garden and praying this doesn’t happen. It’s already going to cost us a few million to host the coolest Pope ever — the last thing this country needs is the most unpopular president in American history showing up.
That said, our access to the White House is a remarkable feat and something to be cherished, so if Trump coming here to play a few rounds of golf and argue with the locals in Doonbeg is what it takes to get him to relax about our taxes, then so be it.