Name G20.
Appearance: Twenty-one one of the world’s most powerful people, mingling awkwardly.
Shouldn’t that be the G21? One member is the EU, which has two “leaders”.
Dear incomprehensible EU. How we’ll miss you. Location? Hamburg.
Date? This Friday and Saturday.
It’s one of those summit things, isn’t it? Yup, featuring more or less the 20 most powerful economies in the world, plus various permanent and temporary guest members and other important world officials.
I see why they shorten it to G20. Quite.
What even happens at these things? I always imagine the elected leaders bitching about voters and looking enviously at the tyrants. I’m sure a lot of that goes on, but this particular summit might also be fun for the rest of us.
Really? What’s happening? Take your pick. As summit host, Merkel is reportedly planning to make climate change, free trade and migration the key points of discussion, which seems almost designed to start a fight with Donald Trump.
That man could have a fight with his own legs, I daresay. This also provides the occasion for his first meeting with Vladimir Putin.
That we know of. Indeed. Apparently it will be quite low-key. Unlike Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
He has always been a more outgoing kind of tyrant. For sure. He was hoping to address a crowd of Turks living in Germany during the summit, but German authorities won’t allow it.
Spoilsports. Yes. Although you’ll remember Erdoğan’s security was involved in a fight with protesters in Washington last month, and he has previously compared the Germans to Nazis for not allowing Turkish political campaigning there.
Takes one to know one. I guess. Besides, an urban setting such as Hamburg, with a large anti-capitalist squat nearby, is already a security challenge.
Don’t they have police for that? Not as many as they used to. Two hundred and twenty officers from Berlin have just been taken off the summit after they staged a huge party around their quarters, featuring public sex, fighting, urination and strip dancing with their weapons.
Sounds as if they would make the summit even more fun? Perhaps too fun, yes.
Do say: “Tell me, just in theory, how do you rig an election? Asking for a friend.”
Don’t say: “OK guys, very funny. Who hacked my phone? No one goes home until you tell me.”
