Recent Stories In Culture and Society

WAWIBF... Indonesian Porn March 16, 2007 It's been a tough week for Erwin Arnada, editor-in-chief of the Indonesian imprint of Playboy. The magazine went on sale in the predominantly Muslim country last April, where it immediately began to rub people up the wrong way. And not in a good way... Education: Reading Is A Class Issue March 16, 2007 Alistair Campbell once criticised the media for being relentlessly cynical about the government. This was an amazing bit of double-think by Campbell, who came up with the 'dodgy dossier', but on a more general level it's often true, with the media putting a negative spin on *anything* the government does... WAWIBF... Cocaine March 16, 2007 Cocaine really does bring out the worst in people. Not only when they've sucked it into their bloodshot heads and turned into ranting egotists, but also when they're trying to sell it to other fools. A couple of stories this week featured people who have so very little brain, they make Winnie the Pooh look like Marvin the Paranoid Android... Indiana Jones and the Absolutely, Positively Last Crusade March 2, 2007 It was announced this week that filming of the new Indiana Jones movie will start in June. In preparation, 64 year-old Harrison Ford is spending three hours a day in the gym and eating a high protein diet. The poor bastard... The TFT Guide To... The Angels of the South March 2, 2007 This week plans were floated for statues and monuments to be erected by the main roads into London to celebrate life in our great capital city. It’s been suggested that the monuments could be modelled on the Angel of the North... As yet no decision has been made about what form the ‘Angels of the South’ should take, so TFT offers some suggestions... Britain's Bookworms: Misanthropic and Death-Fixated March 2, 2007 Jesus, Britain’s readers are a miserable, bitter bunch. Judging by the ‘100 books you can’t live without’ as voted for as part of World Book Day yesterday, we like our escapism full of death, grinding misery, war, death, disappointment, disfigurement and death. Take a look at the list... D'You Wanna Be In My Gang? (No.) February 23, 2007 According to the media, gang culture is taking over the UK. And it's true. Even as we write this, TFT has decided to reform itself as a gang ('Da Friday Boyz') with the intention of taking out our rivals in a series of bungled shootings. Sorry, but that's just the way it is, on da street. And in online publishing. Actually, we're growing deeply weary of 'gang culture'... The TFT Guide to... Celebrity Breakdowns February 23, 2007 If you're rich and famous, it seems to be compulsory to go a bit bonkers in public. The latest celeb to lose the plot is Britney Spears, who this week went on a tattooing spree and had all her hair shaved off for no apparent reason (possibly nits). But with so many famous people behaving strangely, TFT couldn't help but speculate about who's going to be next... The Picture of Doreen Gray February 23, 2007 'There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is the seven signs of ageing,' said Andie MacDowell. 'How sad it is!' murmured Doreen Gray with her eyes still fixed upon the 'realistic image' of the John Lewis department store's newly unveiled not-size-zero swimwear model. 'I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful...' Children: Spare the Rock Painting, Spoil the Child February 16, 2007 It's official: the kids are fucked. And not in a good way. This week a UNICEF report revealed that the UK's children are the poorest, fattest, most promiscuous, most pissed, most stoned, most dysfunctional and probably worst at Pictionary of most rich nations. The causes of all this childhood grief are clearly complicated, but... The TFT Guide To... Sex Myths February 16, 2007 This week a survey by the Family Planning Association discovered a worrying lack of knowledge about sex among adults, with a third believing douching, urinating or vigorous exercise would prevent pregnancy.... So what other myths about sex need to be dispelled? TFT obliges... WAWIBF... Mosques and Mirrors February 16, 2007 Apparently 60% of mosques in Britain don't allow women entry. Because, presumably, women are not as good as men. They're rubbish at chess, they talk too much, they bleed. And so on. Such was the discussion this week on Radio 4's Today programme. One of the guests said this... WAWIBF... What Women Want February 14, 2007 You women. No wonder you're all such a mess. No wonder your relationships are rubbish and