President Nasheed to divert all roads away from Rome

by Ahmed Satellite, reporting from Rome

The President of Maldives Mohamed Nasheed arrived in Rome on Monday on an official visit, where he immediately declared that the rumours he had heard were true and that all roads in fact did lead to Rome.

“It’s amazing really,” he said, wide-eyed to the point of being in danger of losing his eyeballs. “I didn’t believe it at first but we took all these twists and turns and we still ended up in Rome.  It’s frikkin’ awesome!”

Speaking to the media before his departure from Malé International Airport, the beloved President said that the purpose of his visit would be made clear by divine revelation once he was in God’s own country and that he was really looking forward to meeting their Holeliness Mr and Mrs Pope. When elbowed sharply in the ribs by the Special Advisor In-Charge-of-Keeping-President-Anni-From-Blurting-Out-Anni-isms, he hastily added: “…er and by God I mean… er the… other God, yaknow… the half-dressed one… you know… not the invisible one… whose really real but invisible… not the… aw God, I need a joint!”

He further said that if he had enough time he would also like to meet Asterix, Obelix and the whole village of Gauls that had managed to resist the Roman occupation for so many centuries.

Special Drinking Buddy to the President, Ibrahim Hussain Zaki, said that the key purpose of the visit strangely had nothing to do with keys, and that they were in the middle of negotiations with the Romans to divert all roads away from Rome and towards Maldives.

“We’ve noticed that the tourist arrivals from Italy have become dangerously low this year so hopefully with this official visit we’ll nip that little badboy in the bud and bring the tourists to Maldives in droves… or possibly airplanes,” Zaki said with utter conviction.

After his arrival in Rome, President Nasheed was quickly ushered away to a dinner hosted by Fiormonte Law Firm. There was an awkward moment when President Nasheed stepped forward smartly and shouted loudly “Ave, Julius Ceasar!” while thrusting his right arm forward, palm down. He then turned around and winked at Special Drinking Buddy to the President Zaki and said, “When in Rome, do what the Romeos do.”

After dinner, and several cases of Sula Shiraz, President Nasheed gave a rousing and slurry speech in which he said that he had learned much from the mistakes of the Romans and that he would make sure not to make the same mistakes they had made when he went back to Maldives.

“For example, it is said that Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he chirped merrily while swinging from a chandelier. “I can totally see that! They built it during the goddamned night and couldn’t see $*%& in the dark. No wonder most of the place looks like what it does now.”

The official visit was expected to do astonishing wonders for bilateral relations between the two countries, until that point.