Joe Bennett: A good Christmas story can put a smile on the face

Joe Bennett loves a good Christmas story, but the one about the Polish police chief getting two grenade launchers as presents from Ukraine took the Christmas Cake.

A good Christmas story is one that oxygenates the blood and curls the corners of the mouth into a smile, especially now when all the news seems sour. And I have found just such a story, one that will send you waltzing into the holidays with a smile on your lips and a song in your heart. Or vice versa.

The story is neither sentimental nor superstitious. It involves neither kittens nor virgin birth. And it takes place in neither an animal shelter nor the Middle East. It stems rather from a region more associated with distress. It comes from Poland and Ukraine.

The countries are neighbours. Both are flat and readily invadable. And both have readily been invaded. I do not need to outline Ukraine’s current misery. Poland during World War II suffered worse. It was swept through by both the Nazis and the Soviets.

After the war both Poland and Ukraine found themselves on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain and that was that for 40 grim years. But both have since battled out from under and been self-determining after a fashion these past 30 years.

Can you name Poland’s chief of police? No, neither can I. I have just read his name several times but as soon as I turn the page it dissolves into a kaleidoscope of consonants.

(Time was when I could handle a Polish surname. As secretary of a university drinking club I had to keep a record of attendance, and one of our members was a Pole with a surname that included three y’s, two z’s and no vowels. But that was close to half a century ago and the mind becomes less agile.)

No matter. What matters is that had you been standing outside the police chief’s office one morning last week you would have heard an explosion (or a ‘violent release of energy’ as the Polish authorities put it. To authorities a spade is never a spade.) Two people from the office, including the unspellable chief, suffered minor injuries and there was also damage to a ceiling.

Now, explosions in the office of a chief of police are always going to require investigation and this is where the story begins to become intriguing. It appears that the explosion was caused by a grenade launcher going off. What was a grenade launcher doing in the office of the chief of police? Well, it had been half of a gift. And the other half of the gift had been another grenade launcher.

It seems that the chief of police had recently been part of a delegation visiting Ukraine. This was not the sort of visit that western leaders so love to make to Kyiv to be photographed alongside Zelenskyy in his military issue T-shirt in the hope that some of his stardust rubs off on them. Rather this was a practical visit about security matters involving both countries. And in appreciation of Poland’s support the Ukrainian authorities gave the chief of police not one, but two grenade launchers.

I have thought long and hard about why. If anyone should be keeping rather than giving away grenade launchers at the moment it is Ukraine. The only conclusion I can reach that fits the facts is that the gift was, in the broadest sense of the word, a joke. It was an ironic take on Christmas presents reflecting Ukraine’s current cruel circumstances.

Whatever the truth of it, the chief of police not only accepted the grenade launchers and drove them back to Poland in his car, but he also then stored them in his office. Again I have thought long and hard about why. It could hardly be for personal use. Grenade launchers are notoriously useless in office warfare.

The answer seems to lie in the fact that the launcher went off when the chief of police was moving it “to an upright position”. Why would he do that? Surely he had underlings to shift things about. I can only conclude that he was arranging the grenade launchers for aesthetic effect. He was using them to decorate his office.

Given the opacity of authorities we may never know the truth, but the story now seems clear to me. Even in the midst of a brutal war Ukrainians have retained a sense of irony. And even in high office, the Polish chief of police has retained a sense of grunge aesthetic. Both of which truths seem more than enough reason to raise a glass of vodka and to wish you all a very Mryzcry Cryzyswyz.