Glastonbury Up the Bum

I was put off of Glastonbury early on this year. I caught a bit of the BBC's live coverage on Friday night when I waiting for a repeat of The Avengers to begin. Unfortunately, Jimmy Cliff (who I was sure was dead), was over-running. Badly. As I was shouting "OK, you've had your five minutes of fame, now fuck off, I want to watch young Diana Rigg in her kinky boots", when I thought I recognised someone in the audience. My heart sank at the sight of this bald twat clutching a trumpet. "It can't be.." I thought as the camera panned away from the apparition. Just at that moment I heard some familiar notes blown from a trumpet - it was him. 'Him' is one of my neighbours. He's one of those people who likes to describe themselves as being 'big in the local music scene' . Around here that's like saying you are the biggest turd at the sewage farm. The reality is that it means he plays in pubs a lot, thereby ruining other peoples' nights out. He's also well-known for forcing his way onto stage at various gigs and concerts and attempting to play his trumpet. Twat.

Anyway, as I walked past his house the next morning I took satisfaction from the fact that he'd obviously forgotten to cancel his milk, and he had two pints of milk and a pint of orange juice curdling away in the sunshine on his doorstep. Happily, they were still there today. I must admit that when I saw on the news yesterday that Amy Winehouse had allegedly hit someone in the audience at Glastonbury, I prayed that it was my neighbour. "That'll teach him to go around thrusting his horn at young women", I thought. "Hopefully, she shoved it up his arse." Sadly, I found out today that it wasn't him after all. Bugger. It means the bastard will be back tomorrow, playing his bloody trumpet at all hours. People like him are precisely the reason I avoid music festivals - utter twats.

OK, That's It...

...I give up. I've just about had enough of falling traffic to The Sleaze over the past month. Despite looking like it was recovering over the past few days, today it is virtually non-existent. It doesn't seem to matter what I do, nobody is interested any more. Well, that's fine, I've got enough shit going on elsewhere in my life, so if you bastards can't be bothered to read it, I don't see why I should be bothered writing it. It's not as if anybody who actually does visit The Sleaze is remotely interested in satire - they all seem to have been searching for 'dirty whores', 'my wife fucked', 'big cocks up arse' and other such intellectually enlightened things. So there you have it - fuck you, fuck you all! Adios arseholes!

Me and Nelson Mandela

It is only fitting that on the occasion of the great man's 90th birthday, I regale you with my Nelson Mandela story. Yes folks, it's true, Doc Sleaze, purveyor of low-grade smut and a man once described as 'grossly offensive' by certain senior figures in Britain's intelligence community, once had an encounter with Mr Mandela, undoubtedly one the most genuinely saintly people in history. Now, I know what you are thinking - that I'm going to tell some scurrilous story of how he tried to sell me some hot porn featuring F W De Clerk and half the Zulu nation. But you'd be wrong. Completely wrong. My story is very simple. Way back when Mandela was President of South Africa and made that State visit to London - you remember, it was when he kept Maggie Thatcher waiting for an audience, and when we thought the new Blair administration was the dawn of a bright new era - I was still working in London. One lunchtime, whilst walking down Whitehall to my favourite sandwich shop, I noticed a motorcade sweeping its way down the street toward me.

As the limousine at the motorcade's heart came closer, I could see that the back seat was occupied by none other than Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II and President Mandela. As the car came level with me I couldn't help but notice that Her Majesty was studiously ignoring me by looking fixedly at the opposite side of the street. Now, Mr Mandela, by contrast, not only looked in my direction, but he smiled and waved at me. Yes folks, he waved at me. There was no one else on that side of the road. It was definitely me he was waving at. Naturally, I responded - I gave him the thumbs up sign and the motorcade swept on toward Parliament. OK, so I know it would be a better story if he'd got the driver to stop the limo and offered me a lift. Then I could have told you of how, sat between Nelson and Lizzie, I offered them the benefit of my wit and wisdom, advising them to get down with the sleaze, or whatever. But that didn't happen. What did happen was that in that moment, I briefly made a connection with a living legend. Nelson Mandela is undoubtedly one of the greatest human beings of our time - and he waved at me. I'd like to say that it changed my life profoundly, that I gave up my life of sleaze and instead devoted my life to good works. But obviously, that didn't happen. However, it did make my day, and still makes me smile all these years later.