you're always weeping in each other's arms and wondering what you did wrong. It's because you haven't got a bloody clue what makes men tick! Whenever something goes wrong, you run crying back to your girlfriends... WAWIBF... Florida February 11, 2007 Picture the scene. You're driving along, your young niece is in the car with you. She's somewhere between four and eight, let's say. Suddenly, she turns to you, innocent eyes all wide and pleading and she says to you, 'Aunty, what's a vagina?' What do you do?... DVLA Confidential: The War Against Traffic-Charging February 11, 2007 In an exclusive, we have received a video from the mastermind behind the recent spate of parcel bombings across the country. Here is a transcript... 'You, the British people, I talk to you today about the best way to avoid another catastrophe and about war...' The TFT Guide to... The New Curriculum February 11, 2007 This week it was announced that the secondary school curriculum is being modernised. Changes will include updating and diversifying the English literature reading list, teaching practical 'life skills', and offering the chance to learn languages such as Mandarin and Arabic... Macs vs PCs: Geek Against Geek, Nerd Against Nerd February 11, 2007 Ructions on the Internet this week as comedians Mitchell and Webb appeared in a series of adverts for Macs based on their characters in 'Peep Show'. Thus PCs (David Mitchell/Mark) are boring office computers, while Macs (Robert Webb/Jeremy) are fun music-and-pictures machines. Although why anyone would want a computer that's also a drugged-up, self-obsessed wanker isn't clear... WAWIBF... Miss Plutonium February 4, 2007 Your best friend says they’ve met someone. A special someone they think might actually be ‘the one’. You’re excited, naturally. You love your best friend and you really want them to be happy. You ask them what this new person in their life does for a living. What’s the worst thing they could say?... Young Muslims: Oppressed and Lovin' It! February 4, 2007 It’s easy to feel the world is against you. In fact, sometimes it seems to be the only logical explanation for events. You know the sort of thing: those days when your partner chucks you in favour of someone better, then, as you trudge tearfully home, you tread in dogshit... WAWIBF... Dedication February 4, 2007 Every now and then a story pops up in the quirkies about a person who is so keen to be recognised for something - *anything* - that they will hit upon an activity no one else wants to do (for the simple reason that it’s insane and utterly futile) and they’ll practise it, and they’ll master it, and by God, they’ll become the best... True Brit: The Great Smell of Brutishness January 26, 2007 On the matter of national pride we must turn, once again, to the Testament of Bill (Hicks). From the book of Rant In E-Minor, chapter 14: 'I was over in Australia, and got asked, "Are you proud to be an American?" 'I dunno, I didn't have a lot to do with it. My parents fucked there, that's about all. I was in the spirit realm at that time, trying to tell them, "Fuck in Paris! Fuck in Paris!" but they couldn't hear me, 'cause I didn't have a mouth. They fucked here.'... Dad To Be Gay January 26, 2007 Where would we be without gay people? Without Oscar Wilde, Alan Turing, Gore Vidal or even Christopher Biggins, the world would most definitely be a poorer place, although the precise purpose of Pete Burns remains unclear. But this week it's been impossible to avoid the unpleasant row about whether Catholic adoption agencies should be forced to consider gay couples... The TFT Guide to... Middle-Class Gambling January 26, 2007 As the government continues its love affair with gambling, this week casino bosses revealed that they've got a whole new set of punters in their sights - the middle-classes... if the middle classes *do* take up gambling with the alacrity of the working and upper classes, what will be the result? TFT speculates... New Labour, Old Techno-Bollocks January 19, 2007 If you've worked in 'new media', you'll probably have found yourself listening to a load of ridiculous claims about the impact of new technology made by 25-year-olds in Next suits... e.g. 'People want to watch TV on their mobile phones. And when our crappy podcast hits the Chinese market, that's over *one billion viewers* straight away!'