Satire With Balls

You know what the trouble is with too much internet so-called 'satire'? It is just too bloody tame! In large part this is down to the desperate attempts of many 'satire' sites to gain mainstream respectability, advertising revenue and just good old traffic. To get the big hits, which will guarantee you reasonable ad revenue, you have to minimise the number of potential readers you might offend - this means you've got to 'water down' your product and tackle only the obvious 'safe' targets. The result is toothless 'satire' endlessly poking mild, but ultimately harmless, fun at Bush, Blair, Saddam et al. The quest for 'respectability' is just as corrosive to good satire. It is surprising how many online 'satire' practitioners harbour desires to write for print publications, radio, TV, etc. For them the web is a poor relation, just a stepping stone. Now, I have nothing against ambition, but in aspiring to other media, we're in danger of losing sight of the fact that the internet has a far greater potential reach than any other media, and far fewer restrictions on content. The web should be the ideal platform for real biting satire, which leaves no target untouched by its savagery.

To this end, I'm proposing the establishment of a new online satire publication which will push the boundaries of taste and decency to the limits: Satire With Balls. Basically, this site will consist of a series of witty parodies of current events, presented in pictorial form and performed by male genitalia. In the manner of 'Puppetry of the Penis', the sex organs' owners will manipulate them in various ways to represent the personalities, institutions and events in the news. For instance, if this had been going in September 2001, the fall of the Twin Towers could have been represented by two erect penises suddenly being gripped firmly at their bases and subsequently going flaccid and collapsing. To take a more recent example, Vice President Cheney's 'accidental' shooting of his hunting companion could be represented by a penis prematurely ejaculating all over another scrotum. President Bush could always be played by a limp dick, to show his impotence as a lame duck president. This is really radical stuff and would be guaranteed to get the web talking. Trust me, governments would be bound to fall once citizens start seeing their leaders represented as a bunch of old knobs.

I think this could definitely be a winner. In fact, I'm just going to check whether the URL satire-with-balls.com is still available...

Thieving Middle Class Bastards...

I was reading the other day about the self-styled 'Freegans', people who pursue an alternate lifestyle which, they claim, eschews work, consumerism and all those other nasty materialistic values which afflict Western civilisation. They achieve this by going through people's bins, recovering everything they need to live - including food - from waste. Whilst, on the surface, this type of 'recycling' might seem admirable, on closer examination it actually does little to undermine rampant consumerism. Indeed, it relies upon a continuation of our current wasteful 'throw-away' culture for its very existence. If the majority of people in the West weren't over-consuming, then their bins wouldn't be full of the stuff these 'Freegans' need to sustain their lifestyle. Now, if they were recycling our waste for use by the poor of the Third World, I'd be more impressed - that would represent an admirable attempt at redistributing the world's wealth to those who need it most. As it stands, this movement simply seems to be a way for a very small number of middle-class drop-outs to maintain their relatively privileged lifestyles without having to work, whilst remaining smug and sanctimonious about the fact that they are simply a bunch of freeloaders.

Anyway, I've decided that I'm going to take measures to stop these bastards from stealing from my bins (I pay my Council Tax to have it taken away to a dump and/or recycled, thank you very much). From now on, I'm going to be shitting in the bin bags before I put them out. I defy even the most devoted 'Freegan' to eat anything out of those bins! I shall also be urinating in all my empty plastic bottles - drink that, freeloading bastards! And, as you like the idea of recycling so much, I'll be including my used toilet paper in my refuse - if you want to reuse it, be my guest. You know, when travellers, or the like, nick stuff left out for refuse collection, we call them 'thieving gypsy bastards' and try to get them evicted from their campsites. However, when a bunch of middle class tossers do the same thing, we call it a social trend, give it a fancy name and praise them for being environmentally aware! Jesus, who said the class war was dead, eh?

Comrade Cameron

So, David Cameron reckons the KGB once tried to recruit him. Before we completely dismiss this tale as another desperate attempt to make a Home Counties stockbroker seem even mildly interesting and important, let's look at it in a little more detail. According to Cameron's claims - made on Radio Four's Desert Island Discs - this alleged approach by Soviet intelligence operatives came whilst he was on a gap year between school and university. Apparently he and a friend, whilst staying in the Black Sea resort of Yalta, were approached by two Russian men, who 'interrogated' them about the West. As this apparently took place over dinner - paid for by alleged KGB agents- I can't help but feel that Davey boy misinterpreted the whole thing. I mean. Let's just look at the situation - an English public schoolboy and his 'friend' are lying on the beach in Russia's equivalent to Brighton or San Francisco, and are picked up by two other guys who buy them dinner and 'pump' them for information about the decadent West - isn't this all just some kind of euphemism for what Michael Portillo would call a 'homosexual experience'? What did they actually ask them about - the age of consent in the wicked capitalist world? Whether they felt lucky to live in a society where homosexuality was legal between consenting adults? Did they invite them to a Turkish bath? But not to worry, Cameron claims that he didn't break and tell them anything - not even after three hours of wild bum sex, no doubt. Mind you, being a public schoolboy, he was probably used to that sort of thing.

So, what is Dave trying to tell us really - that he's bi-curious, maybe? Why not just come right out with it? For God's sake, it is nothing to be ashamed of in this enlightened day and age! If you had some kind of gay holiday romance when a teenager, just tell us - don't try and disguise it as some kind of espionage fantasy! What is it about politicians and their sexuality? This KGB nonsense is almost as bad as Lib-Dem MP Mark Oaten's claims that he only weny out with a rent-boy because he was losing his hair. Oh yeah, Mark? And I suppose you thought that he was actually some kind of hair-loss guru and believed him when he told you that urinating on your head was a widely accepted method of encouraging hair growth?

(For purely legal reasons, I'd like to point out that there is no evidence whatsoever that urine can prevent hair loss).

Skeggie!

We've all heard of Nessie - the Loch Ness Monster - and all the tourists, monster hunters, occultists and general weirdos and their money she brings to Scotland, so why not the Skegness monster? I mean, the Lincolnshire seaside resort is, for most people in England, easier to reach than some remote lake in Scotland, with the added bonus that the language spoken by the locals is closer to English than anything heard North of the border. I've often thought that a monster could provide Skegness with the perfect tourist attraction - once you've got it set up with a few sightings and some blurry out of focus photos, its maintenance costs would be minimal as word of mouth would quickly take over!

