"All this way for nothing," whine foreign correspondents

"We went all the way to Alaska to cover a meeting between the two most duplicitous human beings in the whole wide world, genuinely hoping they'd agree an honest deal with each other within a few hours.

"We're really that naive.

"Now the peace talks between Trump and Putin have failed, the line we've decided to run is that we went all the way to Alaska for nothing and it's not fair.

"Honestly, we don't know why we do this job.

"Oh, yes. We remember.

"It's for the air miles, the expense account food and hotel stays on assignment, the duty free at the airports, and the chance to show off to all our colleagues when we get back.

"Saying 'I flew all the way to Alaska for nothing and Putin didn't answer my question in the press conference' sounds sickengly smug to a copytaker in the newsroom who's just taken the train in from Penge.

"We love doing that."

https://pixabay.com/photos/alaska-mountains-scenic-sea-5177041/

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Putin says Alaska summit 'very useful' as he prepares to invade Alaska

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Sales of Poison-Tipped Umbrellas Reach Record High in Anchorage

In a surge ‘only coincidentally’ linked with the prospective peace talks, backyard trade of stolen property, and septuagenarian wall-spaffing contest between Presidents Trump and Putin, Alaskan shopkeepers are reporting unprecedented sales of piano wire, gold paint, tamperable perfume bottles, lethal home entertainment lasers, and inflatable Saudi-linked embassies.

Raising suspicion that every Russian gangster, hoodlum, and hopeful is being mobilized on a one-chance murder mission should the Ukrainian president be allowed into the boardroom long after the competing snow sculptures of Trump and Putin’s penises have melted into base staffers' recurring night terrors, those left scrabbling for the last Aeroflot seats were forced to desperately purchase bicycles, wobbly ladders, plate glass windows, cans of paint and crates of chickens, in a misguided but laudable bid to nail their man and avoid their flight home ‘unfortunately’ steering directly into a mountain.

Responding to speculation about similarly unseasonably high tourism levels, a representative of the Alaska Tourism Board, muttering from behind a newspaper with two eye-holes cut in it, said: ‘I’m sure all these dead-eyed day-trippers are simply here to enjoy the sights, like the historic Elmendorf-Richardson military base chapel, whose corrugated iron roof reaches an impressive 5 metres above snow-level.

‘We did find a suspicious character sheltering inside the putrefying body of a dead cow cuddling a .22 rifle with “from mah clammy, fact-averse hands” scrawled on it, but it turned out to be JD Vance: he’s from the mid-West, I think it just reminded him of home.’

Photo by Rene Böhmer on Unsplash