... WAWIBF... Bad Prejudice January 19, 2007 What a racist week it's been! Oy. It seems you couldn't turn around without someone being racist right in your face. Not only the 'three thick bitches' [Andrew Neil, yesterday] on 'Celebrity Big Brother', but everyone else from Swindon gangs to Janet Street-Porter - they were all at it. Allegedly. It's almost like there was something in the air. A nip, maybe... The TFT Guide To... Big Celebrity Racists January 19, 2007 Another triumph for Channel 4 this week as 'Celebrity Big Brother' became one of the most complained-about programmes in its history, guaranteeing massive ratings and pissing on Tony Harrison's 'V' in the controversy stakes. In the unlikely event that you missed the story, Jade Goody and other housemates were accused of racism... WAWIBF... Roger Holyfield November 3, 2006 On Saturday 17-year-old Roger Holyfield was wandering around Jerseyville, Illinois, carrying a bible and yelling out, 'I want Jesus!' So, naturally, local police shot him dead. There are three possible explanations for this. 1) They genuinely wanted to help him achieve his stated goal and chose merely to speed up the process. 2)... The TFT Guide To... Global Warming November 3, 2006 This week the government said it would push for a new international agreement on climate change after a report by Treasury economist Sir Nicholas Stern reiterated the need to cut carbon emissions. But what should you be doing to help save the planet? TFT advises... WAWIBF... Political Correctness Gone Mad Gone Mad November 3, 2006 According to an article in The Yorkshire Post this week, local council workers have been ordered not to use phrases such as 'chairman' and 'fireman', and moving someone's stapler has been compared with punching them in the face. Furthermore - and rather cleverly - use of the term 'It's political correctness gone mad' has been outlawed... Sign of the (End of) Times November 3, 2006 This week SUV-chomping, cigar-driving Californian governator Arnold Schwarzenegger stunned - well - everybody by announcing that he was focussing his next re-election campaign on environmental issues. Meanwhile, over on the East coast, draft-dodger George W. Bush was attacking decorated war veteran John Kerry for showing contempt for the American military... WAWIBF... Crimes Against Nature October 27, 2006 There can be few people in the world to have had a more humiliating, depressing time of it of late than the girlfriend of 44-year-old Michigan man, Ronald Kuch. First of all, her beloved black Labrador dog went missing. She didn't find out until four or five days later that he'd actually been hit by a car and was lying dead on a road in front of a nearby day centre... Nature: Entertaining In Tooth and Claw October 27, 2006 This week you may have seen the story 'Pelican eats pigeon', which was widely reported and which really is all you need to know. Except for where you can see the video... The pigeon was doing its usual pigeon stuff in St James' Park, i.e. eating McDonald's wrappers and fag ends, when the pelican walked up and ate it, apparently reducing nearby children to tears... The TFT Guide To... Unsuitable Playthings October 27, 2006 This week Tesco was in trouble after selling a pole dancing kit on the toys and games section of its website, with critics saying it was an inappropriate item for children. Rather than simply admit that an error of judgement had been made, the supermarket disingenuously claimed that the pole dancing kit had no sexual overtones, saying 'Pole dancing is an increasing exercise craze.'...But what other products are inappropriately being aimed at kids?... Journojism: Saving the Planet One Cheap Flight at a Time October 27, 2006 'Climate change: *Our* green paper' sneered The Independent's front-page headline yesterday in its familiar supercilious greener-than-thou style. It offered 'a more radical' alternative to what's expected to be Tony Blair's 'toothless' upcoming climate change legislation... Sex Education: Don't Be A Muppet! Johnny Up! October 27, 2006 This week the Institute for Public Policy Research floated the idea that kids as young as 10 should be taught about contraception in their final year at primary school. A study by the IPPR also found that British teenagers are the most sexually active in Europe. (Or at least the most likely to lie about it.)