In a spectacle that has left the chattering classes of London choking on their cucumber sandwiches, it has emerged that the former President of the United States, one Donald J. Trump, is conspicuously absent from the World Cup. The diplomatic silence is so loud it could shatter the crystal in the Foreign Office's finest decanters.
One might ask: why is the man who claims to make America great not gracing the pitch with his orange-hued magnificence? Is it a snub? A scheduling conflict with a particularly riveting session of golf?
Or, as I suspect, a profound terror of being upstaged by a football? The British establishment, ever the sticklers for protocol, are aflutter with speculation. 'Tis a diplomatic absence of such magnitude that it threatens to destabilise the delicate balance of global football and braggadocio.
But let us be honest: the man who built a hotel in Baku and a golf course in Aberdeen is not one for cultural exchange unless it involves a photo op. Perhaps he has finally realised that the World Cup, much like his presidency, is a chaotic jamboree of ill-tempered men chasing a sphere, where the rules are mutable and the handball is a matter of honour. The UK observers, perched on their leather-bound stools, must content themselves with the knowledge that the only thing more absent than Trump’s diplomacy is the quality of the gin in the executive suites.