Fat Chance

Fat people. We all know the stereotype - the jolly fat bloke, jowls wobbling as he laughs at some amusing self-deprecating remark he’s made about his size. Oliver Hardy, Fatty Arbuckle, Sydney Greenstreet, Hermann Goering, Orson Welles, Robert Maxwell, Bernard Manning, John Candy and Chris Farley - they all fit the image. Oh how we laughed at their amusing antics! Well, for too long these gross wobble-bottoms have taken refuge behind this facade of cuddly, good-natured bonhomie - now it is time to expose the sordid truth behind some of the world’s best known fat gits. Whilst the sexual depravities and Keystone Cop buggering activities of silent comedian Fatty Arbuckle are well chronicled, few are aware of the antics of his better-remembered contemporary Oliver Hardy. Bisexual Hardy had gargantuan sexual appetites to match his size and his wild orgies became well known in 1930s Hollywood. Hardy liked nothing better than to be taken by several rent-boys at a time. Indeed, legend has it that at least one unfortunate rent-boy vanished into his ample buttocks, never to be seen again. Hardy was also an accomplished voyeur and, in 1940, he suffered a near-fatal heart attack whilst spying on rising starlet Evelyn Ankers. A sudden erection caused by the sight of her taking her bra off resulted in a massive rush of blood to his member, leaving his straining heart unable to supply the rest of his grossly overweight frame. Simultaneously clutching his knob and his chest he fell off of the milk-crate he had been balancing on outside Ankers’ bathroom window, crying “That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into Little Stanley!”. Little Stanley being his pet name for his penis. The shock waves created as he hit the ground could be felt as far away as Santa Monica. Although Hardy survived the seizure, his career and reputation quickly went into decline, becoming an object of ridicule after notorious gossip columnist Hedda Hopper made reference to “Laurel and Hard On” in her column.

The great Orson Welles suffered weight-related problems whilst filming Casino Royale in the UK in 1967, when he was mistaken for a lost Sperm Whale. During a break in filming Welles had decided to visit Brighton and take a dip in the sea. He quickly found himself surrounded by small boats and frogmen wielding electric cattle-prods. Fearing that he could prove hazardous to shipping the Royal Navy decided to try and guide him out into the open sea. The director and star of such cinematic masterpieces as Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil and Chimes at Midnight was forced to swim six miles out to sea before the Royal Navy would leave him alone. Even then his ordeal did not end. He had the misfortune to be spotted by a passing Norwegian Whaler and was chased by them and two factory ships for a further ten miles. In scenes reminiscent of his celebrated London stage production of Melville’s Moby Dick, the larger than life thespian had to dodge harpoons hurled at him by burly Scandinavians. Whilst the Ministry of Defence, severely embarrassed by the incident, have always denied that it ever occurred. However, a retired Admiral has confided that the Navy had feared for the safety of its aircraft carriers, which easily have been seriously damaged or even sunk in a collision with a whale. “No man is an island,” he told us. “But Orson Welles came pretty damn close. He was clearly a danger to shipping and should have been torpedoed!”

Uniform Hatred

As up to date as ever, I thought I'd finally get round to ranting about the latest lunatic proposals from the government to promote 'Britishness'. I really don't know where this obsession with national identity has come from. Oh, I know that the likes of the Daily Mail like to tell us that 'multiculturalism' is diluting our 'Britishness', but that's utter bollocks. Multiculturalism has been around as long as I can remember - when I was growing up in the1970s we thought that the diversity of cultures we had in this country - living more or less in harmony - was something to be proud of. Tolerance was very highly rated in those days. Indeed, we even believed that we could learn something from eachother's cultures, thereby strengthening our own, British, culture. But getting back to the point, the government has got it into its head that pride in our military has something to do with regaining our supposedly lost 'Britishness'. Consequently, we now seem to have soldiers parading through the streets every five minutes, as we all give them thanks for simply doing the jobs they're paid to do. I'm a public servant. I work in an inner-city war zone. I'm frequently at risk (although I don't have the option of calling down air strikes on those threatening me). Strangely, nobody is giving me the freedom of the Borough or having receptions in my honour.

