Category: Entertainment special

London is no longer a British city, says John Cleese. It’s odd how you can keep up with exactly how British somewhere is while living overseas.

What he means of course, is that London contains too many foreign people. And it’s changed since the last time he was familiar with it. You can imagine him ordering somebody to paint “Romanes eunt domum” everywhere.

The London of Cleese’s memory is bereft of life. It is an ex-city, it has ceased to be.

It’s different. It has moved on. Dear London, I fart in your general direction.

However, London is still very much London. It is, and always has been, much more cultural melting pot than Lancashire hotpot.

People from all over the world, from the Roman Londinium to the present day, have come to London to invade, trade, work, marry. And still they come, attracted by the streets paved in gold, and the chance to see the Queen popping to the corner shop for twenty Bensons.

London is a focal point in the world. It therefore also attracts enemies. For example, it was the focus of German bombing in 1940. This led to people coming together with a common cause. The Blitz spirit, the Dunkirk spirit, and black market potato spirit are conflated in some nostalgic feeling of heroism.

Don’t mention the war. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it.

Cleese may not have joined the choir eternal, but he most certainly has joined the Ministry of Silly Tweets.

Cleese is a hero to many British people. Unfortunately, he’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy.

People of London – and elsewhere – even though the country is being crucified because of a dreadful administrative error, don’t grumble, give a whistle. And this’ll help things turn out for the best… And… Always look on the bright side of life.

And now for something completely different.

We’ve been getting a plethora of classic songs re-recorded with a political twist recently, from the surviving Beatles’ ‘Strawberry Milkshake Forever’ to Simon & Garfunkel’s new ‘Scarborough Brexit Fair’.

Now rock stalwarts Foreigner are getting in on the act with a new recording of their biggest success.

‘I Want To Know What Leave Is’ will feature newly revised lyrics asking what Brexit is all about.

Foreigner’s chief songwriter and founder member Mick Jones explains:

“We’ve been getting all sorts of ridiculous claims about an upshot of Brexit over the last three years but no clear definition. I was with the band watching a news item on it and I suddenly said, ‘all these bogus claims, come on, I want to know what leave is’ – and they all turned and looked at me, and I realised what I’d just said, and I just went, ‘we’ve got to do this’ – so we have done.”

Nigel Farage gave a response to this – nobody asked him to, but he felt it necessary to burst into our offices and say it anyway.

“It’s outrageous,” he said. “A band called Foreigner have no place to attack us Brits.”

The fact that Mr Jones is in fact English and the band name refers to his status living in America back in the 1970s went completely over his head.

Foreigner are now calling on you though to provide your own vocal take on the chorus:

I want to know what leave is
I want you to show me

Just record yourself singing those lines as tunefully as you can and they’ll edit it into the finished single.

They want to get as many members of the public asking what leave is as they can.

The single will be released on June 23rd, backed by another re-recording of a classic hit, the call for an end to dithering hesitation that is ‘Say You Will, Say You Won’t (Make Up Your Mind Tonight)’.

https://youtu.be/raNGeq3_DtM

The BBC has cancelled an edition of Have I Got News For You because Nigel Farage couldn’t be on the panel. He was too busy dominating an edition of Question Time instead.

Unfortunately HIGNFY instead featured Heidi Allen, who is far too remainy to appear unchallenged. All in the name of not trying to influence the electorate with EU elections looming.

This comes at the same time that BBC Light Entertainment has been kicked off Facebook. The social media giant still cannot distinguish between satire and fake news.

The BBC was unrepentant. “BBC policy is clear on the matter,” dissembled spokesbrexiter Lee Ningwright. “There must always be balance. Any traitorous remainer must be accompanied by an angry, shouting brexiter to ensure The People get the picture. Nigel Farage has a lot of free time, because he can’t be arsed to fight the evil EU from within. Besides, he has a gold-plated BBC pass and can come and go as he pleases.”

On a satirical show like HIGNFY though, a strong voice will be heard, but if they talk bollocks then the presenters will make fools of them.

“Let The People decide, in other words?” sneered Ningwright. “That’s not going to happen!”

A comedy show doesn’t need balance. It needs to be funny. Besides, Hislop and Merton can take down an idiot faster than you can say John Humphrys.

“Which is why Nigel went on Question Time instead!” crowed Ningwright. “He can say his piece unchallenged to a properly sympathetic audience composed of a balanced selection of soft and hard Brexiters.”

Where now for the BBC, which is so deep in Farage’s pocket that it cannot broadcast a current affairs programme without him?

“We are trying to capture the mass market audience, readers of the Daily Express,” replied Ningwright. “Who run a piece on Nigel crashing his car and simply walking away.”

The perfect Brexit metaphor.

