I must say Stuart Hall does look very sad. Either he feels guilty or he used up all his laughter in the 70s. Stuart began his career on Look North. Unfortunately, while you were looking north he’d be going south. Stuart Hall had a room set aside at the BBC where he could entertain ‘lady friends’. No wonder he always appeared animated and excited on screen. He knew he was only seconds away from heading back to his whore-filled room.
Hall got fifteen months. The judge couldn’t have given him fifteen years because there was a worry he’d ejaculate on hearing his sentence. He said there was a vendetta against famous people. Hey, if you don’t want a vendetta against you, maybe don’t abuse so many people they can form a mob. As he was sentenced his victims cried, but he showed no emotion; arousal doesn’t reach an eighty-three-year-old’s face for a good ten minutes. The sentence was lenient because he had to be tried under the 1956 Act. Shame he didn’t have consensual sex with a man. We could have thrown the book at him.
When I think about 70s television one of my major memories is that test-card girl who used to sit really still for hours on end playing noughts and crosses with the clown puppet. Looking back, I think she sat there all night on her own because she was too scared to return to the BBC dressing rooms. You begin to look back at these shows in a different way, now. Was Mr Benn constantly changing outfits just to evade capture from the police? One minute dressed as a Native American, the next as an astronaut, simply to make it harder for his victims to pick him out of a line-up?
Making nostalgia programmes is going to be tricky now. I Remember the 70s will just be full of people crying, with a helpline number at the end. People of my age can’t look back on the 70s with any enjoyment. At least teenagers nowadays can look back at an innocent world of kids’ presenters going on coke binges and hanging themselves. A lot of the guys from the 70s are saying, ‘We didn’t ask the girls’ ages.’ To be fair, the fact she’s telling you about her pets and her favourite princess means you don’t really have to.
With all the scandals, everyone involved in Children in Need must be walking on eggshells. Or sitting in a bath of beans. Whichever raises the most money, I guess. They’re not even allowed to hold any big cheques anymore in case behind one someone is being sucked off by a teenager. Jimmy Savile was banned from Children in Need. Which is lucky, as no one would want to see Pudsey using himself to show the cops where Jimmy touched him.
I must say, I prefer the old Blue Peter appeals. There was one for stamps when I was a little boy. There’d been a famine in Ethiopia, and the great thing was, once the target had been reached they kept the viewers involved by sending the presenters out to show the work of the appeal. I remember they took a jumbo from London to Addis Ababa, then a little propeller plane that landed on an airstrip where the forest had been cleared. Then into a Jeep for a day and a half, with the last twenty miles on foot. I can still recall them now, arriving in this simple of village of mud huts and being met by the grateful chief, who took them into his own hut, which was a little larger, the doorway topped with the feathers from colourful birds. You know something? I think he had the biggest stamp collection I’ve ever seen. There’s nothing like a hobby to take your mind off your appetite.
• • •
Ricky Gervais was cleared of breaking Ofcom rules for calling Susan Boyle a ‘fucking mong’. Quite right, too. Sometimes a joke has such skill in its construction, such heights of imagination and poetry, that it transcends our petty linguistic taboos. I read a columnist describe him as a moron for saying it and adding that she didn’t need to explain why she could use the word ‘moron’ and he couldn’t use ‘mong’. Because that’s where our culture is at in terms of debate – a kind of secondary-school level.
You’d imagine why someone could use one word rather than another would be the starting point of an undergrad-uate seminar. Perhaps we would even ask whether meaning is constructed in the listener (phenomenology), or whether the newspapers that publicised Gervais’s foolishness were authors by relocation. You know, the idea that if I project a porno on to the front of a local nursery school they arrest me rather than Ron Jeremy. Perhaps most of all we would wonder why modern liberals have a set of words they feel must not be used regardless of context. Something you’d normally associate with fundamentalist religion. Instead, we’ve an increasingly infantilising cultural climate of because that’s just why.
It seems strange that nobody ever mentions that the ideas of I want to see interesting, free comedy that pushes boundaries and I never want hear a joke I disagree with are mutually exclusive. Here’s an amusing email my agent got recently:
Hi Hannah
I write a column for the **** ******.