Even worse, we now have some Minister or other proposing that August Bank Holiday become some sort of celebration of 'Britishness', with local communities deciding how they might want to express their 'Britishness' - through military parades, no doubt. For fuck's sake, the last thing we bloody need is being told how to spend our Bank Holidays! The whole point of a Bank Holiday is that it is a day free of routine, when we do whatever we please. This is especially true of August Bank Holiday, as it is the last public holiday we get until Christmas. It also should mark the height of Summer. Both very good reasons for simply kicking back and enjoying the day - without 'events' or soldiers marching around. If the government wants a special 'Britishness' day, then create a new bloody Bank Holiday for it - we're already short of them compared to the rest of Europe. Hands off our Bank Holidays! And while I'm still ranting - what is it with this uniform fetish we seem to have these days? Going back to my childhood - we were rightly suspicious of anyone who had a thing for dressing up like that. Thanks to Hitler and the Cold War, everybody knew that the only people who liked uniforms enough to want people wearing them to be parading down the streets all the time, were either Fascists or Stalinists. Mulitculturalism was better than uniformity, we thought. You know something - we were right.

Resolutions Resolved?

Well, here we are, more or less half way through the year. So this might be a good time to review the progress of those New Year resolutions I outlined back in December. Foremost amongst these, you might recall (who am I kidding? Nobody reads this toss regularly), was a resolution to give up on unrequited love and stop falling for women who barely notice me. Amazingly, its so far, so good, as far this one is concerned. Barring a couple of infatuations with celebrity women, (who don't know me at all, and who I'm never going to meet, so their lack of response doesn't matter), I've successfully avoided any romantic obsessions with real women. It's been bloody marvellous, free from all the angst which unrequited love generates, I've been able to think straight and devote my full attention and energy to other areas of my life. Consequently, I've felt so much happier in myself these past few months.

This, in turn, has helped me tackle resolution number two - being happier with my lot. I've spent far less time since the New Year worrying that life is passing me by, or that other people are doing 'better' than me. I'm pretty much happy being where I am, doing what I want to do. I don't need careers, more money or material possessions to make me happy. So, what about the other resolutions? Am I any more confident in my own abilities? Well, I still think I'm going to be 'found out' at any minute, but I'm getting there. Not being knocked back in the romance stakes all the time is helping. However, I'm afraid that I still haven't learned to like Russell Brand any more than I do - really, I've tried. But it's no good - I think he's a twat. Still, he doesn't seem to be on TV as much as he was last year - obviously he's no longer the 'next big thing'. Never mind, I'm sure they'll soon be inflicting some other talentless prick on us, and giving me someone else to go apoplectic over.

Fuelling the Unrest

Riots sparked by increasing fuel and food prices nearly had to be called off when it was found that participants couldn't afford to buy petrol for their Molotov cocktails. "It's bloody ridiculous - how the hell are we meant to create mayhem and bring the country to its knees when they can't keep petrol prices down?" complained protester Dan Puker, in between hurling bricks at riot police in Birmingham's city centre. "I just thank God for those low supermarket alcohol prices - we were able to buy gallons of vodka for the price of a single tankful of petrol. It's brilliant - you even get the glass bottles this way!"

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has vowed to use his talks with OPEC leaders to try and bring oil prices back within the reach of rioters, anarchists and arsonists. "It's clear to me that this is a serious curb on people's civil liberties," he told a press conference. "Every Briton should have the right to fire bomb inner-city properties - it's part of our basic right to protest at injustice." Brown's stance is a response to criticism from Labour left-wingers that escalating petrol prices were threatening to turn arson and anarchy into activities that only the rich could afford. "Apparently, there's a very real risk that working class arsonists could vanish altogether," said Brown. "We cannot allow another vital skill to be lost from this country."

A Better Class of Criminal?

Yet another searing indictment - if ever one was needed - of those bloody toffs trying to take over the country has been on display in the press this week. I refer, of course, to the trial of British mercenary Simon Mann, for his part in an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea a few years ago. Needless to say that he is an old Etonian - see, the bastards aren't satisfied with just taking over this country, they want to seize everybody else's as well! It's all part of that sense of superiority they inculcate in pupils at British public schools - they turn out people who truly believe that they are the natural ruling class. We shouldn't be surprised that the former Prime Minister's son, Mark Thatcher, has been implicated in this abortive coup. He really is the unacceptable face of privilege. The fact that he owes his entire position and wealth to the fact that his mother is Maggie Thatcher, rather than to any skills on his part, doesn't seem to bother him. He may have come from 'new money', but the attitude is the same as the established 'ruling class' - they happily exploit wealth, power and position which they have inherited by accident of birth, rather than acquiring them through merit.

