How lefties commit romance: animated satire

All me own work. I love this so I'm reposting.

Bo Xilai's downfall in cartoon form: CCPology made easy

Arf, arf!

Other news in the China saga: blind activist Chen Guangcheng escapes but his family may pay the price. Also here.

Liam Byrne & Labour: A Christmas Story

Away in a manger, no crib for a bed. 'Cause Pontius Cameron had kicked them out and put Mary and Joseph on workfare. "'Tis good. 'Tis the Lord's work," saith Liam Byrne and took all the flak for what the Romans did hoping to get himself a little governorship somewhere nearer Rome.

And so it came to pass that Jesus wept and grew into a fine young man, if a bit chippy. He overturned the money changers' counters in the Temple at Bankside but Fred the Shred escaped to spend more time with his millions. Jesus gazed upon Goldman Sachs, Lehmans and the rest and would have asked his Dad — his real Dad — to smite them a bit but he was an absentee father and off elsewhere leaving his son to sort it out while they made £35 billion profit when they were supposed to be bust. "'Tis a miracle", saith Jesus unto the Lord but was told to call back later as he was spending quality time with his other kids.

Some of Jesus's mates tried to camp out at the Temple, but whereas the money changers had been greeted with open arms and fat guts, the janitor set the dogs onto them.

Finding the priests at Labour Party HQ useless and hungover anyway, Jesus tried to chivvy up the troops but was told he was a troublemaker. "Look what you did to the Temple," they said. "Jesus Christ, you've made a right mess." "But it wasn't me," saith Jesus. "It was the money changers." "Of course it was you," saith Liam Byrne, again jonesing for a promotion. "You haven't got a bean and you and your skint pals are a drain on the state." Which was wicked for he was no slouch himself when it came to eating all the state-subsidised pies. "Besides, Dusky, you ain't from around here."

"'Tis another miracle", saith the Sunday Times when their Rich List revealed the creation of even more billionaires despite the country supposedly being on its uppers. "Ain't no miracle" saith Jesus, "and those uppers are pure Christian Louboutin – they've just lost their red souls ... and replaced them with our souls".

Jesus tried to explain to everyone that the riots were just the meek inheriting the earth as they were fed up with pie in the sky and wanted something a tad more substantial before they died, but was all but crucified for saying so. "Phew, that was close", he muttered. "No wonder they call me Twinkletoes because I am fleet of foot, unshod as they be except for these here Birkenstocks, and they will never catch me." Some say that Dad got wind of that message and set the hubris police onto him.

Before they stop'n'searched him on suspicion of possessing principles, he threw a couple of parties. At the big rave, he tried to prove you can't feed a mass of people on a tin of sardines, a Wonderloaf and a tin of Carling, but the scribes got the wrong end of the stick and said they'd all had a slap-up lunch. The scribes had, but at Chipping Norton, and they were all pissed by the time they arrived.

At his Labour Party farewell do, Jesus prophesied that someone would betray him before the cock crew, and they all trampled each other in the rush to prove Jesus right with Liam Byrne issuing several screeds applying for any top job that would have him.

The next day Jesus was run out of town but was such a nice guy that he told his Dad not to hold it against them. "They're arseholes, Dad. They haven't got a clue. They're not worf it." He was supposed to come back a bit later, but he took one look around and was off again, this time to move in with his Dad who'd promised to take him fishing.

FACT FILE: The collective wealth of the UK's 1,000 richest rose 30% in 2009 in wake of economic crisis. The combined wealth of the top 1000 rose by over £77bn to £333.5bn, biggest annual increase in 22-year history of The Sunday Times rich list.

The cost of benefit fraud is £1bn. Unclaimed benefits amount to £16.5bn.

Estimated tax owed to us: £70bn

First night Anna May Wong Must Die! pix

First night done.

Tec hitches aplenty but all performed with great gusto and fun by myself and the wonderful Charles Shaar Murray and The Plague's Marc Jefferies, rockin' the show on guitar and bass.

I'm still making last minute changes to the script which is now at the stage where I can start cutting like a surgeon on speed. Plus the emergence of Tinglan Hong — Hugh Grant's squeeze and mother of Bamboo, or "Happy Accident", as "Ting Ting" mischievously claims is the baby's Chinese name — now doubles the number of Chinese women who can be named by audiences. (The other being a certain custard-pie kung-fu minder for geriatric billionaires.)