Indeed, a few years ago, I and a former colleague were going to put a proposal to create 'Skeggie' to the town's council. We planned to start off with some mysterious noises (provided by a foghorn, or similar) the next time the sea mist rolled in and engulfed the town (we assumed that they had sea mists there - neither of us had ever actually visited Skegness - I still haven't). We'd follow that up with some mysterious footprints on the beach, before working up to the first sightings - shadowy shapes glimpsed through the next sea mist. The next stage would be the first 'proper' sightings - something vaguely penis shaped sticking up out of the sea. This sort of thing is best seen from a distance by tourists, who will inevitably photograph it and try to sell said pictures to the press. Of course, it is essential that the 'thing' they spot is never actually seen clearly enough to be properly identified. Once it becomes too concrete, the magic and mystery vanish. Its always got to be something that might be a plesiosaur, but then again could just as easily be a floating branch or a lump of raw effluent drifting on the ebb-tide - the debates generated by such vagueness provide great publicity and help keep the whole bandwagon moving. By this time, the local press and whacko mags (Fortean Times, Monster Spotter's Weekly, and the like) would be lapping it up, the next logical step would be to get the national media interested. There's always one sure fire way to do this: children. As soon as kids are imperiled in some way, the tabloids will be there with screaming headlines! So, the obvious thing to do would be to bung someone a few quid to dress up in seaweed and chase some kiddies around the local caves (again, I merely assume that Skegness has caves), preferably with something vaguely resembling a schlong hanging out - the papers would go wild over a 'monster peadophile' angle. By this stage in the scheme, 'Skeggie'-mania would guaranteed - hats, fluffy toys, inflatables - you could flog the lot if they were monster related. The local chip shops (which, I'm reliably informed, make up 95% of Skegness' main street), would be able to sell 'Skeggie' burgers (the buns could have cardboard monster heads and tails stuck to them) and 'Skeggie' shaped fillets of cod.

In the event, of course, we never did get round to actually putting this proposal to the council - beer intervened. I was reminded of it the other day when yet more 'Lake Monster' pictures started appearing in the press - this time involving a Canadian lake. Aha, I thought, just in time for the tourist season... Anyway, cynicism aside, I'm still convinced that I have the real solution to the Loch Ness mystery - all sightings of the so-called monster could be explained by a whale with an erection swimming on its back. Think about it - its all there: the long neck and smallish head suddenly vanishing below the water, the hump-like body. Hell, its more convincing than that other recent 'explanation' - that it was all down to elephants swimming in the Loch!

Hell is Local TV - a Brief Update

I'm claiming a minor victory over my local cable TV supplier - they've finally dropped those bloody looped infomercials where a parade of idiots apparently dragged in off of the street tried to sell me various telephone talkplans and broadband internet. It wasn't before time - if Dave O'Reilly had told me one more time that he was here to tell me about 'Talk Unlimited', I swear to God that I would have hunted him down and killed him! Actually, although I did complain about those infomercials when I was up at said cable company's HQ a few weeks ago, I suspect their demise has more to do with the fact that a new pricing structure for the products in question comes into force at the end of the month, meaning that all the information given will soon be inaccurate. I have a nasty feeling that they're busy recording new infomercials to reflect the new prices, possibly with even more irritating presenters! Come the start of June the nightmare could start all over again!

Having said all that, there is a part of me which actually misses those infomercials now that they're gone! As I've mentioned before, they did exert an awful fascination, in much the same way that a nasty car crash does. Mind you, there's always ITV's interactive all night quiz bollocks, The Mint - a programme of mind-boggling inanity apparently designed by morons, for morons (and, by all indications, presented by morons) to take their place! Still, I have to look on the bright side - perhaps the absence of these cable horrors means that I'm finally moving out of purgatory. If only I could see some improvement in local television programming, I could be sure...

Sweet Charity

I was very proud of myself yesterday when I managed to stop myself from being extremely abusive to one of those charity-collecting tossers who roam through town centres in packs, trying to pick off the weak-willed and soft-hearted from the shopping herds. You know the kind - they all wear identical T-shirts and hold clipboards and approach you asking "can you spare a minute sir/madam?" Clearly, they're all deaf as none of them pay any attention if you say "No", instead continuing their pursuit of you and your bank details through pedestrianised areas. This particular charity predator just kept on coming despite two "No thank you, I'm afraid I don't have time" statements from myself, and made the (near) fatal mistake of trying to use the fact that I was carrying a copy of The Guardian, to ingratiate himself with me. Now, I may be a card carrying socialist Guardian reader, but that doesn't mean that I have any ideological commitment to the concept of giving my money to charity, so trying to appeal to me as "a fellow Guardian reader" really isn't going to do any good. Indeed, as a socialist I'm actually opposed to the idea of services for the underprivileged, vulnerable, etc being provided by charities - this is the preserve of the state and is what I pay my taxes for! OK, I know we don't live in this ideal world of universal welfare provision and, sadly, much of this provision is left to charities, but simply thinking that my liberal conscience can be used to get me to sign up to any passing charity is downright offensive!

Anyway, getting back to this charity pillock, for a split second I thought of actually explaining all this to him, then I thought, why waste your time he won't listen, and even if he did he wouldn't understand, so just hit the sanctimonious little fucker. Luckily for him, I decided that perhaps violence wouldn't be appropriate (there were more of them than me), and walked on. The last time someone tried a stunt like that with me was when I worked in London, when I had to endure a stream of invective from a Big Issue seller at Waterloo Station when I declined to buy a copy from him. Upon seeing that I was carrying a copy of The Guardian, he launched himself into a stream of abuse claiming that I couldn't be a real Guardian reader if I wouldn't help the homeless, adding that I was "a fucking middle class bastard" who "didn't give a shit about anybody else". All because I politely declined to buy a paper I didn't want from him. I just thank God that Evening Standard vendors don't carry on the same way - I would have spent several hours a day getting that kind of crap! Actually, I could understand it more if one of them had gone off on one at a potential customer's refusal to buy - why wouldn't someone want to buy a newspaper which might conceivably contain something of interest (unlikely, I know, but there was more chance of finding something worthwhile in the Standard than in the Big Issue), from somebody who'd just use the money to get drunk with, rather than buy drugs and get completely off their face? Once again, I didn't resort to violence; I just complained to the station management and Transport Police and by the next day he wasn't selling his rag there anymore.