I daresay Thatcher will try and justify his alleged involvement by saying that he was simply trying to acquire Equatorial Guinea for his mother. She needs a hobby in her retirement and, being so used to running a country, he thought the perfect gift would be the dictatorship of a small nation nobody had heard of, or cared about. There's a part of me which hopes that not just Simon Mann, but all the other toffs, including Mark Thatcher, involved with this disgraceful adventure, are arrested, convicted and locked up in some disgusting third world prison for a very long time. You know the sort of place - hot, sweaty and serving buggery for breakfast. Perhaps twenty years of taking it up the jacksie from some psychopathic sex murderer might teach them some humility. The trouble is that they'd probably enjoy it - it would be like being back at public school for these degenerates. Much as it pains me to say so, but perhaps the death penalty is the only suitable punishment for these bastards. But not death through buggery - I wouldn't want to leave them with smiles on their faces.

Right Off the Target

Don't you just hate it when somebody completely misses the point of a piece of satire? Indeed, completely miss the point of satire itself? Not surprisingly, I experience quite a lot of this, when people fail to grasp that everything on The Sleaze is completely fictional and intended to be read as satire. Recently, however, I came across an astounding example which didn't involve any of my work. What makes this particular example so incredible is that those doing the misunderstanding clearly fancy themselves as satirists. To cut to the point, I had the misfortune to stumble across a right-wing would-be humour site that seems to see its role as redressing the balance against all us naughty left-wingers (or 'progressives' as it likes to call anybody who doesn't embrace the Bush world-view). As a response to similarly photo shopped images of Bush, it presented two pictures of Barack Obama, one in the guise of Mad Magazine's Alfred E Newman and the other showing him as Hitler. Now, this is their 'ironic' justification of these pictures:

"Leave it to rightwingers to describe Barack Obama as Hitler, Alfred E. Newman, or Barakula! Progressive satirists would've never done this to Republican candidates! We would've never printed a picture of George Bush as Alfred E. Newman on a magazine cover and ranked it in top 40 best magazine covers! Progressives would've never put a mustache on Bush's face and call him Bushitler. "

But obviously (to any semi-intelligent person, anyway), it simply isn't the same thing at all. The depictions of Bush had clear satirical purpose, based upon his persona and policy. Depicting him as an idiot, or as a repressive dictator presiding over military invasions of foreign countries and the repression of civil liberties at home, whilst clearly an exaggeration, make sense within the context of actual events. It's called satire. Depicting Obama, who is not in power, who has not embarked upon any military adventures and has not oppressed anybody's civil liberties, makes no sense whatsoever. Indeed, depicting a black man as a dictator who presided over the genocide of racial minorities in Europe is downright offensive.

Just in case this was an isolated example of missing the point, I had a look at a few other articles on the site. These simply confirmed my initial impression - these people are utterly clueless. One item, in particular, caught my eye; a whinge against Google. Incredibly, these clowns were (as far as I could see, quite seriously), taking Google to task for celebrating such events as 'Earth Day' by customising its logo whilst ignoring Veteran's Day or D Day! Jesus! Where do I start with this crap? You see guys, Google is a global brand, and is understandably keen to promote global events. Events which might not otherwise get that level of publicity. Veteran's Day, by contrast, is a purely American event (the rest of us tend to have Remembrance Day, instead), one which everyone who's likely to be interested in already knows about. As for D Day, well, what about the Battle of Trafalgar, Waterloo, Austerlitz, El Alamein, Iwo Jima, etc? We can't spend all our time 'celebrating' dates from history.

Far from 'redressing the balance', these guys are simply revealing themselves as a bunch of humourless knee-jerk reactionaries. A word of advice guys, try actually understanding what satire is and how it works before you try to respond to it. You are so missing the point!

