Once again, this column will probably be out-of-date by the time we go to press, but you might still want some of these explanations. That is, if you're like me and enjoy learning about the quaint and unusual customs of other people. Some of this stuff is quaint and unusual: the rest is just plain barmy.

Also, before I go on: no, all this carry-on isn't a sign of the end of civilisation. Believe it or not, it's fairly normal for here. This is the country with the White House cheese fixation. There was the time Ulysses S Grant ran against a dead opponent (Horace Greeley), who got 66 electoral votes, anyway. And, of course, some of us still get triggered by the term 'hanging chad'. So this kind of thing isn't really a surprise.

The sofa jokes haven't gone away, but the public is finding other ways to make life difficult for VP candidate JD Vance. At a recent campaign event in Bozeman, Montana (look it up, or take my word for it that it's one of those big, rectangular states in the west that's full of cows and horses and such), Mr Trump was late. The organisers pacified the crowd by running music videos. I have no idea whether this was legal: it might depend on whether they'd paid their BMI fees. Anyway, it was apparently at the instigation of Mr Vance that the screen showed Celine Dion singing that perennial favourite, 'My Heart Will Go On'.

Supporters of the other candidate were quick to point out that playing the theme from Titanic wasn't exactly the way to encourage your voter base.

Why was Mr Trump late for his own rally, you ask? As well you might. Speculation is rife. Certain is that his personal airplane – a Boeing 757 – landed at Billings, Montana, instead of at Bozeman, where the event was. That he had to be driven to Bozeman. The Trump campaign says that this was due to a mechanical problem with the plane. (After all, it is a Boeing.) Skeptics surmise that the Trump plane wasn't allowed to land in Bozeman because the organisation still owes that airport $12,000 in fees from the last campaign.

Trump and Harris are not, of course, the only presidential campaigners. It is a lesser-known fact abroad, I suspect, that we usually have other candidates. They don't get much attention unless they are in danger of upsetting the applecart, as some so-called third-party candidates have done by siphoning votes away from one of the frontrunners – or by doing something outrageously nutty. In that regard, we give you Robert Kennedy, Jr.

So far, Mr Kennedy has become famous for:

• Making campaign spots that look like infomercials for exercise equipment.
• Espousing many exciting conspiracy theories, including the ones against vaccines.
• Telling the world about the worm that was in his brain, and ate part of it. (This is true: there is solid evidence.)
• Having at least a dozen of his famous relatives take out ads imploring the public not to vote for him.

And now there is the bear story. What? You haven't heard the bear story?

In 2014, New York City's news channels were abuzz with the alarming story about the dead bear cub found in Central Park. Along with the bear cub was an abandoned bicycle. Police were baffled by this bizarre occurrence.

There were several reasons to be alarmed. Bears do not usually inhabit Central Park, which has smaller wildlife, like raccoons (sometimes mistaken for tigers by the locals) and exciting birds like the prothonotary warbler. Also, as any bear-savvy person knows, where there is a bear cub there is also likely to be a bear mother. Mother bears are large and likely to be angry. Don't mess with mother bears. Especially if you're the kind of person who confuses raccoons and tigers.

Nobody ever saw another bear in Central Park, outside of the zoo. Now, ten years later, Mr Kennedy tells us why. It was his fault. It seems he had seen a motorist have a fatal collision with a bear cub on the highway – fatal for the bear, not the motorist. The motorist drove away, and Mr Kennedy picked up the bear cub and put it in his car, as one does.

I am kidding: I do not know anybody who would do that. And my grandfather used to haul calves in the back of his sedan. Mr Kennedy's excuse was that it is perfectly legal to collect roadkill for food purposes. This is true. He was going to put the meat in his freezer. So far, so strange, but okay. Here comes the illegal part.

According to Mr Kennedy's story, he drove into New York City for dinner. He didn't have time to take the carcass home and he had a plane to catch. So he and some friends, who were drunk, dumped it in Central Park, along with the bicycle, as a prank to imply that the bear had been hit by a cyclist. So now we know. We're not sure we wanted to know that, but we do, and we can't unknow it. Personally, I hope Mr Kennedy will go back to whatever he was doing before this whole election business started. I don't want to hear any more of his stories.

And now we come to the main event: Mr Tim Walz. Mr Walz is Ms Harris's running mate – and he is a lovely man. Pleasant, intelligent, well-spoken. A career Social Studies teacher and high school football coach. 24 years in the National Guard. Congressman, governor of Minnesota. Husband and father. Member in good standing of the Lutheran church. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Mr Walz.

This, of course, is driving the opposition crazy. They've tried attacking his military record, only to be shouted down by veterans. They complained about his age: 60. Everyone pointed out that he is a whole six months older than Kamala Harris.

'Yes, but she looks better and has more hair,' everybody and her kid brother said.

Tim Walz replied that he had supervised the school lunchroom for 20 years. 'You do not leave that job with a full head of hair. Trust me,' he said. They really should stop talking now: Mr Walz is so popular that Twitter is telling Chuck Norris jokes about him. Only his superpower is that he does the most quintessential Midwestern Dad things conceivable.

Well, that's the 'news' from the campaign front. And yes, I'm aware that all of this hoopla, while highly entertaining, tends to obscure the fact that the stakes for choosing leadership have never been higher. I will also remind people in the UK that their choices are important, too, and yet they had that head of lettuce thing going, and we all prefer the cat to whoever's inside that house. I suspect the jokes are our way of relieving tension. Sure, the fate of the free world rests upon, blah, blah, but it's not like we can do anything about that other than vote and remind others to do so. In the meantime, we might as well look at refreshing pictures of Tim Walz holding a happy piglet.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

26.08.24 Front Page

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