I was concerned to read in the Sun what Frankie Boyle had written about the death of Brian Cobby, best known as the voice of the speaking clock, saying how he had died ‘after his third stroke’.
My understanding is that Mr Cobby did indeed die of a stroke but this seems to me distasteful in any case. I would like a comment from Boyle justifying what he has said and possibly an apology to Mr Cobby’s family.
Thanks, *****
• • •
People who say you don’t see white dog shit anymore haven’t been watching Jeremy Kyle. Jeremy says he has nothing to lose by doing a quiz show because he’s already the most hated man in Britain. That’s a level of self-awareness people will never have thought he had and he’ll have gone up in their estimation. Although he’s still the most hated man in Britain. Kyle’s studios have been fitted with walk-through metal detectors. I hope that sends out a clear message to anyone going – ‘Remember, you can still punch him.’
Somewhere Angelina Jolie’s pre-cancerous boobs are fighting Jeremy’s cancer-ridden testicle in the ultimate battle of good vs evil. I was saddened by the news of Jeremy’s illness, as I was so close to fully disposing of any residual belief from my Catholic upbringing of an interventionist God. Jeremy wanted the results given to him straight. A shame – really, doctors should have made him wait for three minutes while a bingo-fixated cartoon fox tried to trick him into borrow-ing money at 1,000 per cent APR. But all respect to Jeremy. It takes some skill to turn abusing street drinkers into a winning format.
Cancer doesn’t discriminate, which actually makes it morally superior to Jeremy Kyle. Must’ve been quite humbling for cancer to enter Jeremy’s body and find it’s the least toxic substance in there. Like Ian Huntley turning up at a party only to find its Josef Mengele’s house. Jeremy won’t let cancer beat him! He’s never been stopped by lack of talent or conscience, so why stop now? His fans have sent cards. Must be touching to receive a ‘Get Well Soon!’ card from people who’d spit at a fat person. Having just one testicle shouldn’t affect sperm production. A relief for Jeremy, as his pre-show dressing-room ritual consists of ejaculating onto a sculpture of his own face carved from the frozen tears of former guests.
Really, the majority of our TV output is just a kind of sewer of the collective unconscious. On the day of Amanda Knox’s trial Matthew Wright’s show on Channel 5, The Wright Stuff, held a phone-in titled ‘Foxy Knoxy: Would Ya?’ It couldn’t really have been in any worse taste if they’d have gone for ‘Fred and Rosemary West: I Don’t Fancy Yours Much’. Channel 5 insists the discussion was handled sensitively, and how couldn’t it have been when the panel included Christopher Biggins? It reminded me of the time when Matthew Wright discussed the problem of female circumcision with Lion-O from ThunderCats. Matthew knows a sexy murder when he sees one! He realises it would be almost impossible for his viewers to knock one out to the story of a burglar being strangled in Aldershot. And the ‘almost’ in that sentence must really depress him.
*Also, my reading is that Peter Pan and the Lost Boys are the souls of abortions. It would certainly explain Captain Hook.
8
ANIMALS
I love the idea of animals being just like, or even superior to, humans but when you really look at it they just seem unable to do very muc
h. Even the worst human doesn’t eat off the floor. Indeed, if an animal could rise to the worst of human behaviour it would be a startling achievement. Imagine a pony drugged and raped a young woman in a Travelodge. It would become an international celebrity.
For many people a love of animals is simply a last resort. Animals are at least something that can bear to be around you, admittedly because they don’t know how to get food.
We shouldn’t get too conceited, however. We might think that our technological achievements mean we transcend animals, but we’re not using them to transcend anything. We’re using them to eat way too much cheese and broadcast interviews with Bon Jovi.
In many ways pets are more like mirrors – things to project our emotions on to, which makes them feel bored, angry and horny, and annoyed that they have to finish writing their book. We are the descendants of people who kept dogs. The dog’s sense of smell was an evolutionary advantage to early society, so that’s who we are: the people who wiped out everybody sensible on earth, all the decent people who didn’t want to live in a camp covered in shit.
