"I like to state, I have no connection with Mr Cohen and fully support my government's position to sue this Jew."
"Since 2003 ... Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world,"
"Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hat and age of consent has been raised to eight years old."
That's from Reuters, reporting Borat's response to Kazakhstan's legal threat against creator Sacha Baron Cohen. For more, try http://www.borat.kz/
Check out episodes two and three of Genius: Episode 2 (3 Nov 2005) with Richard Madeley & Episode 3 (10 Nov 2005) with John Fortune.
(L-R) Gavin Ekins, Matt Mitchell, aje, Nick Schandler, Colleen Berndt
I am in America, and Halloween is something more than local scallies throwing eggs at your windows. In less then 48 hours there's a party brewing, and I need costume ideas. The criteria are as follows:
Last year (pictured) I was Arthur Kipps, and Faith was the Woman in Black. We performed an adlib rendition of the play late into the night - alcohol somewhat diminishing from the acting - to an audience of three.
Due to over-zealous mothering, Reggie the baboon is bald. Full Story here, and yes he is from Devon....
Guardian: Film adaptation of Alan Bennet's wonderful 'The Madness of King George', award-winning and insightful 'East is East'.
Independant: the stunning epic 'Indochine'.
Sunday Express: Pavarotti and friends Volume II.
The case is rested.
Yes, this is from an office email, but some of them are funny. Excerpts from the Edinburgh Fringe 2005:
I realised I was dyslexic when I went to a toga party dressed as a goat.
- Marcus Brigstocke at the Assembly Rooms
My dad is Irish and my mum is Iranian, which meant that we spent most of our family holidays in Customs.
- Patrick Monahan at the Gilded Balloon
The dodo died. Then Dodi died, Di died and Dando died... Dido must be sh*tting herself.
- Colin & Fergus at the Pleasance
You have to remember all the trivia that your girlfriend tells you, because eventually you get tested. She'll go: "What's my favourite flower?" And you murmur to yourself: "Sh*t, I wasn't listening ...Self-raising?"
- Addy Van-Der-Borgh at the Assembly Rooms
The world is a dangerous place; only yesterday I went into Boots and punched someone in the face.
- Jeremy Limb, at the Trap
I saw that show, 50 Things To Do Before You Die. I would have thought the obvious one was "Shout For Help".
- Mark Watson, Rhod Gilbert at the Tron
Employee of the month is a good example of how somebody can be both a winner and a loser at the same time.
- Demetri Martin at the Assembly Rooms
Hey - you want to feel really handsome? Go shopping at Asda.
- Brendon Burns at the Pleasance
It's easy to distract fat people. It's a piece of cake.
- Chris Addison at the Pleasance
If you're being chased by a police dog, try not to go through a tunnel, then on to a little seesaw, then jump through a hoop of fire. They're trained for that.
- Milton Jones at the Underbelly.
An Aborigine walks along the road with a sheet of corrugated iron and a bottle of whiskey.
Stranger: What's up mate? You look gutted
Abo: Just come back from the divorce court, and my wife got custody of the kids
Stranger: That's awful
Abo: Yeah, but at least I got house and contents
Such jokes capture the typical stereotype of Australia's indigenous people - of drunken layabouts. It's truly sad that for a culture so rich, on first glance it's an accurate portrayal.
Consider this story, which traces the inevitable, comical, yet telling mixup where
New South Wales police ordered 50 green vests for Aboriginal Community Liaison Officers - known as ACLOs.
But the vests arrived bearing a much more insulting acronym - ALCO, used all over Australia as slang for alcoholic.
Despite mysterious rumours that cloud my past (I shan't get into them here), I consider myself to be a fair defender of Aboriginal heritage. I once spent several hours in argument with a white Australian girl, having objected to the fact that she referred to the great Oz as "her homeland". It was a worthwhile exploration of Germaine Greer's thesis - that whitefellas should recognise that they live in an Aboriginal country, and should become an Aboriginal republic.
I object to the automatic leap from "this country is Aboriginal" to "we, therefore, are Aboriginal". It smells like conquest.
Consider Ian "Macca" McNamara. Every sunday his radio show Australia All Over bridges a nation with country songs, phone ins, and great yarns - all built upon traditional grounds. Aboriginal themes such as the dreamtime are told over the haunting didgeridoo and the roots of Australia's waking whitefellas feel suitably at home.
Aboriginal art (which I love) hangs throughout the cultured centres of Australia, reassuring the whitefellas that they're not British, nor American. The concept of being Australian, and the fair dinkum, easy going attitude that accompanies it, relies heavily on their ancestral walk with nature.
Like Russia, the Australian working class is to be celebrated, whereas in America, and Britain, it's to be overcome.
There's an uneasy disjoint in Australian identity, and although conquest shouldn't be the answer, it probably will be.
Here's something that doesn't happen every day: purely by chance, I happened to stumble across a recent city diary piece from The Times in which my father's face is described as being "firmly attached"!
DON EVANS, chief executive of Advanced Medical Solutions, is a believer in his company’s products. He had a facial operation the other day and insisted the hospital did not stitch the wound but instead used LiquiBand Surgical, which glues the affected bits together. Yesterday he met the City analysts for the company’s results. “His face is firmly attached,” reports one observer.
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