I'll be pleased when I'm off-script. But, for now, my baby's growing. Just like Bamboo.

One more show tomorrow then the great uphill task of memorising all 70 minutes of it. Wish I could plug in and upload in my sleep.

ANNA MAY WONG MUST DIE!
Written and performed by Anna Chen
Live music from Charles Shaar Murray and Marc Jefferies
Saturday 12th November 20:30
£8.50/£6.50
There will be a Q&A after the Saturday performance
Presented by Wing Hong Li for True Heart Theatre at the New Diorama Theatre, NW1
More info here

Tony Blair loves Gordon Brown: infantile disrespect video

An immature mash-up of Tony Blair of the most scurrilous kind, entirely disrespectful of this great man. It shouldn't be allowed.

Poor Tony.

Actually, not poor. Quite wealthy, I hear. Which bank did best out of the Iraq war? His wife's doing WHAT with our National Health Service? Placing private clinics WHERE? Surely an ugly rumour.

Recall of hollow-point bullets which fail to explode flesh: The Onion

The Onion reports on Steel Hawk Inc's defective batch of ammunition which "may not properly shred internal organs". Steel Hawk CEO promises the "long-shreddingest" bullets ever.

"Some of these defective bullets can leave an exit wound as small as a plum. That is unacceptable."

Dry. Very dry.

Hat tip John Booth

Recall of hollow-point bullets which fail to explode flesh: The Onion

The Onion reports on Steel Hawk Inc's defective batch of ammunition which "may not properly shred internal organs". Steel Hawk CEO promises the "long-shreddingest" bullets ever.

"Some of these defective bullets can leave an exit wound as small as a plum. That is unacceptable."

Dry. Very dry.

Hat tip John Booth

Love Among The Reds by Sylvie Kringe: Episode Two

Episode Two of Love Among The Reds
by Sylvie Kringe
(Episode One here)

"What's the revolution but a backdrop to our flaming love?" asked Vladimir Ilyich, coming up for air.

"Why, you are my very own Vlad the Impaler," breathed Inessa huskily. "Your penetration is without par. You do it with such flair and imagination."

"Yes," he said, stroking his goatee thoughtfully as he eyed his text, "it is vital to dispel the mysticism that counter-revolutionaries wish to weave around the Great Marx. If only I had been there at the time to make him more accessible to the masses. I might even have got him on the Jeremy Vine Show. Come, back to my speech. I must perfect it to ensure even the dimwits in the Party can understand it."

"Such fools. I sometimes wonder why you waste your time when a sharp axe would do the job just as well."

"It is such an uphill struggle having to repeat and repeat louder and louder, even illustrating my thoughts with hand-movements and whirling my arms like Pete Townshend on amphetamines until the penny drops.”

Weary of his Promethean task, he dropped his head into his hands. ”You are the one little petite chou who understands me. Without your help ... "

“And that is why our love is of historic proportions. As is everything about you. Grrr.”

“Yowza!” He gazed into her huge warm eyes the source of such human sympathy and kindness that the world had never known. Kissed her soft yielding lips with fervour.

“But people are talking, Vladdy.”

“Gossip and tittle-tattle. Who cares what the little people think? Those in the Left Ghetto will never know a love such as ours. Stroke my brow again, ma cherie, you know I love it.”

“You will rule these people one day, and my love will give the strength to carry on making all those hard decisions such as who to expel and who to pay wages to and who not, and whose labour we need to appropriate for the revolution …”

“Labia? But it was only a rumour …”

“No, my sweet yet rough tough leader of the revolution, 'labour'. Remember? Sometimes I suspect you have a one-track mind.”

“But it is a big one, yes?”

“Well, you be a size queen if you must, but of course. It is the very biggest one in the whole socialist pantheon and there were some right whoppers there. I should know, I’ve seen a few. How come we have to deal with the dross?"

“Such is the human material we have to work with, liebchen."

"Huh! Useless wastes of space. I should be doing their job. And those women in the party. The clever ones and the pretty ones. Put them in their place for ickle me?”

"If only I had one bullet for the lot of them."

“What, you'd shoot them down like partridges?" She sprung to her feet and clapped her hands with glee.