... WAWIBF... Intelligence October 20, 2006 ...Obviously we at TFT don't really approve of murder. Not really. We like to think - as with war and indeed any violence - that there is always another option. But sometimes, perhaps there really isn't. And perhaps - just perhaps - the world would be a better place if someone did kill George Bush. Oh, and Dick Cheney of course. Oh, burst open, sweet brutal floodgates of barbaric instinct... The TFT Guide To... Being Terror Target Number One October 20, 2006 This week it was reported that the UK was 'number one' target for terrorism, with intelligence chiefs claiming that not only has Al Qaeda regrouped and become more powerful, but also that its attentions were focused on the UK... So how should we respond to yet another terror warning? TFT advises... WAWIBF... Age Crimes October 15, 2006 On the first of October the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations came into force. And wouldn't you just know it, already people are using the new law as an excuse to squeeze all the remaining joy out of life. Obviously the law was introduced in order that the same stringent levels of regulated fairness be applied to age as they already are to gender and race... WAWIBF... Sex Crimes October 15, 2006 ...on Monday Peter and Jennifer went to court where senior magistrate John King'ori said this: 'Having sex in a mosque is a most abominable thing to religion and only a custodial sentence can add justice to this.' He then sentenced them to 18 months in prison. 18 months. In prison. For fuck's sake... The TFT Guide To... Online Crime October 15, 2006 This week the BBC highlighted the problem of online crime, reporting that computers can be attacked every 12 minutes by various online criminals. So how can you avoid being a victim of online crime? TFT advises... Fear of Veilure October 6, 2006 This week Jack Straw decided to add his two penn'orth to the amorphous debate about the Muslim 'community' and its relationship with the rest of society. Unfortunately, the relationship between the government and the Muslim community is increasingly resembling that between an earnest but clueless teacher and 'problem' teenagers... The TFT Guide to... Children's Classics Updated October 6, 2006 This week an authorised sequel to the children's classic 'Peter Pan' was published. The story is set 20 years after the original, and Wendy has now got children of her own, while the Lost Boys have grown up... So what's happened to the other beloved children's characters of our youth? TFT makes believe... WAWIBF... Hipbreak Hotel October 6, 2006 This week Paul Moran, a man who makes money working as a Flying Elvis, broke his pelvis. Let's just think about that for a moment. In fact, let's repeat it: this week a man who makes a living from jumping out of an aeroplane dressed as the King of Rock and Roll (a Flying Elvis), broke his pelvis. How cool is that?... Gnash For Questions: A Dog Owner Writes October 1, 2006 It’s not been the best week for owners of big dogs with scary teeth, but still a better week than the one endured by the two families whose children were attacked by Rottweilers, resulting in the death of a five-month-old baby and traumatic injuries to a two-year old. But two such freakish attacks occurring so close together... The TFT Guide to... The Singleton Market October 1, 2006 This week the papers reported that supermarkets are set to sell products specifically aimed at single people. These will include smaller versions of traditional products, such as loaves of bread with as few as four slices. It sounds like bollocks to us, but we couldn’t help but wonder what other products and services might suit our sizeable single population?... WAWIBF... Girly Men October 1, 2006 A superbly ludicrous little tiff concerning the banning of vertical pissing in a school in Kristiansand has this week been splashed across the deliciously translated pages of Aftenposten.no ('News From Norway’). The principal of the school in question, Anne Lise Gjul, explains why the ban was introduced... Texas Boob II: Sydney Does Dallas October 1, 2006 School trips, for any young student, are generally the shizzle. You get to escape the classroom, go somewhere on a bus (exciting! And full of illicit opportunity), run around like Taz on PCP (bad and wrong but largely tolerated) and actually enjoy learning things as you whizz by them, although it’s easy to pretend you’ve learned nothing and thus maintain your reputation. pretend you’ve learned nothing and thus maintain your reputation. Also, if you’re lucky, you get to look at nakeds in art galleries. Or maybe some goats fucking... Polish Immigration: Too Good To Be True? October 1, 2006 Polish immigration has very much been the flavour of the last few months. And it does appear that there’s a genuine phenomenon here, not just something talked up by the press. Which makes a fucking