It’s the end of the world as we know it, and the dolphins are taking over

Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.

This is the last regular Declassified until 2024 (or forever if the author gets his Christmas wish of a boatload of cash). There will be an end-of-year edition that, in the grand traditions of TV festive specials, was written in June.

Donald Trump’s coming back, two horrific wars are raging — and in Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has invited British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and failed social media owner Elon Musk to a right-wing festival called Atreju (rough translation: “Dear Lord, that sounds bloody awful”). It’s hard to see how things could get much worse.

No, wait, dolphins are about to take over the world! Scientists have discovered a dolphin in Greece that appears to possess a pair of thumbs. That’s right, thumbs — as in for hitchhiking and texting! I, for one, welcome our new dolphin overlords. Perhaps when Flipper becomes supreme leader, their human representative will be Sam Lim, an Australian lawmaker who used to be a dolphin trainer.

It’s a good time for the sea mammals to take over the world, as their habitat is increasingly under threat. Recently, the Dutch government warned children and pets to stop swallowing sea foam because it’s full of “forever chemicals.”

The Dutch were spurred into action for two reasons: research into foam at the neighboring Belgian seaside found it was full of dangerous substances (although it’s rarely been warm enough to go into the sea at the Belgian coast since the late 1970s); and because Geert Wilders won the Dutch election, so swimming to another country has proven to be an attractive alternative.

Meanwhile in Strasbourg, a session of the European Parliament was interrupted by the barking of a dog. It doesn’t take much to bring howls of joy to the hemicycle, as members of European Parliament are more used to six-hour speeches on federalism by Guy Verhofstadt than they are to having a laugh.

The last time anything interesting happened in the hemicycle was in May 2022 when some interpretive dancers performed at the European Parliament in Strasbourg to mark the end of four days of events as part of whatever the Conference on the Future of Europe is or was. A waste of taxpayers’ money, not asked for, and making little sense — and that’s just the MEPs watching!

CAPTION COMPETITION

“Finally, things are looking up for Rishi Sunak.”

Can you do better? Email pdallison@politico.eu or on Twitter/X @pdallisonesque

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Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best from our postbag — there’s no prize except for the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far more valuable than cash or booze.

“Now close your eyes and wish for €60B in climate funds,” by Joel Horowitz.

Paul Dallison is POLITICO‘s deputy EU editor.