Golf showdown

The verbal sparring between presidents Trump and Jongun, possibly one of the dumbest Punch and Judy acts of the modern political era, is an unfunny comedy desperately in need of a new script.

Given the survival of the human race could depend on it, perhaps some fresh ideas wouldn’t go amiss.

If presidents epitomise the majority of their populace and in this case, it would be hard to argue otherwise, then maybe we need to look further afield. To Scotland, possibly. The home of golf.

Up Aberdeenshire way there’s a vast stretch of beautifully manicured fairway, close by the sea, where two gentlemen can leave all their troubles behind.

“Golf acts as a corrective against sinful pride,” PG Wodehouse once pointed out. “I attribute the insane arrogance of the later Roman Emperors almost entirely to the fact that, never having played golf, they never knew that strange chastening humility which is engendered by a topped chip shot.”

We might not be seeing presidents Trump and Jong-un laughing together on the 18th at Menie any time soon, but in the absence of any better solution, maybe someone, somewhere, should give the idea some serious thought.