“No, I’d shoot them down like comrades. One day I too will have my Kronstadt and then they’ll be sorry, the witch-hunting bastards. And that jumped up DJ with his Iberian villa. He never invites me back for holidays, does he? No respect!”

She sat on his lap and stroked his poor aching but capacious head.

“Calm down, my precious. You might need to get some anger management happening if Freudian introspection and insight isn’t too bourgeois an expectation in such momentous times such as what these are. Anyhow, want to hear my contribution to your speech?”

“Of course, my darling. So wise. So talented.”

She picked up the sheet of paper upon which she had been working all of five minutes, taxing her mind, pouring into it her passion for the man, for the revolution, for the masses.

“Ahem. So Marx was right. And anyone who doesn’t geddit is gonna get it, see? I am right because I am the new Marx and only I understand. And Gramsci, he was dead good, he was. But now he’s only dead. What a writer, loved his diaries. Could have sold them to Hello! magazine if he was alive today. And Lukacs, I really like him. Really, REALLY!”

Vlad groaned.

“So it’s that good? You going to include it in your speech, huh? Huh? Pretty please. You are so sweet to me, Vladdy Daddy. I wuv you, wuv you, WUV you!” She threw herself across him, enveloped him in her warm embrace as the other comrades in the office averted their gaze, seeing nothing, hearing nothing and saying sweet FA.

The lovers instantly unclinched as the unmistakeable pounding of Krupskaya's footsteps thundered through the corridor, as if shaking the very foundations of the system itself to the core. They would have to break the news to her one day in a way that allowed her to keep the dignity and pride he was even now stripping from her. Hmm ... how to couch it in terms that would not end up with his smart wardrobe scissored to ribbons? Again. How to aid her rationalisation and let him have his little cupcake and eat it ...

Inessa Armand

Why socialists should read this rubbish here

Love Among The Reds by Sylvie Kringe: Episode Two

Episode Two of Love Among The Reds
by Sylvie Kringe
(Episode One here)

"What's the revolution but a backdrop to our flaming love?" asked Vladimir Ilyich, coming up for air.

"Why, you are my very own Vlad the Impaler," breathed Inessa huskily. "Your penetration is without par. You do it with such flair and imagination."

"Yes," he said, stroking his goatee thoughtfully as he eyed his text, "it is vital to dispel the mysticism that counter-revolutionaries wish to weave around the Great Marx. If only I had been there at the time to make him more accessible to the masses. I might even have got him on the Jeremy Vine Show. Come, back to my speech. I must perfect it to ensure even the dimwits in the Party can understand it."

"Such fools. I sometimes wonder why you waste your time when a sharp axe would do the job just as well."

"It is such an uphill struggle having to repeat and repeat louder and louder, even illustrating my thoughts with hand-movements and whirling my arms like Pete Townshend on amphetamines until the penny drops.”

Weary of his Promethean task, he dropped his head into his hands. ”You are the one little petite chou who understands me. Without your help ... "

“And that is why our love is of historic proportions. As is everything about you. Grrr.”

“Yowza!” He gazed into her huge warm eyes the source of such human sympathy and kindness that the world had never known. Kissed her soft yielding lips with fervour.

“But people are talking, Vladdy.”

“Gossip and tittle-tattle. Who cares what the little people think? Those in the Left Ghetto will never know a love such as ours. Stroke my brow again, ma cherie, you know I love it.”

“You will rule these people one day, and my love will give the strength to carry on making all those hard decisions such as who to expel and who to pay wages to and who not, and whose labour we need to appropriate for the revolution …”

“Labia? But it was only a rumour …”

“No, my sweet yet rough tough leader of the revolution, 'labour'. Remember? Sometimes I suspect you have a one-track mind.”

“But it is a big one, yes?”

“Well, you be a size queen if you must, but of course. It is the very biggest one in the whole socialist pantheon and there were some right whoppers there. I should know, I’ve seen a few. How come we have to deal with the dross?"

“Such is the human material we have to work with, liebchen."

"Huh! Useless wastes of space. I should be doing their job. And those women in the party. The clever ones and the pretty ones. Put them in their place for ickle me?”

"If only I had one bullet for the lot of them."

“What, you'd shoot them down like partridges?" She sprung to her feet and clapped her hands with glee.

“No, I’d shoot them down like comrades. One day I too will have my Kronstadt and then they’ll be sorry, the witch-hunting bastards. And that jumped up DJ with his Iberian villa. He never invites me back for holidays, does he? No respect!”