As ever, I've strayed somewhat from the original point I was intending to pursue - the whole business of charity and how we're conditioned to feel stigmatised if we don't want to give. I'm no different to anyone else here - this past month I've been bled white by charity collectors knocking on my door demanding money with menaces - which is probably why the pratt in the town centre made me so angry. Its the way the collectors just assume that you'll want to contribute - rattling that tin or envelope at you with that sanctimonious look on their face, just daring you to say "No" and slam the door on them. The trouble is that they're usually someone local, who'll put the bad word on you if you don't give - you'll start getting hate mail and having dog shit put through your letter box. But really, I don't think that it is unreasonable to turn most of these buggers down. Sure, they're all good causes, but the fact is that my day job doesn't pay that well and surely I have a right to decide what I spend my disposable income on without some do-gooder trying to make me feel guilty if I don't think of 'those less well off'? There are charities I support, but I don't go around shouting about it - it is an entirely private matter as to what and how much you contribute to, in my humble opinion. I can't support every bloody charity! So stop knocking on my door, accosting me in the street or sending begging letters, or I might just get militant and start sticking dog shit in those Christian Aid envelopes!

Twenty Four Hours From London...

So, according to Keifer Sutherland, a film version of '24', set in London, is a possibility. Well, there's no doubt in my mind that a London setting would add a few novel twists to Jack Bauer's perennial attempts to get that planning application for his garage conversion into the local planning office before the deadline. Actually, I don't know why he leaves it so late every year, or how it is he's managed to upset his neighbours so much they're willing to take extreme measures, such as threatening to nuke LA, in order to block his application. Maybe that's why he comes to London, for a spot of relaxation and Christmas shopping. But let's face it, just getting around Britain's capital would present him with major problems, with or without terrorist intervention. Within the first hour he'd undoubtedly find his Ford (or whichever motor manufacturer is sponsoring it this time around) clamped as the result of not having paid the congestion charge. Angry scenes would inevitably follow, with clampers being beaten up with their own clamps, before being bundled into the back of their own van and driven to the offices of London Mayor (and congestion charge mastermind) Ken Livingstone. Unfortunately for Jack, Livingstone is suspended for a month after telling a neo-Nazi protestor who had refused to pay the congestion charge that he was as tight-fisted as a Jew.

Jack instead settles for torturing one of Livingstone's aides in an attempt to get his car released. However, even having his scrotum scorched with a soldering iron can't force this dedicated official to go against Ken's orders. Indeed, he points out to Jack that the congestion charge has proven to be a major deterrent to terror attacks in London - everyone knows the average Al Qaida terrorist is too tight-fisted to pay the congestion charge, and therefore will think twice before menacing the metropolis with car bombs! That's why the July seventh bombers were using the tubes and buses and arrived in London by train...

Before Jack can inflict further pain on the official his phone rings - shocking news! His daughter Kim has missed her bus whilst visiting the South Bank and is being menaced by a leery group of Big Issue sellers outside Waterloo Station! He immediately swings into action, only to find his rescue attempts falling at the first hurdle as he finds himself barred from the Number Fifty Seven bus when the driver decides that the automatic pistol, nerve gas canisters and plastic explosives Jack's carrying constitute a serious health and safety hazard to other passengers. Hijacking a passing black cab at gunpoint, he rushes to Kim's aid, kneecapping three of the Big Issue sellers. Blowing up the cab to cover their escape, the duo make for the Underground, only to find there's a tube strike on - this is finally too much for Jack! 'Interrogating' a group of picketing tube workers by forcing their heads into their blazing brazier, Bauer learns the name address of the Union leader responsible for the strike. Hijacking a passing car, Jack hurries to the Union leader's house and takes his family hostage, before phoning the man and threatening to kill his family one by one, starting with his wife, unless the strike is ended immediately... However, his plans are once again sent awry when he realises that he's once more lost Kim - a frantic phone call reveals that she's lost her purse and all her money and is being forced to sell herself to a sleazy minicab driver in order to return to the safety of their hotel!

And worst of all, Jack still hasn't finished his Christmas shopping...

Righting Satire?

I can't help but keep coming back to this 'Coolservative' cobblers. The saddest aspect of this shite is that I first encountered it on the Satiresearch homepage. Now, this is a truly bizarre juxtaposition of elements - a site which claims to be the leading aggregator of satire headlines promoting not just a party political cause, but a conservative party political cause. Bearing in mind that most of the headlines aggregated there are parodying, in some shape or form, the conservative US government, not to mention the faux-conservative New Labour regime in Britain, is it really conceivable that many people sympathetic to Cameron's spin on conservatism are likely to be visiting the site? Are many of the visitors really likely to be converted to the cause? I think not. Sadly, this development represents the final degradation of a once highly innovative and influential site. The first blow came when it lost most of its best sources to Humorfeed and had to substitute second-string sites, but overtly linking it to the pathetic cause of the Cameronites must surely be the death knell!

All of which raises the question of whether you can actually have conservative satire? Like it or not, satire has traditionally come from a radical/liberal/Left-wing perspective - not surprising as satire is dedicated to lampooning the status quo. As conservatism, by its very nature, is dedicated to conserving the status quo, it and satire have never really been bedfellows. Having said that, I do think that it is possible to write satirically from a right of centre perspective, lampooning the received wisdoms and established norms of the left. However, as with the more usual centre-left based satire, it needs to be divorced from a party political perspective. This is my problem with the overt linking of the 'Coolservative' cause with Satiresearch - it is just another crude Cameronite attempt at making the clapped-out credo of Toryism seem 'trendy' and 'relevant' by spuriously linking it to some more popular cause or activity.

Ultimately, this match made in hell isn't going to help either Satiresearch or the 'Coolservative' party. However, if we're lucky, it might just speed up the inevitable decline and fall of the once proud Satiresearch. Really, it is a travestry of its former self and this attempt to harness the forces of satire to Cameron's bandwagon simply emphasise the moral bankruptcy of its current owners, who clearly neither understand, nor care about, satire.

