Three British sailors have gone missing in the Gulf of Oman following a US tanker strike. Or perhaps they’ve just nipped off for a desperate double gin at the nearest floating Wetherspoons. The world, as ever, is on fire: oil rigs ablaze, geopolitics quivering, and the Ministry of Defence is probably issuing press releases written in crayon.
I’m Barnaby ‘Biff’ Thistlethwaite, your guide through the fever swamp of modern news, and I’m writing this on a bar stool in a Heathrow Airport Lounge, because if you can’t report a crisis through the bottom of a glass, you’re not a journalist. You’re a mime. The Gulf of Oman: a stretch of water so tense that even the fish have developed ulcers.
Into this petrol-slicked chaos, the United States decided to ‘send a message’ by clonking a tanker with something or other. The details are murkier than my memory of last Tuesday. But what we know is this: three brave lads, presumably in union jack-print boxers and with pictures of the Queen on their mobile phones, have gone AWOL.
Are they dead? Captured by Iranian Revolutionary Guard? Or have they simply discovered a lovely beach bar with happy hour?
The government says they’re ‘feared missing’. I say they’re probably just having a better time than the rest of us. This whole affair is a satire of international relations.
We have a US president who tweets in capital letters, a British prime minister who looks like he’s accidentally stepped on a rake, and a region where the only currency is oil and outrage. And yet, we’re supposed to treat this with solemnity. I scream into the void of my laptop.
The gin helps. But let’s not forget the real victims: the sailors’ families, who now have to deal with both grief and the Ministry of Defence’s legendary inability to communicate. They’ll probably get a letter in six months saying, ‘Your son is missing, presumed enjoying a fag and a brew in a Persian tea house.
’ The MOD’s official statement: ‘We are in contact with international partners.’ Translation: ‘We’ve sent a strongly worded email to Uncle Sam.’ Meanwhile, oil prices have spiked, because nothing calms global markets like the possibility of a burning tanker.
The price of a barrel of Brent crude is now roughly equivalent to the cost of a round in a London pub. Which, coincidentally, is where I’ll be spending the rest of the evening, chipping in my tuppence worth of outrage. My advice to the missing sailors: keep your heads down.
The world has gone mad, and you might be better off drifting towards the coast of Iran, where at least the hospitality is legendary. Just maybe don’t mention the nuclear programme. In conclusion, this is a tragedy wrapped in a farce, drenched in oil, and served with a slice of political lemon.
The three British sailors are symbols of a nation that still thinks it can rule the waves, even as it struggles to navigate a roundabout in Slough. Their fate is unclear, but one thing is certain: someone, somewhere, is making a shocking cup of tea out of this. I’m Biff Thistlethwaite, and I’m off to buy the next round.
Cheers.