Traffic Jam

A technical interlude, folks. Today, I'd like to talk about web traffic. Most specifically, I'd like to talk about The Sleaze's web traffic. This has been significantly down over the past few weeks. Not just in terms of page views, but, more worryingly, in terms of visitors. I can't remember the last time I had to endure such a poor run of traffic. Right now, traffic has regressed back to the levels of two years ago, after a sustained period of growth. So, what's changed to cause this? Well, nothing in The Sleaze itself, that's for sure. The same stories which have traditionally generated traffic are still there in the archives and have been joined by newer stories which, until a couple of weeks ago, were also proving popular. Maybe I've gone out of fashion; overnight, apparently. Part of the problem is that I'm largely reliant upon traffic from search engines, mainly Google, as I don't advertise and really can't be bothered to exchange links with sites I don't like in the hope of generating a handful of visitors. Consequently, if people aren't searching for terms contained in my pages, they won't come to me. Ironically, I'm not short of traffic from search engine spiders, indexing the site. Sadly, these aren't translating into real life visitors. Of course, there are all sorts of things which could be distracting my usual visitors - Euro 2008 comes to mind.

So, what's the solution? I'm not sure there is a simple solution. I'm updating my sitemap, which might help with the indexing of my pages on search engines, but as I said earlier, indexing doesn't seem to be the problem. I could try tweaking the key words I use to try and optimise the pages for popular searches. Now, here we come to the other big issue I wanted to discuss - quality of traffic. You can have thousands of visitors a day coming to your site, but if they're arriving there as a result of searches for something completely different to the actual subject matter of the site, they are unlikely to stick around or return. That's the problem with relying upon the vagaries of search engines. I find that the overwhelming majority of visitors from search engines are actually searching for porn, or porn-related, subject matter. They get a satire site by accident. I've decided that I want better quality traffic - visitors who are actually looking for satire. Even if this means lower overall traffic levels. After all, there's really no point in slaving away producing content if it doesn't get read by people who might appreciate it. S0, how do I achieve this? That's a tricky one. As a first step, I'm overhauling my key words to try and match those most closely associated by Google with searches for satire-type material. It's a small step, one which will take a while to have any effect, but in the long run it might mean that I'm actually reaching my target audience. We'll see.

Gordon Brown, Going Down

Embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown has angrily denied that he bought the support of rebel Labour MPs and Ulster Unionists for new measures allowing police to hold terror suspects for up to forty-two days without charge by promising them sexual favours. "These are absolutely outrageous claims - at no time did I tell any backbenchers that I'd give them a blow-job if they voted for the Bill," he told BBC News. "I can also quite categorically deny that bus loads of prostitutes were delivered to the back entrance of the Commons, or that the Labour whips were sent out into Soho to round up every available rent boy in advance of the vote. The government won the debate through reasoned argument, not sexual bribery!" However, the Daily Excess is threatening to publish the transcripts of several taped telephone conversations which appear to undermine the Premier's denials. "They're absolute dynamite - in one Brown can clearly be heard trying to persuade a rebel backbencher to vote for the Bill," says the newspaper's Deputy Editor, Ron Bigwadd. "Eventually the MP becomes completely exasperated and tells Brown to 'stick up your arse, Gordon'. Brown responds by asking him where, when and by how many inches."

Although dismissed by Labour loyalists as 'Tory dirty tricks', there is no doubt that the voice on the tape sounds remarkably like the Prime Minister. Worse still, several of the MPs allegedly bribed to vote with the government have come forward to explain why they changed their stance on the controversial Bill. "I know that many of my constituents are surprised by the way I voted, bearing in mind the fact that I was implacably opposed to the measures beforehand, but the Prime Minister put me in an impossible situation," says Labour backbencher Harold Toenail. "He just kept on ringing me at all hours of the day and night to try and persuade me to change my mind. It was quite disturbing, but I wouldn't budge. He finally asked me what he'd have to do to convince me to alter my stance - I never thought he actually would ride a bicycle naked around my kitchen, before bending himself over the kitchen table and allowing me to spray his buttocks with salad dressing before spanking him with a stick of rhubarb! But after he'd done that, it would have been rude of me not to keep up my end of the bargain!"