Off The Wrist 2

Here we are again in the fascinating world of celebrity wanking. Following our investigations into the rub-a-tug fantasies of pop icon Marc Bolan, we now turn our attentions to world famous mystic and cutlery bender Uri Gellar. Of course, Gellar's extraordinary mental powers extend far beyond mere spoon bending. On a 1996 TV programme hosted by bikini-clad former Page Three girl Melinda Messenger, Gellar claimed to have induced simultaneous erections in over three million male viewers merely by the power of his mind. However, these same powers have often caused him problems in the snake milking department, with his penis sometimes bending into strange shapes. According to an unidentified source at Gellar's local casualty department, the mystic has been admitted there seven times in the past two years with bizarre dislocations of his purple pearler. On one memorable occasion, Doctors found Gellar's todger entwined with a twisted fork. Another time, they found its head embedded in a purple crystal. Amongst Gellar's most incredible claims is that whenever he has an erection at home, his TV can receive Channel Five.

These strange side-effects are not confined to Gellar. Apparently his powers can induce similar activity on the part of other people's members. His former neighbour recently told a Sunday newspaper that he had once woken up in the middle of the night screaming in agony, to find his penis tied in a knot. Poltergeist activity has also been known to accompany Gellar's T-bone tugging sessions. Indeed, entire drawers of cutlery have been found bent out of shape and, after one particularly satisfying wank on Gellar's part, several televisions exploded. "I blame that Gellar git", a local resident raged. "Every time he wanks off it spells chaos for the whole neighbourhood!"

According to sources close to Gellar, the Israeli mentalist often likes to indulge in masturbatory fantasies where his penis takes on astounding mystical powers of its own. Sometimes he likes to see it as a pendulum, being dangled over various objects to determine their composition. According to the nature of the material involved, his member gently rotates in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction. When it detects gold, it rotates four times clockwise before springing up in a huge erection at the moment of ejaculation. Naturally, Gellar likes to imagine his pecker spewing forth a river of liquid gold at this moment. Another favourite tug fantasy of the champion bender involves him using his wab as a dowsing rod. In this fantasy he allegedly imagines himself in a field, naked, clasping his penis firmly in his hands, like a water diviner. As he strides around the field, his knob begins to twitch as he approaches hidden springs. The closer he gets, the more violent the twitching becomes and the firmer he has to grip his bulging John Thomas. Finally, as he is directly above the water source, it springs out of his hands and ejaculates a huge spume of water. In a variation on this fantasy, it is claimed that Gellar sometimes imagines himself walking through a field full of beautiful women. As he points his divining rod at them, they collapse into paroxysms of sexual ecstasy, moaning his name.

Some have claimed that Gellar sees his penis as a channel for ancient earth forces and he once claimed that it lay at the convergence of several important ley lines. The climax of his masturbatory fantasies certainly seems to have mystical connotations. "When I ejaculate it is not just a matter of jism flying across the room!", he told Fortean Times. " I see a rainbow of psychic auras arcing away from my penis! When the jism lands, it forms into crystals with amazing properties!" So, do Uri Gellar's masturbatory fantasies confirm his status as one of history's truly great mystics, or are they just a load of old bollocks? We let you decide.

Bird Brained

Today's Guardian included a full-colour wall chart of British garden birds. I remain mystified as to what I'm meant to do with this - the shark wall chart from yesterday was easy to get rid of, donated to a work colleague's shark-obsessed nephew. However, no one seems terribly interested in our feathered friends. I mean, does The Guardian expect me to mount it on my living room wall and tick off the birds I see in my back garden? Who the hell do they think I am, Bill Oddie? As far as I'm concerned, birds are no better than vermin and should be shot. Especially the ones which shit all over my car.

Sadly, I don't even have a cat any more, otherwise I'd sit down with said feline and use the wall chart to train him to identify the rarest garden birds to go out and hunt. Anything to upset those bloody ornithologists and conservationists who insist that domestic cats are the main reason for a decline in the British bird population. Do these people know anything about cats? The average furbag couldn't catch a cold - they spend most of their time lounging around in their 'natural' environment (a centrally heated living room), shedding fur all over the furniture and sharpening their claws on the carpet. Besides, I have no sympathy for any bird stupid enough to get itself caught by a cat - they've got wings for God's sake! Why don't they just fly away! Not only that, but the last cat I had didn't even kill birds - she just used to bring them home stunned, drop them in my bedroom and watch in fascination as the bloody things came to, panicked and started flying around the room shitting!

Anyway, at least cats don't shit on my car.

Pimp My Stroke...

When my brother first saw Tim Westwood on Pimp My Ride UK, he came away convinced that the self-proclaimed 'Big Dog' was a stroke victim. You can see why - the disjointed speech patterns, the halting delivery and the apparently uncoordinated limb movements, all hallmarks of someone recovering from impaired brain functions as the result of a heart attack. All of which left me thinking; perhaps I've misjudged Westwood - all these years I've just thought of him as some kind of sad middle-class tosser trying desperately to be 'hip' by aping the speech and mannerisms of black American rappers. Maybe I should have been feeling sympathy for an obviously sick man bravely trying to return to work after a massive coronary which has left his speech patterns and physical co-ordination seriously impaired. The BBC really should be ashamed of themselves, forcing him to work in his condition, he should clearly still be on sick leave.

Of course, if my brother is wrong, and Westwood isn't a stroke victim, then the only other credible explanation for his bizarre behaviour (listening to rap music, driving hot rods and wearing excessive amounts of gold jewelry) is a mid-life crisis. I just thank God his hair isn't thinning, or he'd be Kerb-crawling around South London in his 'rap-mobile' looking for rent-boys as well. Still, I blame the parents - what kind of example could Westwood's father the Bishop have been setting him? I reckon 'The Big Bish' (as he liked to be called) was obsessed with the idea of being one of those American evangelical black preachers, and probably spent his time imploring his all-white middle class Bristol congregation to 'Praise the Lord!', waving his hands in the air and shouting 'hallelujah!', in between playing 'Great Balls of Fire' on the organ. So there you are, maybe it is all in the genes after all...

Right On!

I'm still fascinated by this 'Coolservative' bollocks. It just smacks of desperation, as Tory supporters, battered by three successive general election defeats (face it guys, when Blair can start a widely reviled illegal war and still kick you arses at the polls, you just have to accept that people don't like you), attempt to convince themselves that this time they've elected the right leader. Not another out of touch public schoolboy - that really would be madness. The part of this fantasy I like best is the deluded notion that the Tory party is somehow going to convince young people that an institution dedicated to preserving the existing social order and distribution of wealth, which is backed by big business and which has condemned out of hand virtually every manifestation of youth culture since 1888, is somehow 'cool'. At least David Cameron seems, in contrast to certain of his predecessors, to realise that simply wearing a a baseball cap and going to Alton Towers isn't the best way to get down with the kids. OH no, he's far too savvy and au fait with youth culture for that. Instead he spreads his message via Radio One interviews, appearances on community radio stations which play that modern-type hip hop music and - here's the masterstroke - employs 'Saint' Bob Geldof as an advisor.