She sat on his lap and stroked his poor aching but capacious head.

“Calm down, my precious. You might need to get some anger management happening if Freudian introspection and insight isn’t too bourgeois an expectation in such momentous times such as what these are. Anyhow, want to hear my contribution to your speech?”

“Of course, my darling. So wise. So talented.”

She picked up the sheet of paper upon which she had been working all of five minutes, taxing her mind, pouring into it her passion for the man, for the revolution, for the masses.

“Ahem. So Marx was right. And anyone who doesn’t geddit is gonna get it, see? I am right because I am the new Marx and only I understand. And Gramsci, he was dead good, he was. But now he’s only dead. What a writer, loved his diaries. Could have sold them to Hello! magazine if he was alive today. And Lukacs, I really like him. Really, REALLY!”

Vlad groaned.

“So it’s that good? You going to include it in your speech, huh? Huh? Pretty please. You are so sweet to me, Vladdy Daddy. I wuv you, wuv you, WUV you!” She threw herself across him, enveloped him in her warm embrace as the other comrades in the office averted their gaze, seeing nothing, hearing nothing and saying sweet FA.

The lovers instantly unclinched as the unmistakeable pounding of Krupskaya's footsteps thundered through the corridor, as if shaking the very foundations of the system itself to the core. They would have to break the news to her one day in a way that allowed her to keep the dignity and pride he was even now stripping from her. Hmm ... how to couch it in terms that would not end up with his smart wardrobe scissored to ribbons? Again. How to aid her rationalisation and let him have his little cupcake and eat it ...

Inessa Armand

Why socialists should read this rubbish here

Alastair Campbell breaks down in tears on TV over Tony Blair

A distressed Alastair Campbell broke down in tears during a TV interview with Andrew Marr when quizzed about Tony Blair and his new relationship with the British public.

"It's so unfair, why does everyone hate him?", sobbed Campbell when probed by BBC's Marr about the role the public would play in his crumbling reputation.

My Little Tony
Choking back tears he declared, "All us pretty fan-boys are heart-broken. Richard "Dick" Madeley even went on YouTube to defend Tony. Everybody hurts and Simon Cowell may step in with a record to raise funds for any court case he may have to face after the devastation that Iraq has wreaked on him. Did I mention this was unfair?"

Campbell is also thought to be under pressure due to screwing up at Chilcot despite his smugness and a friendly panel. In a second bite at the cherry, he said:

... he had "misunderstood" a question and in a memo to the inquiry said he feared he had given the wrong impression that the then prime minister could have claimed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction "beyond doubt" even if intelligence chiefs disagreed.

When pressed with a cup of tea from Marr, he replied," He did not sleep with that woman. I mean, he did not mislead Parliament. Look, I've been to hell and back over this so I get confused. Have you read my latest work of fiction? "

Tony Blair is an honourable man.



Satire on life-support. Paul Routledge replies

More on Blair's eccentric take on corruption and BAE:

Ms Short's complaint that the sale of military radar to poverty-stricken Tanzania "stank" of corruption did not prevent from Mr Blair forcing the deal through. ... Britain is too lax in dealing with corporate corruption and bribery ...

Tony Blair is a wealthy man.

Alastair Campbell breaks down in tears on TV over Tony Blair

A distressed Alastair Campbell broke down in tears during a TV interview with Andrew Marr when quizzed about Tony Blair and his new relationship with the British public.

"It's so unfair, why does everyone hate him?", sobbed Campbell when probed by BBC's Marr about the role the public would play in his crumbling reputation.

My Little Tony
Choking back tears he declared, "All us pretty fan-boys are heart-broken. Richard "Dick" Madeley even went on YouTube to defend Tony. Everybody hurts and Simon Cowell may step in with a record to raise funds for any court case he may have to face after the devastation that Iraq has wreaked on him. Did I mention this was unfair?"

Campbell is also thought to be under pressure due to screwing up at Chilcot despite his smugness and a friendly panel. In a second bite at the cherry, he said:

... he had "misunderstood" a question and in a memo to the inquiry said he feared he had given the wrong impression that the then prime minister could have claimed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction "beyond doubt" even if intelligence chiefs disagreed.