Several Ulster Unionist MPs have also come forward to admit that they too, were bribed by Gordon Brown with bizarre promises. "It is true that Mr Brown agreed to allow me to ride him bareback around my Westminster office, whilst he whinnied like a horse," declares David Arse, leader of the Unionist Bastards Alliance, claiming that his decision to 'blow the whistle' on the government's desperate tactics was prompted by Brown's failure to fulfil all of his promises. "The Prime Minister also assured me that he could obtain some highly sought-after (in Loyalist circles, at least), pornography featuring pictures of the Pope and Mr Tony Blair naked in bed together. However, this has failed to materialise." Niall Nesbolt, leader and sole MP of of the Ulster Naturist Association, has also revealed the incentive which persuaded him to support the government in the vital vote: "Mr Brown has promised us that, in future, every twelfth of July, we will be able to parade naked - apart from our bowler hats and umbrellas, obviously - through Catholic areas of Belfast and Londonderry."

Naturally, the opposition have seized upon these revelations, arguing that they demonstrate just how desperate the government has become. "Really, votes for blow jobs, just how low can they go?" asks Tory leader David Cameron, who points out that this isn't the first time that a Labour government has resorted to such tactics in order to cling to power. "We all know that the Lib-Lab pact which kept Jim Callaghan in power in 1978 was sealed in a sleazy Soho strip club, with the Prime Minister, clad only in a stetson and cowboy boots, entertaining all nine Liberal MPs with a routine involving a lasso." However, some Labour MPs have responded by pointing out that the Tory Party is equally culpable when it comes to using dubious practices to ensure vital votes are won. "Some of us can remember back to the Macmillan government," says senior back bench MP Frank Crutchless, "and haven't forgotten the time he quelled that back bench rebellion over the 1960 budget by having every man Jack of the 1922 Committee buggered to within an inch of their lives by that gay body builder."

Britain's Got Talent...

...Like fuck it has! Apparently (according to ITV, anyway), Britain's most talented person is some teenager who break dances under a shower. I'd be laughing if that bloody programme didn't get such huge viewing figures. It's all part of this bloody myth that there is this great pool of untapped talent out there, just waiting to be discovered. Depressingly, even the present Prime Minister subscribes to this baseless belief. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of the 'acts' uncovered by programmes like Britain's Got Talent, X-Factor and Pop Idol, were previously undiscovered because they were shite. OK, maybe I'm being a little unfair on the winners; some of them have scaled the heights of mediocrity. Let's face it, whilst they might get a quick number one single off the back of winning the contest, most of them quickly, and deservedly, sink without trace. Nobody buys their records because they're talented - rather because they've seen them on TV. Because we all know that if you're on TV, you must be talented.

But that's the problem, the spawn of these TV talent shows, along with their brethren from so-called 'reality' TV, simply aren't talented in any conventional sense of the term. Far from being talent contests, these programmes are just freak shows. My biggest problem with them is that by promoting these no-hopers (who generally don't seem to grasp that they are being laughed at, not with, by the audience), these programmes are encouraging every loser out there to believe that they've got some kind of talent. Consequently, I can no longer walk into a pub without my ears being assailed by some out-of-tune drunk screeching out the lyrics to an Elvis number in front of a karaoke machine. Either that or I have to put up with some would be DJ (who is probably a bricklayer by day), shouting inane comments over Dire Straits records. Worst of all, I often have to endure various 'musicians' performing (if that's the right word) their own 'compositions' on 'music' nights. Of course, you aren't allowed to point out how shockingly awful these 'performers' are - they're talented for God's sake! Besides, what do you know if you aren't famous and on the telly yourself? That's the sad thing, each and every one of these losers actually believes - thanks to these TV shows - that they're just another performance away from being 'discovered', whereas, in reality, they're just ruining everybody else's night out.

Spy Watch

We're living in a surveillance society, so they say. Every where we go our movements, no matter how mundane, are monitored. Even the simplest transaction now seems to require the provision of vast amounts of personal data to officialdom. The whole concept of privacy seems to be under threat. Not, of course, that this seems to be worrying the majority of the great British public. Indeed, the erosion of our civil liberties generally doesn't seem to worry them. Indeed, a recent poll claimed that a majority of voters supported the introduction of new laws allowing the police to hold so-called 'terror' suspects for up to forty-two days without charge - a clear undermining of the basic principles of habeas corpus. Now, whilst this is, in part, undoubtedly due to the fact that people in this country are ignorant and ill-informed, taking most of their 'opinions' from the Sun or the Daily Mail, it is also down to the complacency of the middle classes. They're idea of 'liberty' is having the freedom to buy whatever they like. Consequently, whilst the continued destruction of our civil liberties passes with barely a murmur, increases in the price of fuel cause massive protests and displays of civil disobedience.