That's right; he gets in a middle-aged bloke who hasn't released a decent record in years (or ever, some would say) to try and appeal to the kids. You can see the thinking: those crazy kids just flock to those 'Band Aid'-type events old Geldof organises (the one's which condemn the third world poverty created, in large part, by the activities of the very big businesses which back the Tories), clearly he's in touch and knows what's what! No, I'm not convinced they've got the right man. Who they need is Radio One's Tim Westwood (sorry, just Westwood). He's perfect: a middle aged, middle class white bloke who regularly makes a fool of himself by trying to pretend he's black in order to ingratiate himself with the kids. A crash course from Westwood in street-speak would leave 'Cameron' (no first name needed when speaking to the kids) fully equipped to get in touch with the youth vote.

I can see the party election broadcast now; Cameron reaching out to Britain's youth from behind a set of decks, telling them that he has 'the heaviest policies' in his manifesto, whereas New Labour's manifesto was 'just crazy, man', and that if they wanted to 'run with the Big Dog' they should vote Tory. Imagine him out on the streets campaigning in his shades and gold chains, telling some poor sick homeless bastard 'I can see you've got issues man, and I'm reaching out to you'. Watching him being interviewed by Paxman on Newsnight would be unmissable;

Paxman: "Mr Cameron, what do you think about Iran's attempts to expand its nuclear programme in the face of international opposition?"

Cameron: "Man, that's huge! Them's two World's that should never meet! If they continue trying to get their hands on the big bombs, someone should pop a cap in their ass!"

Paxman: "Yeees, what about drugs, should they be decriminalised?"

Cameron: "All those drugs are dirty man. I mean, the kids should remember: crack is wack!"

Paxman: "You like to present yourself as representing a new direction for Conservatism, nonetheless, you can't deny the continuing influence of Mrs Thatcher on the party, surely?"

Cameron: "Man, she was some mad sexy bitch who put a bomb under British politics and blew away the consensus, but I say its time to send that uncaring shit south, reach out to the people and feel their pain!"

At which point he launches into a heart-felt rap about the need to control the money supply whilst preserving the social infrastructure...

Cool to be a Conservative?

Apparently it is cool to be a conservative again. Frankly, as far as I'm concerned, you might as well say that it is cool to be a cunt. No amount of PR and posturing is ever going to convince me that the current conservative party is anything other than a bunch of knee-jerk reactionary political opportunists, so desperate for power they'll jump on any bandwagon going. Just witness Cameron's most recent attempt to look socially concerned when he decided to condemn the sexualisation of young children by retail chains selling them provocative clothing. Very good, David. Really right on. The trouble is that everyone else had this debate two years ago and most of the retailers concerned have already dropped the clothing ranges in question. You really must get your dentist to invest in some more up to date magazines for his waiting room, David. According to the preposterously titled 'Coolservative' website (no, I'm not going to give them a link), David Cameron has "introduced a modern, progressive, liberal conservative agenda to the Conservative party". Leaving aside the inherent contradiction of being 'liberal conservative', just what does this mean? Just what is this agenda? Could it in any way be related to the disastrous 2005 Conservative Election Manifesto - a shameful document which attempted to play upon the electorate's worst prejudices - of which he was the main author?

The closest Cameron has got to actually espousing any actual policies, is spouting some bollocks about the environment whilst riding on a husky-drawn sled across Norwegian icefields in a photo-opportunity designed to boost his chances in the UK's local elections. This, along with opposing ID cards whilst supporting Blair's crackpot education reforms hardly makes for a modern or progressive agenda, or, indeed, a coherent policy statement. The sad fact is that, no matter how trendy and 'down with the kids' Cameron tries to make himself appear, he is a middle-class suburban stockbroker, from a family of middle-class suburban stockbrokers. In truth, far from being 'radical' or 'progressive', this child of privilege is a tool of the city, bought and paid for by big business and finance. Indeed, it is instructive to look a little more closely at his supposed commitment to the environment - it comes heavily caveated. Whilst he's all for Britain pursuing 'greener' policies, if in power he'd only actually enact such policies where they didn't conflict with Britain's business interests (for 'Britain' read 'Conservative Financial Backers'). Now, I'm afraid the one thing everyone is agreed upon is that environmentally friendly policies will inevitably conflict with business interests. So the truth is that he'll advocate such policies until elected, then drop them on 'patriotic' grounds. Twat.

The fact is that any popularity currently enjoyed by Cameron is overwhelmingly due to the fact that he isn't Tony Blair. For the politically non-aligned he is, at present, a tabula rasa upon which they can project all their expectations. His pronouncements are sufficiently vague that they can be taken as either conservative or liberal by those disaffected from the main parties. However, as soon as he actually starts outlining real policies, the spell is broken - some of those floaters currently drifting in his direction will be alienated. Sooner or later, he is going to have to actually commit himself to some kind of policies - and then we'll see his rue colours: deeply uncool traditional Tory blue. Coolservatives? Cuntservatives, more like!

Nearly a Nasty Accident

I very nearly had a nasty accident the other day. You know the sort: you let go what you think is just a casual, everyday fart, then you feel that horrible warm sensation in your underpants which leaves you fearing that you've 'followed through'. Sadly, I've found that as the years progress, this becomes an ever commoner siuation to find oneself in - the fear of such anal accidents start making you mistrust your own emissions. Whereas before, you would happily have let rip (particularly in private), now you tend to clench your buttocks tight at the first sign of a fart, and only tentatively release your sphincter a few millimeters to 'test the water', so to speak. However, every so often, you forget and recklessly open up, full throttle, only to be left fearing the worst.