When pressed with a cup of tea from Marr, he replied," He did not sleep with that woman. I mean, he did not mislead Parliament. Look, I've been to hell and back over this so I get confused. Have you read my latest work of fiction? "

Tony Blair is an honourable man.



Satire on life-support. Paul Routledge replies

More on Blair's eccentric take on corruption and BAE:

Ms Short's complaint that the sale of military radar to poverty-stricken Tanzania "stank" of corruption did not prevent from Mr Blair forcing the deal through. ... Britain is too lax in dealing with corporate corruption and bribery ...

Tony Blair is a wealthy man.

Anna May Wong Must Die! rap video from the Roxy

Anna Chen performs Anna May Wong Must Die! rap at the Roxy Bar & Screen, London, 26th May 2009, from an extract of her show as part of an Anna May Wong themed evening which included a screening of Piccadilly.

Anna May Wong Must Die! is a multimedia personal journey through the life and crimes of the Hollywood screen legend, a development of Anna Chen's recent programme for BBC Radio 4, Celestial Star of Piccadilly, broadcast 13th January 2009.

UPDATE: Well, that was loads of fun. The Roxy is an amazing little venue tucked away in south London, all velvet plush, mismatched chairs and extremely comfy leather sofas, reminiscent of old jazz clubs and torch singers. Everything worked. Not one lost sound file or missing image. The audience was perfect; warm and friendly and they laughed at all my gags. We all found Anna May Wong to be a fascinating subject. It's a mystery how she could have disappeared all these years.

Next job is to line up a string of gigs. Unfortunately, I've missed the big festivals this year but I'll be doing one-offs and 2010 looks promising.

Music and lyrics by Anna Chen

Thanks to Jasper Sharp, Michelle Thomas and Charles Shaar Murray.

Special thanks to the Anna May Wong Society for use of their images.

Harpy's been quick off the mark and has reviewed it here

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven

The challenge: to tell the story of the tragic demise of the Respect party through satire and vulgar abuse of the literary classics or whichever other cultural medium floats your boat.

Anyone uninterested in the ins and outs of the far left look away now.

Today I am mostly quoting John Milton and Paradise Lost, Book 1 (including line numbers). This was one of Paul Foot's favourite poems, so a double heaping of irony here.


So stretch out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay
[210]
Chain'd on the burning Lake, nor ever thence
Had ris'n or heav'd his head, but that the will
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs,
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
Evil to others, and enrag'd might see
How all his malice serv'd but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace and mercy shewn
On Man by him seduc't, but on himself
[220]
Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour'd.
Forthwith upright he rears from off the Pool
His mighty Stature; on each hand the flames
Drivn backward slope their pointing spires, & rowld
In billows, leave i'th' midst a horrid Vale.
Then with expanded wings he stears his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky Air
That felt unusual weight, till on dry Land
He lights, if it were Land that ever burn'd
With solid, as the Lake with liquid fire;
[230]
And such appear'd in hue, as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a Hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter'd side
Of thundring Aetna, whose combustible
And fewel'd entrals thence conceiving Fire,
Sublim'd with Mineral fury, aid the Winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involv'd
With stench and smoak: Such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet. Him followed his next Mate,
Both glorying to have scap't the Stygian flood
[240]
As Gods, and by their own recover'd strength,
Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.
Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime,
Said then the lost Arch Angel, this the seat
That we must change for Heav'n, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since hee
Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: fardest from him is best
Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream
Above his equals. Farewel happy Fields
[250]
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then hee
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
[260]
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
Th' associates and copartners of our loss
Lye thus astonisht on th' oblivious Pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy Mansion, or once more
With rallied Arms to try what may be yet
[270]
Regaind in Heav'n, or what more lost in Hell?
So Satan spake, and him Beelzebub
Thus answer'd. Leader of those Armies bright,
Which but th' Omnipotent none could have foyld,
If once they hear that voyce, their liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft
In worst extreams, and on the perilous edge
Of battel when it rag'd, in all assaults
Their surest signal, they will soon resume
New courage and revive, though now they lye
[280]
Groveling and prostrate on yon Lake of Fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amaz'd,
No wonder, fall'n such a pernicious highth.
For Daddy, the witchhunting bastard, made me doeth it.

If you read all the above you will have noticed that I haven't had to change a word (sort of). Methinks Milton had a Tardis or sumthin' for he sure sayeth the sooth.