• • •
A fire destroyed the tropical house at Five Sisters Zoo up here in West Lothian. A tropical house in a Scottish zoo? At least the animals would have blissfully croaked ‘Thank God’ as the heat and flames consumed them. They don’t know how it started. My money is on two stick insects shagging.
At Edinburgh Zoo giant pandas Sunshine and Sweetie were filmed attempting to mate. Their keepers got the film off Sunshine’s mobile phone. It could be they’re just so used to being filmed while mating that Sunshine always feels he has to cum on her tits. Mating is tough because the females only ovulate once a year – although that does mean Mr Panda can go the other eleven months without coming home to her crying because he didn’t switch the dishwasher on.
Every year Sweetie only has a day and a half in which to conceive, although a preference for mating in the summer means in a Scottish zoo that window could drop to just eighteen hours. Thirty-six hours to have as much sex as possible – I’d suggest packing them off to a Club 18-30 resort in Faliraki, sharpish. And hope Sunshine’s muscular paws will be able to pull all the Terrys and Daves off Sweetie so he can get a go, too. Of course, there’s a chance that Sunshine wasn’t making repeated attempts at hugs; he might have been just trying to find Sweetie’s zip so he could put away his pyjamas.
London Zoo’s tigers have been given a new enclosure to help them breed. It must be great having sex if you’re a tiger – when they get to go on top it’ll be like doing it on a great big fireside rug. When in season tigers mate ten times a day. I’m told the action’s been so hot that even the panda in the next enclosure’s started wanking.
BBC One show Frozen Planet was accused of fakery because they filmed a polar bear giving birth in a zoo. Of course it wasn’t in the Arctic – the only time David Attenborough goes somewhere that cold is when they place him in a carbonite freezer in between series. MP John Whittingdale described it as ‘hugely disappointing’ – unlike hearing that an MP is spending his time moaning about wildlife shows during the biggest global recession in recent history. TV definitely fakes stuff more than newspapers, a source close to TV said. A friend of Attenborough agreed: ‘TV fakes stuff, but newspapers are great’, said the unnamed source.
And in another case of unnecessary human intervention in the animal world, a woman in Norfolk has taught a chicken to count. That was nice of her; now it knows exactly how many days left till it gets strangled for Christmas. A quarter of pet owners will share Christmas dinner with their pet. Me too. Lobsters may not be that affectionate, but you try getting your cat to pull a cracker.
There’s been a lot of sad news in the animal world recently. Lonesome George the Galapagos turtle died at one hundred years old. The First World War, the Russian Revolution, Hiroshima . . . it’s incredible to think of all the things he must have been completely oblivious to. A record breaker even in death, he’s now the world’s largest ashtray.
We lost another record-breaking animal when the world’s biggest boa constrictor was killed after attacking a man in Florida. Boas pair up for life – on hearing the news the dead snake’s partner took her own life in a joint suicide pact with a severely depressed porcupine, a further tragedy being that because of the therapeutic power of acupuncture, at the start of her final clench she actually felt just a little bit better.
More bad news. The last known rhinoceroses in Mozambique have been wiped out by poachers. Their horns are prized in Asia for their aphrodisiac and cancer-curing properties. Well, which is it? Surely that could be dangerous, giving a patient with late-stage cancer an unwanted erection for the rest of his life. It costs $100,000 to hunt a rhino in Africa. I’d never do that. I hate flying. But I’m interested to know how much it costs to hunt a rhino in Manchester. I’d do it on a BMX wearing a ski mask. Once it was dead I’d sell its horn as a bong.
American hunters and their families are also paying up to £10,000 for giraffe-hunting expeditions. Ah, shooting giraffes – the American pastime for those whose aim isn’t accurate enough to piss on a dead Arab. (I couldn’t enjoy watching TV with the head of a dead animal looking at me, which is why I’ve not been able to follow It’s All About Amy on Channel 5.) It’s especially sad, as not only do giraffes form an essential part of the savannah ecosystem, but the chimps use them as slides in their theme parks.
Of course, the Africans put up with all this – when they see a white American getting off a plane bristling with guns they’re bloody relieved all he wants to do is shoot wildlife. Shooting something twenty-foot tall on a plain actually sounds easier than shooting fish in a barrel.