However, whilst the state and its agents seem to like taking your picture, they don't seem to like you taking any pictures. Just lately the media has been full of stories of police and local authorities preventing individuals from taking photographs in public places, usually on the grounds of 'security'. Clearly, as this seems to upset them so much, the only way to hit back at them in this battle over our freedom is to give them a taste of their own medicine. I propose that we start loitering outside of the headquarters of the various intelligence agencies, taking pictures of anybody going in or out of their main entrances. Whilst that alone should be guaranteed to get a reaction, what we should then do is post these pictures up on the web. Maybe we could create a new site - 'spywatch.co.uk' or something. If we can identify them, even better - 'name and shame' them as snoopers. If such treatment is good enough for nonces, then surely it is good enough for the voyeuristic bastards who poke their noses into our lives. Let's take it all a stage still further and start following these bastards to their homes, photographing and videoing them all the way. Watch their houses. Go through their bins. Report everything you find on the website. Trust me, this is the only way that we can even begin to wrest back our civil liberties from the state - by exposing and rendering ineffective their agents! So, get those digital cameras out and start making for GCHQ and Vauxhall Cross!

Skin Deep (Part Three)

At least one film fan believes that some celebrities owe their continuing youth and looks to actual, rather than scientific, vampirism. Willy Grinder, a forty four year old California resident, was recently arrested for attacking Woody Allen with a huge crucifix outside of a Beverly Hills jazz club. “If only I’d remembered to use a Star of David instead of a crucifix, the world would have seen Woody Allen crumble into dust, and I would have been vindicated”, says Grinder, who believes that the celebrated comic director and actor is a blood-sucking beast who preys upon young girls, sucking out their youthful life essence in order to prolong his own existence. Most disagree, believing that he is merely a dirty old man. “I have incontrovertible proof that many of Hollywood’s greatest names are actually vampires”, Grinder asserts. “How else can you explain their eternal youth, health and ever-present sunglasses? Why are they rarely seen in daylight, preferring to attend premieres and parties after dark?”

In 1999 he dug up the body of Dracula star Bela Lugosi before staking and decapitating it. He claimed that the body’s amazing state of preservation proved that Lugosi was undead and well, and the fountainhead of the current Hollywood Vampire cult. Horrified Lugosi fans pointed out that the star’s incredibly preserved body was more likely the result of the amount of formaldehyde the hopelessly booze and drug addicted actor had imbibed during his final years. He was in the headlines again the following year, when he claimed to have video footage of Joan Collins bathing in the blood of virgins, and Julie Andrews and Sharon Stone engaging in naked lesbian vampire frolics with nuns - the videotape, however, proved to be blank. “I should have remembered that the undead don’t have video images or reflections”, he explained during the ensuing libel case brought by the actresses. “All their previous movies must have been shot before they were vampirised”. Grinder is currently under psychiatric observation, pending sentencing in the Woody Allen assault case.

Skin Deep (Part Two)

It was long rumoured that distinguished British thespian Sir Rex Harrison relied upon a programme of secret organ transplants and blood transfusions to ensure his longevity. It was claimed that he had shady agreements with several Mexican hospitals to supply him with livers, kidneys and even hearts harvested from patients on their children’s wards. The transplants themselves were allegedly carried out by fugitive Nazi mad scientist Dr Josef Mengele in his secret laboratory hidden deep in the Brazilian rain-forest. Unfortunately, the new organs suffered a high rejection rate, with Harrison visibly ageing as they failed. As his demand for new organs outstripped the Mexican hospitals’ ability to supply them, Harrison apparently took to cruising the streets of Tijuana in his Rolls Royce, posing as an ageing peadophile in order to pick up young boys. The trail of organ-less blood drained bodies baffled Mexican police for decades. It has been claimed that when Sir Rex finally died in 1990, (following the discovery and destruction of Mengele’s lab by Mossad agents in 1988), he was actually 126 years old, rather than 82 years old, as officially claimed.

