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Sucking the blood of popular entertainment .

So Big Brother is as dead as Dillinger. and. for at least a little while. we can delight in real W again. The Sopranos and Grey's Anatomy are with us already and a bunch of new treats are in the pipeline while the leaves turn rusty brown and fall. including Dr Who spin-off Torchwood and the new Robin Hood. There‘s even more Nip/Tuck and Extras on the way to make square eyes utterly justifiable.

UN-SEASONAL SHOPPING

It's summer. By some miracle it‘s sunny. You rush to protect your pale Scottish complexion with a sunhat and some snazzy shades. but lo! All the shops can offer you is an overcoat. woolly scarf and thermal underwear. If this anticipation of the future keeps gathering pace. shops will only stock clobber suitable for the next ice age.

Slm- sons:

: r v abies , /

I Despite the evidence to the contrary megamix of ‘I Wanna Dance with

cluttering the shelves of Clinton's Somebody'.

Cards. a mushroom cloud of fart

gags and nudge-nudge sexual I Just as Bob the Builder. Mr Ben and

innuendos. ‘humour' so puerile you Postman Pat encourage children to wouldn‘t inflict it on a despised become construction engineers. cross

stepchild. cartoons can actually be dressers and parcel delivery agents As Sgt Pepper gets crowned the best album ever (again) by the 'great' British

pithy. funny and thought-provoking. run amok with AK-47s, Fireman Sam PUb'iC W9 surmise that some t“"195 are llet Del/09d Cflthlsm - - - Um” “0W that IS- Such is the devastating impact of a . should be seen as a role model for the

Nick Cave For ‘dark humour' read 'not very funny'; for ‘bewitching baritone' read ‘goose farting in the

Fred Bassett punchline. however. that thoroughly progressive fire brigade. No the art form has historically been other emergency service lends their

appropriated for propaganda. As far vehicles to drunken slappers to f09'l ‘9’ 'eXP'OFinQ familiar rellglOUS themes' lead back as the Celtic chalk outline of the scream from on a Friday night. (iranklng out tha Starr/1e old lcobblers rIilickfd from the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset. men It's an open-minded organisation. 0 d teStamem ' es “Stra 'an as we y now'

have joyfully exaggerated the size of their cocks across public spaces.

except in Glasgow perhaps. where nine members of Strathclyde Fire and

President Bush Snr urged Americans Rescue were disciplined after refusing to be more like the Waltons than the to offer safety advice at the Pride “'0' They Either '00k “k9 WlnSlon CthChl'Ir a Simpsons. though a quick glance at Scotia march. Several of the "lard 0’ the Mekon and desp'te the fad that 3”. mey his own family convinced most i firefighters claimed it would contradict do essent'any '3. ea" Sléep' moan and Sh't' you re Americans they'd rather be part of e ‘their moral beliefs' Others more Supposed to W“ they re great tun' If you behaved

. . . '. ' like that in polite socrety you'd be branded a dropout Homer and Marges brood. the amusmgly. claimed it would be or a deviant. But for .ickle wee didums' oh look he.s Ramones or even the Mansons than ‘embarrassmg' for them to turn up to just peed on you. how lovely. his wretched dynasty. And who can the event in uniform.

forget the Danish backlash in the Middle East this year. after a particularly incendiary Hagar the Infidel showed the boorish. thirsty Viking sacking and pillaging a mosque on an unsuccessful mission to find lager?

Ulysses The James Joyce novel you carried round Europe on that inter-railing holiday to impress foreign chicks remained resolutely unread past page 27 deSpite looking dog eared and tatty. Perhaps it should have been used for more than skinning up on. It‘s unreadable and that's the best bit about it.

Firemen Sam: gayicon?

I So it‘s little surprise to hear Matt Stone claim US marines are forcing Saddam Hussein to watch South Park: Bigger. Longer and Uncut. This.

The Mona Lisa She's smirking at you. you know. Smirking because she knows you're yet another

of course. is the film in which Saddam has a gay relationship with Satan. We all remember last year's footage of marines indulging in naked high- campery. so not for the first time perhaps. the coalition of the willing have picked the wrong madman to try to convert to Western liberal values. with recent reports suggesting Osama bin Laden is a massive Whitney Houston fan. After al Qaeda‘s last message of terror finished. the tape allegedly ran on to a Ramadan party

14 THE LIST 7—21 Sep 2006

I Recently. the powers-that-be reclassified Pluto. even as we're still trying to figure out what animal Goofy is. Now. they've edited all traces of smoking from Tom and Jerry. Why not

just go the whole Popeye route and

brainwash kids into thinking pipes are for the consumption of slimy green vegetables? Cartoons should be left to do what they do best. showcasing the fun of inter-species violence.

mug who has missed out on one of the greatest cities in the world to come and gawp at a postage stamp-sized painting of some old fart when there's a million other properly fun things to see in Paris. Merde!

The internet The world at your fingertips! Well. an advert offering you a chance to subscribe to the world for $9.99 a month. Like a library without the books. And extra porn. Handy.