As it turned out, I was lucky - a false alarm. Gases had become trapped in my gusset area (I was sitting down at the time) creating an unpleasant warm sensation somewhat akin to that of the dreaded 'follow through'. Of course, the only way to properly check this is to drop both trousers and underpants to verify the state of the latter. At least, that's my excuse for standing in my front room, naked from the waist down, examining the back of my battle-scarred boxer shorts. I was doubly lucky, of course - not only was it a false alarm, but it happened whilst I was in private. Public occurrences are excruciating, necessitating a dash for the nearest public toilets, phone box or convenient patch of shrubbery to check one's kacks, all the time hoping that there is no sticky brown stain spreading across your posterior for the world to see. This latter scenario, where the 'follow through' not only soils your underwear, but penetrates right through to the outer layer of your trousers (known to Star Trek aficionados as a 'core breach'), is one of my worst nightmares. Luckily, I've never experienced it (occasionally I've experienced that small damp patch on the seat of my boxers after a particularly virulent fart and I did once have the misfortune to completely douse the back of my pants with liquid brown when I let rip whilst taking a pee, but thankfully I was in my own bathroom at the time), but the fearful possibility raises its ugly head with every public fart.

I can't help but feel that in the event of this 'doomsday scenario' befalling one, the best course of action would simply be to try and maintain some dignity by calmly walking away as if nothing had happened. I'd like to think that this is what the likes of Nelson Mandela or the Duke of Edinburgh would do in such circumstances. Let's face it, this sort of thing must happen to public figures too. How many times has Tony Blair stepped up to the Despatch Box to answer whichever itinerant leader of the opposition is facing him that week, let slip a sly chuffer, only to feel that deadly warmth spread across his buttocks. All through his answer he must be thinking, 'Have I shat myself?' and thanking God that he has his back to his own MPs, rather than the opposition. Or imagine Kevin Spacey launching forth into a soliloquoy on the stage of the Old Vic, only to start suspecting that he has liquid shit running down his legs. Dare he look down, for fear of seeing a dirty puddle forming at his feet? Should the show go on, or is he entitled to gingerly creep (bow-legged) off-stage to check his under crackers? I can't help but feel that this an area of social etiquette that has been neglected for far too long!

Giving Meaning to Your Life...

I saw that as a headline on a magazine cover the other day whilst I was waiting at the till queue at Asda. That's quite a promise to make readers on behalf of what is undoubtedly an article running not more than 3,000 words. It also seemed somehow symptomatic of the times we live in - not so long ago people would be looking to religion to provide some kind of purpose to their lives. For the secular, there were always such things as political ideologies (especially those of the left, Marxism and socialism particularly, but not forgetting the various flavours of fascism, which were very popular for quite a while), moral crusades to end slavery, child labour, the eating of dogs or the ritual disembowelment of senior citizens, or even more esoteric preoccupations such as the quest for knowledge for its own sake, artistic excellence or philosophical enlightenment. Nowadays, we're apparently down to supermarket glossies as sources of inspiration for our lives!

But just what does 'give meaning' to the lives of people today, if not any of the above? The most obvious answer would seem to be the quest for material gain. There's no doubt that profit has become the most powerful driving force in Tony Blair's New Britain - it's the bottom line, the only measure which really counts in any field of endeavour these days: the profit margin. The idea that happiness can be gained through the ownership of material goods is a necessary corollary to this relentless pursuit of profits. To keep the profit margin up, you have to shift more of your goods, which means convincing the consumer that they just can't live without them, whether they be anal hair depilators, oil-fired explodable thongs or dog shit flavoured crisps. Besides, without - for want of a better term - any spiritual aspect to life, what else is there other than materialistic consumerism? There's no doubt that the popular mass culture thrown up by modern society does its best to strangle not just religious spirituality ( look at the way anyone who actually tries to enact Christian values such as peace and love for one's fellow man, are decried in the press and portrayed as naive idiots and meddlers), but any form of artistic or intellectual expression which falls outside of narrowly prescribed 'traditional' norms (again, witness not only press reactions to modern art, literature or philosophy, but also the way in which education is increasingly implied to be of value only if it has an obvious practical application).

Nevertheless, people still seem to sense that something is missing from their lives, something which material possessions cannot satisfy. So, inevitably, they grope around blindly for something to fill this void: New Age bollocks; pseudo-religious cults; celebrity worship; devotion to football clubs; the quest for trivial knowledge; proficiency at computer games. The list is seemingly endless. Interestingly, moral crusades are still quite popular, but only if they have celebrity endorsement - those starving millions don't exist until Bono says they do, apparently. But of course, none of it really seems to work. People find that their lives still seem to have no meaning... A lot of the problem lies in the fact that people all too frequently confuse the idea of giving meaning to their lives with the concept of moral direction. In large part, I suspect, this stems from the deeply embedded idea that only religion can provide an individual or a society with a moral framework in which to work. However, religion simultaneously links this moral framework with the idea that life has s0me God-given purpose. This isn't necessarily true - you can live your life to strict moral code without it actually having to have any particular purpose. At the end of the day, I can't help but feel that it is a lack of an adequate moral compass to guide them through life which really troubles people, rather than a lack of 'meaning'. Indeed, I'm a great believer in living a life without any overriding meaning and purpose. I'm perfectly happy just drifting on the seas of fate, waiting to see where the currents of chance take me next. Besides, just look at the kind of people who believe that there is some great purpose to their lives: religious fanatics like Osama bin Laden and George W Bush, political despots like Pol Pot and genocidal maniacs like Hitler. I'll just keep meandering.

Giving Christ the Horn

You know, I think I've finally figured out why the Roman Catholics and all those other Holy Joes have such a huge downer on the Da Vinci Code - basically, it is because it implies that Jesus Christ had a penis. Let's face it, if, as the book claims, instead of dying on the cross he shacked up with Mary Magdalene and founded a whole dynasty, he most definitely must have been in possession of a fully functioning todger. Of course, the picture this paints, of a fully equipped Christ with an active sex life, rather undermines (so they see it) the divinity of the Saviour. Apparently, you can't be holy and get your end away. However, that rather ignores the fact that the Bible clearly tells us that Christ was part divine and part man (and as Derek and Clive concluded, you can guarantee that it was the bottom half which was human). Indeed, it is surely his essentially human nature which allows us mere mortals to identify with the Messiah - to elevate him to an entirely divine status (as the church seems to want to do), is surely to alienate the average person on the street from him. It is difficult to identify with, let alone sympathise with, a remote and ethereal figure.