Harrison’s good friend the Queen Mother was also said to rely upon surgery and blood transfusions to maintain her incredible good looks, (as the Daily Mail observed on the occasion if her 101st birthday, she didn’t look a day over 98), but did not resort to murder or organ-snatching. According to veteran royal-watcher Hugh Ropley-Tossington she regularly had her skin surgically removed and ironed to smooth out the wrinkles. She was then stitched back into it, looking at least five years younger. It has also been claimed that she received regular infusions of lizard and crocodile blood, in the belief that reptilian lower metabolic rates would help increase her lifespan. However, serious side-effects were rumoured, with the News of the World recently claiming that, before her death, she had developed hard, scaly skin and had taken to catching flies with her three-foot long tongue and basking in the sunlight on the banks of the Serpentine. Moreover, when supplies of blood from the reptile house at London Zoo were seen being delivered to the private hospital she was treated in during 2001, it fuelled theories that she was, as claimed by David Icke, actually a shape-shifting lizard from another dimension.

Skin Deep (Part One)

Just how do those apparently ageless Hollywood stars, such as Robert Wagner, Kim Basinger and William Shatner, keep their amazingly youthful good looks? Whilst many claim that it is simply down to healthy eating and regular exercise, and some will admit to cosmetic surgery, there is a long history of various celebrities opting for far more bizarre, and often downright sinister, rejuvenation techniques. Rock Hudson, for instance, always kept a jar of his own jism in his fridge, and would regularly smear it all over his body, in the belief that it would keep his skin soft and supple. He would, apparently, sometimes eat it spread on toast as a breakfast snack. His contemporary, popular screen idol Cary Grant swore by regular injections of monkey hormones to preserve his boyish good looks. Unfortunately, this treatment proved to have long-term side-effects, with Grant regularly being seen swinging through the trees in the grounds of his Beverley Hills mansion. Worse was to come. During the making of North By Northwest, he reportedly once climbed the studio lighting rig and urinated on director Alfred Hitchcock’s head.

A few years later, in 1963, he was arrested by for public indecency after he was caught publicly masturbating in front of a party of schoolgirls in a Los Angeles park. Two nurses who witnessed the incident claimed that he had been abusing himself for at least three hours before this incident, flicking his jism at passing women. Luckily, studio chiefs were able to secure his release and hush up the incident with a generous donation to the LAPD widows and orphans fund. Finally, in 1966, the debonair leading man’s bizarre behaviour became too much when, at the premiere of Walk Don’t Run, he climbed a lamppost outside of the cinema and defecated over several leading tinsletown dignitaries, including movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn. Escaping police, he proceeded to break into the LA Zoo and attempted to make love to two female chimps and an orang-utan. Grant never made another film, instead retiring to his luxury monkey house in Switzerland.

Harold Bishop's Heart of Darkness

I think I've mentioned my soft spot for Australian soap operas here before - I rarely miss an episode of Neighbours or Home and Away. I think its the fact that it always seems to be sunny there, everyone is beautiful and crises rarely last more than five episodes that makes me prefer them to their British equivalents. They're just so much more positive about human nature - the majority of their characters are basically nice, decent human beings. OK, they might occasionally go off the rails, but rarely for more than five episodes, and they rarely do anything really bad during these episodes. Perhaps the most virtuous of all Australian soap character must be Neighbours' Harold Bishop (although, to be fair, Sally in Home and Away could give him a good run for his money). Not only is Harold a stalwart of the Salvation Army, moral conscience to Ramsey Street, and all round good Samaritan, but he is also such a good Christian that he has even been able to forgive local sinners for the most heinous transgressions -including the murder of his son, daughter-in-law and grand daughter.

But just what is it that originally propelled Harold into the arms of Jesus? Usually in soap operas such character traits are explained by some dark episode in the character's past. However, we've never been made party to the reasons behind Harold's conversion, so we can only speculate. Bearing in mind his age, it is entirely possible that Harold, along with many other Australians of his generation, saw active service in Vietnam. (Indeed, it was established in one episode that he'd done National Service and knew how to handle a firearm). Could it be that the dedication to the Christian faith stems from his experiences in the jungles of 'Nam? Is he seeking absolution for his role in the burning down of that village? Was he in the same platoon as Home and Away's Alf Stewart - the one that was involved in that massacre? The one they had to commit to eliminate the witnesses to their terrible mistreatment of that livestock? Was he somehow involved in the trafficking of young Vietnamese girls back to Australia to work as child prostitutes? Sadly, I suspect that we'll never know.