Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales
Chris has politics on his mind – both of the incorrect and downright daft sort
What with everyone being head over heels in love with politicians these days, I thought I’d make this week’s column deeply political – involving absolutely no politics, but instead some wonderfully comical messups made by various giants of politics down the years.
Of course, while our lot seem to try their best to completely mess everything up on an almost daily basis, they’d have a long way to go to beat some of the amazing US Presidents down the years.
While most of JFK’s political record remains respected to this day, the people of Berlin must have been quite taken aback when, during a state visit, he took the microphone and informed them, “I am a doughnut!” This bold assertion owed much to the belief that “Berliner” must surely mean “a person of Berlin”. To Germans however, Berliner simply refers to a local variety of jam filled donut. Oh dear…
President Jimmy Carter far surpassed this during the next decade when, on a trip to Poland, his attempt to tell a huge crowd that he’d travelled from America to visit them, and that he loved them, translated to the shocked masses as “I’ve today abandoned America” and “I carnally desire Polish people”.
President Reagan carried the baton forward, addressing our own Princess Diana as Princess David… not an easy mistake to make, while George W Bush confidently informed a business conference that “The French have no word for entrepreneur” (except that one perhaps?).
They haven’t stopped, either – not so long ago a US Congressman announced, “If the English language was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me!”
Of course, no column of mine would be complete without me outdoing all the above, with a political disaster of my own that almost resulted in my being shot… for attempting to deliver a television. The television in question was being delivered to the then Prime Minister, and I didn’t do it very well.
Back in the early 1980s I was a part-time driver for an electrical shop whose manager was, shall we say, a bit of a character. He told me I’d be delivering goods to Chequers, the PM’s famous countryside residence, then warned me about their strict security procedures.
“It’s very important they know when someone’s approaching the house, so as soon as you get through the main gate, turn around and reverse all the way up the drive beeping your horn.”
I was a bit taken aback, especially as the drive was about half a mile long, but had no reason to doubt him.
Not until I was surrounded by about 15 armed security guards screaming pleasantries such as “STOP, YOU IDIOT!” and “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”
While you have to question why the shop manager didn’t consider that particular practical joke to be just a little bit dangerous, I also have to admit that in the Oxford English Dictionary, under the word “gullible”, there should be a picture of my smiling face.
I had no reason to doubt the advice of my manager…