But really, just what is so bad about Jesus having a wang? Couldn't they work it into the recruitment spiel: "Convert to Christianity and you are guaranteed an Almighty schlong!" Of course, if he it turned out that he wasn't so well endowed, that could be a turn off in conversion terms. Perhaps that's the real conspiracy which the catholic church is involved with - an attempt to cover up the fact that their saviour was hung like a gnat! I can see it now - heretical renaissance nude studies of Christ made by Da Vinci destroyed, other paintings retouched to 'fill out' that loincloth as he hangs on the cross...

Mind you, Derek and Clive could have been wrong, and the lower half of Christ could have been the holy part. Maybe he had a divine penis with amazing powers. (There's one question which Dan Brown fails to address: did both the heavens and earth move for Mary Magdalene when she got it on with JC?) Perhaps he went around healing the sick by laying his penis on them - blind women suddenly regaining their sight after being poked in the eye with the knob of God. In which case, was it any wonder he ended up sentenced to death? Was the 'Spear of Destiny' actually a euphemism for the Jesus' old man? Did the Nazis spend years searching for the pickled penis of Christ believing it had incredible healing powers? Cue Dan Brown's next bestseller...

A Bald Man Cries...

So Lib Dem MP Mark Oaten puts his recent dalliance with a rent-boy down to pressures of work, a mid-life crisis and the loss of his hair. Clearly, I've been doing things wrong, haven't I? When I had my mid-life crisis (a few years early, admittedly), I just stuck to buying rusty American sports coupes and driving them around winding country lanes, frightening the yokels with my V8 rumble. Since then, I've confined my middle-aged bloke activities to playing with my model railway. I can't say it ever crossed my mind to experiment with homosexuality by engaging the services of young male prostitutes. But then, I'm not a member of parliament.

Still, if hair-loss is the stimulus for turning gay (and there we all were thinking it was in the genes), it does raise some interesting questions. Is Captain Jean-Luc Picard actually on a five year mission to bugger as many rent-boys on as many alien planets as possible? Are Ernst Stavro Blofeld's attempts at world conquests actually an attempt to repress his rampant homosexuality (although, curiously, the campest Blofeld was the one with hair: Charles Grey in Diamonds Are Forever)? As for Kojack - clearly a gay romanctic triangle between Theo Kojack, his boss (the older man) and Sgt Crocker (the young stud), disguised as a detective drama.

What really fascinates me are the implications for soap operas. Does Oaten's revelation actually mean that the rivalry between slap-headed thug Phil Mitchell and wimpy Ian Beale in Eastenders is really some kind of courtship? Will all the violence and threats culminate in Phil planting a huge smacker of a kiss on Ian's lips? Did Phil only marry Kathy, Ian's mother, as some kind of surrogate for her son, in an attempt to suppress the developing homosexuality which accompanied his hair loss? Even more disturbingly, will future episodes feature Phil's even more slap-headed brother Grant groping Kevin Wicks' arse - will there be a cliffhanger in which Peggy comes down into the bar of the Queen Vic one morning to find her son Grant rolling around on the floor, naked, with Patrick Truman (who still has his trilby on)?

Another Unsolved Mystery

Once again, I find my thoughts turning to those great mysteries of the world: does the Yeti exist, who built stonehenge, and whatever happened to John Noakes? The fate of the cheeky cheery former Blue Peter presenter has perplexed the minds of those of us who grew up with him scaling Nelson's Column, jumping out of aeroplanes and being crapped on by elephants. Apart from his all-too brief sojourn as host of Go With Noakes, his adult-orientated follow-up to Blue Peter, in which he made weekly attempts to persuade the most attractive models, actresses and general crumpet 'go' with him every week, nothing has been heard of this intrepid TV adventurer.

According to urban legend, Noakes embarked on a solo round-the-world yacht voyage after being spurned by long-time unrequited object of infatuation Irene Handel in the last episode of Go With Noakes. She apparently opted to go with a hoover attachment instead. Shortly after setting sail Noakes vanished - despite exhaustive searches of Twickenham and Cricklewood, no trace of him or his boat have ever been found. One popular theory to explain his disappearance is that he ran aground on a woman named Rita in Streeatham shortly after setting sail. After several days foundering on her ample breasts, he apparently managed to swim southwards and was apparently spotted in the saloon bar of a pub in Tooting, where he was rescued by a group of passing Russian sailors. Despite occaisional unconfirmed sightings in pubs as far afield as Spitalfields and even Woolwich, there has been no concrete information as to his fate.

The BBC did, allegedly, make some attempts to locate him (mainly to try and claim back the £3.50 in expenses he was mistakenly awarded when issued with a first class rail ticket rather than the usual second class for a trip to a glass works in Stoke in 1975). Most notable of these was when his Blue Peter successor Peter Duncan was despatched to Luton in an episode of his post-Blue Peter series, Duncan Dares. Sandwiched between the episode where he dared to appear in a porn film, and the one in which he dared to stick his todger between the jaws of a man-eating tiger, this programme followed Duncan as he trawled the seedy bars and back streets of Luton in search of the lost Noakes. Despite suffering dysentry (two buckets), being bitten by wild prostitutes and being chased out of a gay club by a band of semi-naked savages, he could find no trace of his predecessor.

So, if you have any information as to the current whereabouts of John Noakes, don't hesitate to contact us - with your help, we might be able to finally lay to rest one of the modern world's most enduring unsolved mysteries!

Wheelchair Skateboarding...

Apparently it is the new craze sweeping the nation. At least according to the trailer I saw for my ITV regional news programme this evening. This pronouncement was accompanied by footage of a wheelchair doing the blunt on a half-pipe (yes folks, I'm down with the kids and know the terminology) by its user. After this tantalising glimpse of a bizarre new world, I decided that the news item itself could only disappoint me. So I didn't bother to watch it. Of course, my imagination immediately set to work and just wouldn't leave the subject alone.

The question which bothered me most was: are the wheelchairs being used for skateboarding by their rightful disabled owners, or are they being commandeered by able-bodied skateboarders? The former possibility conjures up the image of Professor Stephen Hawking using his electric wheelchair to hit the half-pipe and do the equarial or the drop-in, his electronic voice, all the while, shouting such things as "Whooo!" or "Radical, dude". From there, it is a short jump to imagining the disabled participating in other extreme sports - guys on crutches balancing on surf boards as they do a tube; some guy with cerebral palsy BMXing; or maybe quadraplegic inline skating. The mind boggles. Not that I'm saying that the disabled shouldn't try any of this (maybe we could set up the 'para x-games?) - it's just an amazing set of mental images!