change, from the same newspapers that would have us believe you can’t leave the house without being a victim of crime, or that 'political correctness’ means that Father Christmas is now an illegal immigrant... WAWIBF... Cricket October 1, 2006 Cricket Australia - the governing body of cricket, in Australia - has this week decreed that it’s perfectly fine if Australian cricket fans want to refer to English cricket fans as 'Poms’, just so long as they do so 'affectionately’. Don’t be fooled by those quotation marks however. No one used the word 'affectionately’. What they actually said was that the word can be, but not in the context of anything 'hurtful, racist, offensive or humiliating’. Well, that seems fair. Almost to the point of dinkum... apart from one small thing... What Banksy Did Next September 24, 2006 Prankster and guerrilla graffiti artist, Banksy, got himself into trouble this week when his painted live elephant - the star of his 'elephant in the living room' art installation in Los Angeles - was ordered to be hosed down by the Los Angeles department of animal services. The thing is, right, the 'elephant in the living room' is a metaphor, yeah?... Fatty Fatty Fat Fats: A Class Issue September 24, 2006 From time to time, you have to marvel at the fact that we humans aren't still living in caves. Sometimes it's that moment of panic as you see a loved one poking around in a toaster with a metal fork, sometimes it's spending 10 minutes in a queue at the corner shop when all you want is a pint of milk, but 200 proles are buying their midweek lottery tickets... The TFT Guide to... The Muslim Terror Threat September 24, 2006 This week home secretary John Reid was heckled during a speech about targeting potential Muslim extremists, during which he told Muslim parents to watch out for signs that their children were developing extremist views. He was interrupted by Islamic activists who called him 'an enemy of Islam'... So what's next in the 'debate' about young Muslims and extremism? WAWIBF... Warfare September 24, 2006 War! What is it good for? Well, if BAE Systems are true to their word, just about anything that that ails you, but particularly the environment. BAE is one of the world's largest and most successful arms manufacturers, and this week it was announced in the press that they are designing a new range of 'green arms'. This is simply fabulous news for anyone who's ever suffered the inconvenience of having their head blown apart by a sniper's bullet, or their entire family torn to shreds by a host of indiscriminate cluster bombs... Cocaine: Even Crapper Than The Real Thing September 24, 2006 Cocaine! It's a crappy free paper's wet dream. Especially when it's not actually cocaine but a caffeinated energy drink with an idiotically provocative name. Still, shitty city freesheet London Lite were still obliged to slash the drink's marketing budget by giving it a little outrage this week. Everybody wins, except no one really does, because Cocaine is a stupid idea, and London Lite is the malformed offspring of the cursed Evening Standard, and both are so badly designed they make the Spam tin look like the Louvre... The TFT Guide To... Life After 9/11 September 17, 2006 This week you might have noticed it's been five years since 9/11, The Day Everything Changed. Fortunately this turned out not to be literally the case, or we'd all have had to get new keys cut. But how *exactly* has the world changed since that fateful day?... Lost Childhood: Are We Kidding Ourselves? September 17, 2006 When something gets their goat, the great and the good have a tendency to write portentous letters to national newspapers, like Harold Pinter and his stern criticisms of US foreign policy in The Guardian, but there's something rather futile about it. It's probably because the imbalance of power is so great - it's reminiscent of the way student unions will pass motions like... Sting Wars II: Revenge of the Shit September 17, 2006 Lots of people really liked the late Steve Irwin, with his chubby-cheeked enthusiasm for sitting on prehistoric reptiles. Inevitably, some of those people kind of missed the point of his work a bit, as well as the salient points about his death. These are the ones who have apparently started perpetrating 'revenge attacks' on stingrays in Queensland, where Irwin last week crikey'd his last... Something Fishy This Way Comes September 8, 2006 This week it was announced that around 5,000 secondary school pupils in County Durham are to be offered daily doses of fish oil to