Having seen the photos of these hunts, my first question is why do hunters wear camouflage? Are the giraffes prone to shooting back at them? It’s good for the kids to have these photographs – in later life, simply showing them to their therapists will save a lot of time. If you’re a big enough prick to want your kids to have a similar experience but can’t afford a flight to Africa, then why not take your toddler to your local petting zoo and spit at the goats?
• • •
A huge badger cull has been given the go-ahead in England. The badgers infect dairy cows with TB. It’s a real problem, as too much coughing means their output is then only fit for milk shakes. Step one of the cull will be to gas the badgers’ setts. Step two, to check for hidden rooms in the attics of rats and moles. I’ve a special connection with these animals as I once removed a thorn from a badger’s paw. Four times, in fact. In the end I just sacked him and hired a human gardener. Clarissa Dickson Wright has suggested that we eat the badgers that are being culled. This shouldn’t to be taken too seriously, as she said the exact same thing about the Croats during the Bosnian war.
It appears that the latest threat to human health is seal flu. I’ve been doing what I can to help, going to the end of my nearest pier to shake out sachets of Lemsip. Seals suffer particularly badly from flu, as their flipper length means they can’t quite reach their noses with a hankie. I don’t think I’d mind so much about seals giving me flu if the little bastards didn’t laugh and clap after they’d done it.
Meanwhile, officials have warned that fish pedicures could spread HIV. Why are fish giving pedicures? What is this – The Flintstones? TOWIE stars have been pictured enjoying the fad, which initially led to worries that the fish could also somehow transmit mental retardation. Of course, the principle of one animal grooming another is quite common in nature. Rhinos have parasites picked from their skin by certain birds, and adult horses are often caught on Facebook posing as foals.
Living in the countryside can apparently increase your risk of getting Parkinson’s disease by up to 80 per cent. My grandmother lived on a farm – we knew she had Parkinson’s disease when the bulls began queuing to come into the milking shed.
There’s talk of a pesticide ban to halt declining bee numbers. I feel partly responsible, as I use their pelts to make pom-poms for my cheerlead
ing hamsters. We must help, as they give us so much. I’ve been trying to get hold of some beeswax to polish my antique wardrobe but I just can’t get the cotton buds in their little ears. Butterfly numbers have also crashed. I say good; for once we can leave our butter out unprotected. I confess I collect the dead ones and dry them out, as my pet mouse just loves flying kites.
Of course, the most common pets in the UK are cats and dogs. It’s said that 80 per cent of cat and dog owners display photos of their pet at work. Not me, as I struggle to think straight when I’ve got an erection. Actually, get this. A survey suggests that 275,000 Swiss people, out of a population of eight million, have sex with animals. No wonder they’re so laid back about euthanasia. You’re probably laid back about most things once you’ve pumped a beagle.
A cat sneaked into its owner’s suitcase and got into Disney World. The owner was surprised when she opened up her case and found she’d accidentally packed her cat, but not nearly as surprised as her neighbours when they went round to her house to feed her dildo.
A Dutch artist fitted remote-control propellers and turned his dead cat into a toy helicopter. It’s not unusual to use beloved pets as toys – I used our tortoise as a goalpost after he died. And immediately before. In many ways it’s lovely to see a cat fly without the assistance of an eight-year-old with a banger. It’s about time cats caught up – dogs were piloting space rockets way back in the 60s.
Cats that glow in the dark have been created by gene scientists working on a cure for AIDS. But you sense that this is all a prelude to making people with AIDS glow, so when you’re in a nightclub you know not to shag them. Scientists have also come up with a fish that glows when exposed to polluted water. Considering the state of the nation’s finances, I fully expect to see all lamp-posts turned off and replaced with plastic bags filled with piss and a luminous mullet doing laps.
Puppies will have to have a chip containing their owners’ details in an attempt to stop irresponsible pet ownership. I think that’s a great idea. So long as the chip’s still readable underwater.
Scotland’s Jesus: The Only Officially Non-racist Comedian Page 10