Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column. Declassified is taking two weeks off to get a full back tattoo of Keir Starmer.

Spare a thought for any intrepid travellers who were planning on a nice lunch in the restaurant at the Thon Hotel on Brussels’ Rue de la Loi on Thursday.

More specifically, spare a thought for any intrepid travellers who were planning on a nice lunch in the restaurant at the Thon Hotel on Brussels’ Rue de la Loi on Thursday who don’t like eating nori-crusted cod fillet, crushed potatoes, glazed and charred leeks, and grey-
shrimp bisque with miso while listening to the song “Crazy Frog” performed using the horns of tractors.

Yes, on Thursday, the farmers were back in Brussels! And (spoiler alert!) they aren’t happy.

And yet, despite the noise and manure, is there anything more pro-European than a bunch of farmers from across the continent gathering in Brussels and setting things on fire just meters from where prime ministers and presidents are discussing how to get money to Ukraine? Perhaps only if they all headed straight to Provence for two months.

Incidentally, French, Irish and Greek colleagues said the farmers being in Brussels reminded them of being back home because of the protests, the tractors and the tear gas, respectively. Now that’s European unity!

For those outside the Belgian capital, the best way to describe farmers’ occasional trips to Brussels is like when the fans of an English football team arrive in your city and smash the place up, but with more rubber boots and less sunburned flesh.

The farmers arrive by tractor — so presumably had to set off in 1998 — and set up camp near the headquarters of the EU institutions, blocked from getting too close by the Belgian police (who will arrest the average citizen without a second’s thought if they put out the wrong bin bag on the wrong day — probably — but will let a farmer set fire to an oil barrel and not even bat an eyelid).

To alleviate the boredom, they play tunes on their tractor horns. Many are hard to identify, but the following were heard from POLITICO Towers on Thursday morning: “Baby Shark,” “Barbie Girl,” “Crazy Frog,” the first half of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” theme song, and even some Mozart. Perhaps the (mostly) horrible musical choices are the farmers’ version of Guantánamo Bay, where American troops tried to break prisoners by blasting them with loud music.

It’s not just music; there’s also fire, as farmers love setting things on fire. What they perhaps have failed to realize is that no one who lives in Brussels has seen the sun for months, so a burning pile of tires is a welcome blast of light amid the gray.

Last year, I even witnessed a farmer release gallons of slurry — that’s liquid shit, for the cityfolk — across Rue de la Loi in what may have been the most dramatic thing I’ve seen since the opening 20 minutes of “Saving Private Ryan.”

CAPTION COMPETITION

“Don’t tell anyone but I ordered the EU summit caterers to pour the hottest hot sauce all over Viktor Orbán’s food.”

Can you do better? Email us at pdallison@politico.eu or get in touch on X @POLITICOEurope.

Last week, we gave you this photo:

Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best one from our mailbag — there’s no prize except the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far preferable to cash or booze.

“So remember, after the voters oust us in the next elections, let’s meet in Tenerife for our boys’ night out, OK?”

by Boris Dusek