German Chancellor Olaf Scholz posted a picture on Monday on X, formerly Twitter, of a black patch over his eye and dark red bruises on the right side of his face after a jogging accident at the weekend.
The image has now sparked a flood of pirate jokes on social media – as Scholz predicted would happen.
“Excited to see memes,” the Chancellor wrote in the post.
“Thanks for the greetings, it looks worse than it is!”, he continued.
When Scholz fell on the jogging track on Saturday, he injured his face so badly that he was forced to cancel some of the weekend’s scheduled meetings in the state of Hesse.
According to his spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit, the Chancellor is now doing well, given the circumstances.
– He was in a good mood this morning, but still looks a little bruised, he told reporters in Berlin on Monday.
Hebestreit added that the picture was published “so everyone can get used to what he’s going to look like for a week or two.”