The practice of re-recording hits has got out of control in the last decade, now even the surviving Beatles are getting in on the act. But at least this one has a purpose, as Paul and Ringo announced at a press conference last night.

The surviving members of the biggest band of all-time are re-recording their 1967 classic “Strawberry Fields Forever” with some lyrical revisions and releasing it as “Strawberry Milkshake Forever”.

“It just felt right really,” Paul McCartney explained. “I don’t like to have a go at people willy-nilly, but when this guy threw a strawberry milkshake in the face of that hatemongering little . . . you-know-what, I just cheered, strawberry milkshake forever! And then I thought of the song. So I called Ringo, and he was in full agreement with me that we should use it to spread a message of peace and love in the 21st century. I had to call Yoko for approval too as she handles John’s estate, but she was in full agreement too – it’s probably the most we’ve ever been in the same mind about anything ever!”

The original recording of this song was the embodiment of psychedelia in the late 1960s, and is still regularly voted one of the group’s finest songs. It took a lot of man hours to record back then, although with the technology available today the re-recording would take much less time.

“We’re doing it a little more straight this time,” Ringo Starr added. “There’s no need to try to break the same ground again, and it’ll help us get it recorded faster. But it’ll still have the same old Beatles vibe to it.”

Also helping them to get it recorded faster are Julian Lennon and Dhani Harrison, sons of their deceased bandmates, both will be contributing guitars and backing vocals.

“It was strange for us,” Julian says, “they kept calling us John and George, we both thought they might have been going a little bit gaga at first but then we realised they were just thinking of it as a Beatles project and they were just using their names out of sheer force of habit, and you know that they would have all done it together anyway if they’d all been alive, and they didn’t mean any harm, so we just shrugged and got on with it.”

Also keeping it in the family is the producer of the record, Giles Martin, son of original producer George Martin.

“It was an easy job for me,” he explains. “All I had to do was record them. They knew what they were doing, there weren’t many overdubs, they cut the basic track in about half an hour, just the four of them on the usual instruments, Julian & Dhani on guitars, Paul on bass and Ringo on drums, then Paul overdubbed some piano and keyboard parts, then they did the vocals, Paul on lead, the kids singing backing vocals, with Ringo putting in an extra little backwards part for the coda.

The backwards part is in tribute to the old stories about certain records containing hidden backwards messages. As for what Ringo said on this, they’re not revealing anything, so we’ll have to buy the record to find out.

The record will be released on May 10th, and the proceeds will be given to a selection of charities set up to help refugees from around the world.

With the news that Tommy Robinson has now been pelted with milkshake twice in as many days, it will come as no surprise that McDonalds are getting in on the act with the launch of a new shake designed especially for the purpose of throwing at far-right hatemongers.

Spokesman Evan Ideer issued the following statement last night:

“It’s become clear that milkshake throwing is turning into a thing, so as a provider of milkshakes, we want to play our part in this. So we are bringing out the McChucker, a new milkshake for throwing at people.”

This move is clearly designed so that their milkshake will literally bring all the boys to the yard.

The McChucker will come in the same range of sizes as their usual shakes, but is priced less. After all, why pay more for something you’re not even going to drink?

This immediately led to questions about the chance of customers drinking the new milkshakes, but Mr Ideer was quick to counter that:

“The new McChucker is not actually drinkable,” he explained. “Anyone who doubts this is welcome to try but does so at their own risk, as the contents include a powerful emetic, designed to make people vomit. That’s the other reason why we called it the McChucker. If you drink it instead of chucking it, you’ll still chuck it, but you’ll enjoy it a lot less.”

So you can’t say you haven’t been warned.

Mr Ideer continued:

“We’re obviously going to be following Tommy Robinson’s itinerary very closely with this, and delivering extra ingredients for the McChucker to places he’s going to turn up, so as to maximise our selling potential in those areas.”
There has been no official response from Tommy Robinson or his team as yet. However his supporters have said they would also be buying McChuckers to throw at Tommy’s enemies.

Rumours are also in the air that McDonalds plan to capitalise on this by launching a special express laundry service to clean up any mess made by these shakes hitting the wrong targets. They don’t miss a trick, do they?
The new McChucker will be officially on the menu next week.

BROKEN AUNT: The BBC news website is to get a fresh look later this week after the geniuses in the editor’s suite decided to bring Page 3 corkers to the news website.

“If we’re going to compete with Fox and the Mail online then we’re going to have to try something more old-fashioned,” BBC digital news editor, Mr Wots Nigeldoing, told LCD Views, “it’s not enough to jubilantly promote and pronounce the success of the hard right across Europe daily, while ignoring the often much bigger gains for left wing politics, we need something truly eye catching to make sure we’re the go to place for news hungry gammon.”

