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In less than two weeks’ time it’s the wedding of the season in this corner of the internet. Livejournalists pipistrellus and cornfedpig will be emailing pictures of rings to each other and filling in the following online poll: “I take [name] for my lawful wedded spouse: Yes / No / Other (answer in Comments)”. We will all be emailed pictures of canapes, to which we have to reply with pictures of confetti. You are invited to submit your own fan fiction about their honeymoon.

My name came up in the “Random Best Man Generator”, so it is my duty and privilege to ensure that the groom switches his laptop on in time and oh for fvck’s sake where’s that jpeg of the ring? No, not that one, she’ll never accept one at that resolution! And so on.

Many people have asked me what I will take as the theme of my speech. Well, I can think of no better illustration or more touching reminder of the power of married love than the following story:

The Sun, 12 September

A wife aged 65 chopped off her dead husband’s willy in hospital—so she could keep it in a pickling jar as a souvenir.

Uta Schneider used a butcher’s knife to hack off the “treasured” manhood. She wrapped it in foil and put it in a lunchbox—next to gherkins.

But she was spotted by a nurse and arrested in Stuttgart, Germany. She is accused of mutilation.

Uta was wed to Heinrich, 68, for 35 years. She told police: “It was his best asset and gave me so much pleasure.

“I wanted to pickle it for eternity—he would have wanted it. We called it his joystick. I wanted it to remember him by.”

Mentioned in dispatches

A small round of applause, please, for this company name.

(no subject)

Halibut freed in fish farm raid

Police are investigating a break-in at a fish farm which resulted in a large number of farmed halibut being released directly into the sea.

Strathclyde Police said that the farm near Oban, in Argyll, was targeted on Wednesday night or Thursday morning. Damage estimated at hundreds of thousands of pounds was caused as the cages containing the fish were opened.

Police say they do not know why the farm was attacked, but are checking if it was an animal rights protest. [BBC]

Bleeding-heart protesters? Hardly. It’s barely two weeks since the highest-profile fish assassination in recent history, the kind of operation that needs meticulous planning, and which may well have served as a signal to other fish around the world. I strongly suspect we’re now looking at the escape of its mastermind in this highly organised breakout from a top-security facility.

I’m afraid we must now brace ourselves for a wave of piscine terrorism. They could strike anywhere—all right, most likely near water—but my point is we won’t see them coming until the moment they launch themselves at us with watery cries of “Who’s sushi now?!” This is the real reason Russian trawlers have for so long been illegally hoovering up fish stocks in international waters—they’re used to dealing with terrorists in their own implacable way.

I urge you to be patient, vigilant and hungry. We will prevail in this new War on Tasty Terror.

“Hole in one”, etc etc etc etc etc

Way to spice up your catatonia-inducing “sport”. This kind of thing is putting satirists out of business, people.



Not entirely safe for work.

Was it something I said? Oh, okay.

If the Pope admits his own fallibility by apologising, does that mean he automatically disqualifies himself from being Pope? In which case, can anyone apply now? What are they looking for in a CV? I was in the school choir and sang in chapel—is that the kind of thing? I’ll be fine if I can only get through to the interview. “God is merciful. All he wants is for you to believe in him or you will BURN IN A THOUSAND FIRES FOR ALL ETERNITY.” See? I can already do the patter. Child’s play. Unless it’s one of those jobs where they already want you to have experience in the post. Oh, they’ll say it’s open to anyone, but in fact they’ll be busy looking for someone high up to make a lateral move—quietly headhunting chief rabbis. It’s one rule for senior theologians and another for the rest of us. It’s just another example of rip-off Rome.

Okay, so the Pope decided to revive ancient criticisms of the violent zeal of early Islam without apparently giving a single thought to the enormous numbers of people forcibly converted by Christians over the centuries, or killed by them for clinging to their own traditions and faith. But he’s the Pope! He can’t be expected to remember every little detail. He’s got all those fiddly wardrobe decisions, for a start. Is it green for Lent, or purple? Red’s good luck, right? No, wait, that’s China.

Meanwhile, some leaders in the Muslim world are reacting in the traditional manner to accusations that Islam is mindlessly violent: by taking the opportunity to distract attention from their own failings and whipping up their populations into the kind of indignant rage that usually leads to... violence. Time to dig out the tin hats at the embassies again, chaps.

I’m tempted to suggest that the bigger news here is that even if there is an extant, unimaginably vast animating spirit behind the creation of the universe, it will surely continue not to give the flimsiest fuck about what we all do to each other. Whatever god you might believe in, it doesn’t believe in you. We’re all on our own out here, which makes the way we behave towards each other all the more valuable, not less. Every good action isn’t a nod towards a comforting construct that we’re told loves us, like some cosmic Flat Daddy, but a rare and beautiful thing in its own right, a flare in the darkness...

But of course that would be ridiculous! I’m just kidding around! Of course God loves you. He loves every hair on your head. And He honestly wants you to get that thing you really want; you just have to ask Him really hard. He will get upset if you don’t keep telling Him how great He is, though. He’s terribly insecure like that. Oh, and He said to tell you He hates those other guys, who believe some ridiculous things about their own “God”. You should maybe do something about them.

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It surely can’t be a coincidence that the Pope’s statement of regret over unintended offence caused by his ill-chosen words should be issued at the same time as this equally seismic retraction:

The writer of a poem which forever doomed Slough to ridicule and infamy never meant for it to be published, his daughter has revealed.

Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman savaged the town in verse, writing: “Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough, it isn’t fit for humans now”.

But on a visit to mark the 100th anniversary of the poet’s birth his daughter apologised for the poem.

Candida Lycett-Green said her father “regretted having ever written it”. [BBC]