Ben's Blog

In 2018 our good friend  Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who shares his vast reserves of oil with us,(for a price) ordered the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. After the order was carried out in the most gruesome manner imaginable, and Mohammed’s involvement became apparent, he was persona non grata….for a while. All the great statesmen and states woman of the world (Angela Merkel) were shocked and appalled…for a while, especially by the macabre method of disposing of the poor fellow’s body, except for one great statesman, some say the greatest of them all, President Trump. Donald was not appalled. Donald is a deal maker, and he was at the pointy end of a very lucrative  arms deal with our good friend Mohamed. Being the honest politician that Donald is, quite possibly the only honest politician in the whole world, Donald said something along the lines of, “well yes, that wasn’t a very nice thing to do to poor Mr.Khashoggi when he was just about tie the knot with the love of his life, but on the other hand $100 billion is a shit load of money!”

So Donald did a deal. He said to Mohammed, “If you spend some of your vast stash of cash on buying some of the very latest killing machines  from us the U.S. (no conditions, you can test them out on whomever you want, like Huthis for instance), we will all forgive you.” Done deal! That is why Donald is a genius. But many of the other great statesmen and woman of the world were still feeling a bit stand–offish after wringing their hands and looking deeply into their consciences. Our good friend Mohamed took the snub on the chin and thought up some great ways to lure them back onto his list of ‘great statesmen and woman, sycophants and grovelling Yes men who love and adore me.’ Having an inexhaustible supply of largess to spread around, he decreed that the great but some what tainted kingdom of Saud would take up the popular pastime of sport. They would provide lavish entertainment for all the other rich people in the world to come and see, and all the middle class people to watch on pay TV, and all the poor people to watch in the pub, where they can drink beer and make bets. A smorgasbord of entertainment, a veritable cornucopia of sports of every description: Ball sports, including golf balls, footballs, tennis balls, even ping pong balls. Horse racing, camel racing, car racing, boat racing, cockroach racing, cock fighting, man fighting, gaming, chess, ludo, dominos, you name it. Pretty soon everyone in the whole damn world forgot about Mohamed’s ‘indiscretions’ and started to love the guy again, and say to each other, “Hey, what a good bloke.” Us Aussies even said he was a bloody good bloke, the highest accolade in our limited lexicon. Everything was going swimmingly, (except the swimming. Saudi Arabia doesn’t have any water) until Mohamed got a bit carried away. In a magnanimous gesture of reconciliation, he added a new award to the long list of awards being awarded, The Khashoggi Award for Disapearing Disidents. He designed the trophy himself. It is made of solid gold.

Ben Boyang January 2025

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