It’s believed to get the new look off to a mind boggling start the BBC has hired numerous picture editors from 1970’s and 80’s Fleet Street.

“We’ve got people working up the first Page 3’s right now who know a lovely pair when they look at them,” Mr Nigeldoing said, “it doesn’t really matter what crap we print on page one if people know the real goodies are hiding just around the corner.”

In order to make sure the strategy achieves what’s required, stories profiling far right politicians and causes will be nestled warming alongside young women with their tops off.

“It’s about creating a positive association,” Mr Wots smiled, “we really don’t do journalism anymore. Not since David Cameron riddled our management with far right place men. But we can certainly do entertainment.”

All page 3 images will have perforated edges so readers of the news website can gently tear them out and stick them on the fridge.

“We will release a calendar in time for Christmas too. It’ll be stuffed full of recipes for how best to prepare boiled ham in the festive season. It’s all part of the continuing evolution of the public broadcaster into something no one recognises at all anymore.”

The classic folk song Scarborough Fair has delighted listeners for centuries, and there are few more famous recordings of it than the one made in 1966 by the iconic 60s duo Simon & Garfunkel. Now the legendary pair are teaming up to re-record it, albeit with slightly reworked lyrics.

When asked why, Paul Simon explained:

“Everyone’s re-recording their old hits these days, I’ve even done it myself, I know, but this was something different. I looked at what was happening in the UK with this whole Brexit thing and it made no sense. It just made me think of Scarborough Fair, and of course I did that with Artie back in the 60s so I called him up and asked if he’d be interested in doing a new version and he said OK.”

The original song was about impossible love, with the singer challenging his lover to do all manner of impossible things in order to win his heart, such as:

‘Tell her to make me a cambric shirt – parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme

Without no seam or needlework – then she’ll be a true love of mine

Tell her to wash it in yonder dry well – parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme

Where water never sprung nor drop of rain fell – then she’ll be a true love of mine’

The new recording will deal with Brexit, posing a series of equivalent riddles:

‘Tell her to split all of Ireland in two – parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme
Without stopping Irishmen passing through – then she’ll be a true love of mine

Tell her that leave means she’s Trump’s for the pickin’ – parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme
And he wants to feed her chlorine-filled chicken – then she’ll be a true love of mine’

And more on the same theme.

“It’s kind of strange, you know?” Art Garfunkel commented. “When you think of all the impossible things he asks her to do in the original song, and when you compare them to the demands of the people who want this thing called Brexit, all of a sudden the original doesn’t seem so crazy.”

The B-side will be another re-recording, Bridge Over Troubled Water, with new lyrics to make it about the English Channel.

The single will be released this Friday.

Mark Francois, spontaneously combusting chunk of ERG gammon, is said to be rumoured to want to sue the makers of “The Purge” movies after they refused to cast him in the next planned installment to the franchise. This next movie is planned to be just live recordings taken from across England if No Deal Brexit occurs.

“Is it illegal to be made of ONE HUNDRED AND TEN PERCENT PURE SALTED HAM?!!” Francois told the world, via a splattering of pulled pork across Twitter, “I will star on day one of any No Deal Brexit. Why aren’t they planning on filming me?!!?”

Quite why is up for the makers of the franchise to say, but it is rumoured to be because of the belief Mark will be cannibalised by other members of the ERG in the opening moments of No Deal Brexit Day : Purge.

”He’s just too tasty,” Jacob Rees-mogg wrote in his diary, which we have stolen, “and of course he’s also as thick as mince. Imagine him consumed with a nice chianti and some fava beans?”

We here at LCD Views would like to lend our support to Mark and understand his deep confusion and hurt feelings.

”It’s hard to think of many more suited to taking part in such a spree of lawlessness,” our political psychologist commented, “Mark supports the result of an illegally procured advisory referendum result, converted into a political mandate by wilful ignorance and base self interest, spiced with a blind eye to criminality. He’s clear to be a star turn. He should be fitted with a pair of GPS able eyeballs and allowed to do as he wants,

Preferably in a sand pit with non-bladed tools where he can’t injure any of the other boys.”

LCD Views can report today on the upcoming release of a reheated and rehashed love song classic as Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn lock themselves in the Westminster recording studio to solve Brexit with song.

While it’s not yet clear under what handle the English superstars will release the track, it’s certain a lot of care and attention will go into modifying the lyrics of the Foreigner classic.

“Foreigner was the band chosen when looking for a song to sing,” an aide to the PM told LCD Views, “because Brexit is all about foreigners, for Brexiters, and they’re the most important audience. Mind you I am not certain our warblers will be laying down a fresh track anytime soon, as their unique artistic styles are certain to come to the fore. She likes kicking the can and he likes sitting on a fence post, so they may well ask for a long extension so they can both keep doing what they love the most before recording.”