Personally, though, I prefer the second explanation for the item: that wheelchairs are being stolen by able-bodied extreme sports fanatics in search of new thrills. The thought of Tony Hawks doing an acid drop in the average wheelchair is just wonderful! Or how about taking the wheels off and going snowboarding? Could this indeed become the next youth craze? Will we see wheelchairs and invalid carriages hijacked by marauding gangs of youths, who then go joy-riding in them? I can see it now: sink estates all over Britain littered with the burnt-out hulks of abandoned stolen wheelchairs. Perhaps instead of burning them, stolen wheelchairs will be sent to 'chop shops', resprayed and customised with alloy wheels and spoilers for the 'boy racers'. It must surely be only a matter of time before someone turns up on Pimp My Ride UK asking Westwood to turn their invalid carriage into what looks like a glittering electric-powered brothelon wheels...

Sherlock Holmes and The Whips of Fear (Episode Two)

The Story So Far: Top Victorian Sex Crime Investigators Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson have their breakfast interrupted by the arrival of Inspector Lestrade. The Scotland Yard man brings news of a series of horrific attacks - all perpetrated in houses of ill-repute. An astounded Holmes and Watson learn that in each case the genitals were snapped off of a sexually explicit sculpture and smashed to pieces!

"Good God, that's astounding," I exclaimed. "You are quite right, Lestrade, it could only be the work of a depraved sex-maniac, possibly with a severe case of penis-envy!"

"Indeed, Watson, that is one explanation," mused Holmes, sucking on his long-stemmed pipe. "But tell me, Lestrade, were all of these sculptures identical, by any chance?"

"That they were, Mr Holmes," the Scotland Yard man concurred. "They were all plaster casts of an original sculpture."

Holmes leant forward intently, fingering the firm rounded bowl of his pipe, before asking: "And what exactly did these sculptures represent, Inspector?" The police detective fingered his collar uncomfortably, before replying to Holmes' enquiry.

"They depicted a pair of male youths engaged in cetain acts," he stuttered, his face reddening. "I've never seen anything like it before. Well, except maybe that time in the municipal steam baths at Bow. Come to think of it there was that time in the changing rooms after the Metropolitan Police-Royal Navy rugger match..."

"When you say 'certain acts', Lestrade, I assume that you mean that they were 'going Greek'? Holmes's question was met by a blank look from the Inspector. "Perhaps they were 'going up the old dirt road', Inspector? 'Building a log cabin?' Playing 'Jacksie Jockey'?"

Lestrade's face lit up in understanding at the last phrase. "That's it precisely! The shattered penises belonged to the one on the receiving end, so to speak. Moreover, both of the figures are masked, making identification impossible!"

"Masked, eh? Could it be that the original models are public figures?" I pondered. "The masks intended to shield them from scandal?"

"I don't know about that Doctor - they appear to be some type of fuzzy-wuzzy ceremonial masks. For all we know that could be standard dress code for these sodomites," Lestrade responded. "Besides I couldn't imagine any gentleman participating in such acts! Personally, I think the masks indicate they were filthy foreign perverts!"

"Perhaps, Inspector," I said. "But the masks surely preclude the possibility of these being personal attacks directed at the model?"

"Not entirely, Watson. Perhaps the model can be identified by other means," observed Holmes cryptically. "Also the fact that the attacks are confined to this particular penis in this particular sculpture, would seem to rule out penis-envy or any other form of sexual madness. No gentlemen, I believe that this is the work of a highly intelligent individual with some sort of close connection with his victim!"

"Could he have contracted a dose of the arse-clap from the man in sculpture, and is symbolically taking his revenge?" I speculated.

"That is one possibility, Watson," said Holmes. "It seems to me that, as the models in the sculpture cannot be identified, then the next logical step is to locate the sculptor. I don't suppose you have any clues as to his identity, Lestrade?"

"Unfortunately not, Mr Holmes," the inspector replied, rising from his seat. "Apparently the sculptures were bought through a third party - some kind of wholesaler that the institutions in question are unwilling to name, for fear that we'll close them down! I'm afraid that we're at a dead end on these terrible attacks! It was too much for me to suppose you could do any more!"

"I fear you are correct, Inspector," said Holmes, rising and escorting Lestrade to the door. "By the way, out of curiosity, what were the premises at which these attacks took place?"

"Madame Whiplash's in Westminster, the 'House of Rubber' on the Edgeware Road and the latest was at Mrs Wackworth's 'Pleasure Palace' in Lambeth," volunteered Lestrade as he left.

"Get your hat and coat, Watson, the game's afoot," Holmes exclaimed as soon as the policeman had departed.

"But I thought you told Lestrade there were no leads?" I enquired, perplexed by my friend's state of agitation. "Is there some significance in the establishment's he mentioned?"

"Indeed, Watson! You will recall that last spring we had cause to visit the 'House of Rubber' in connection with the blackmailing of Lord Lanyard and ascertained that the strap-on used to fatally sodomise young Jenkins the Naval clerk was made of Indian rubber," said Holmes impatiently, adjusting his hat.

"Ah, yes," I recalled. "Lanyard was allergic to India rubber, proving that he could not have worn the murder weapon and that the photographs were faked!"

"Exactly, Watson! I also established that such strap-ons were supplied to the 'House of Rubber' by an importer and wholesaler in the East India docks, which also supplied virtually every other such establishment in central London," he continued. "That, my dear fellow, is where we are headed!"

Within the hour we were knocking on the door of a dingy warehouse in Codpiece Street. "Strange that there's no reply - the place is usually a hive of activity at this time of day," mused Holmes, pushing at the door, which appeared to be unlocked. As the door swung open we were greeted by a horrific sight: a cloaked figure stood over a prone body, with what appeared to be a blood-stained giant penis in one hand. "Quick Watson, we must stop him," cried Holmes, rushing through the door. As I followed I felt something brush past my legs, pushing me off balance. Struggling to stay on my feet, I saw the figure swing his priapic club at Holmes, catching him a glancing blow on the shoulder. As Holmes fell, his assailant turned toward me, and I saw that his face was covered by some kind of ceremonial African mask. Before I could react, the attacker was upon me, swinging his giant penis toward my head!

To Be Continued...