see whether it improves their exam results. This can only be a good thing: whatever the effect on exam results, children should be taught at an early age that life is cruel and deals unpleasant surprises... Gestate of the Nation September 8, 2006 A quick hypocrisy check is in order. How many times have we looked surreptitious daggers at any woman pushing a pram with fag in gob, and muttered 'If you can't even give up smoking for a kid then you shouldn't bloody well be having them, you irresponsible beast'? Too many to count. If there's one thing that makes us come over all righteous... The TFT Guide To... Improving School Dinners September 8, 2006 This week the government finally took steps to improve school dinners, putting healthier food on the menu and earmarking an extra £240 million for better ingredients, extra cookery lessons and better training for school cooks (although whether they'll ever accept that quiche *isn't* meant to resemble watery scrambled egg remains to be seen). So what will the changes mean?... The Internet: What Do *You* Think? September 1, 2006 One of the nicest touches in Truffaut's books-are-banned-in-a-future-dystopia movie 'Fahrenheit 451' is the way that reading has been replaced by ultra-bland interactive TV. At one point Julie Christie's pilled-up character is avidly watching an inconsequential discussion between soap opera characters about which of the spare bedrooms their houseguests should be given... WAWIBF... Rubbish September 1, 2006 As the mania to stick shiny new RFID chips on anything and everything continues, it is hardly surprising that several local councils have stuck devices on rubbish bins. This is, naturally, to "help end disputes over bin ownership", they lied through blackened teeth... Don't Watch That, Watch Th... Oh, Don't Watch This Either September 1, 2006 Liz Longhurst can't really be blamed. Backed by MPs and a 50,000 name petition, she's just won her court battle to get a ban on the violent porn which she believes had a hand in the murder of her daughter. Any of us would be likely to seek the same in our rage and grief - whatever we fiercely defend now, we'd be very likely to try and pulverise it out of existence if it killed someone we loved... Adverjism: Spam Spam Spam Wonderful Spam August 30, 2006 No one, not even the most demented nostalgist, has misty-eyed reminiscenses of Spam. You couldn't hypnotise anyone into sharing their fond recollections of sitting around the family table, while Mother dished up warm slices of the speckly breezeblock of processed meat-substitute facsimile. It is the ugly orphan sprog of canned foods... Just Plane Crazy August 30, 2006 Well, thrash us with celery and call us Susan, but turns out there might really have been an airplane bomb plot after all. We'd be the first to admit, as news of the mass arrests of suspects broke a couple of weeks ago, that the whole idea of a scheme to smuggle liquid explosives and detonators onto trans-Atlantic flights ranked 'Yeah, really' on our Great Big Friday Thing Cynic-o-meter... Pet Peeve August 30, 2006 'Pet' is one of the more adorable epithets available to the person who can't just finish a sentence with a full stop like anyone else. It is a particularly Geordie wordlet, immortalised of course in 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet'. It's also a diminutive, like 'love' (or the Yorkshire 'luv') or 'sweetie'. It's like a nice pat on the head. (Like Newcastle endearment 'hinny', although that's quite close to 'hiney', so rather more like a pat on the arse.)... Eat, Drink and Be Merry: Just Don't Come Crying To Us August 30, 2006 We're not saying some members of the Government are fat, but road protesters are once again taking to the trees and digging tunnels to prevent a bypass being built around the Cabinet's meeting room. John Prescott is now so large that spacetime curves around him and small objects cannot escape his gravitational pull. He's orbited by a set of rings – like Saturn – made up of pork pie crumbs, brown ale bottle tops and stray peanuts that missed his slack, stupid gob... Truth Decay August 18, 2006 It took long enough but finally, after 200 years, the last drop of wit and intelligence was squeezed from political debate this week. From John Wilkes' 'That will depend, my Lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress' (in response to the Earl of Sandwich's assertion, 'egad sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox') to Prescott referring to Bush as 'crap'... WAWIBF... Mayhem August 18, 2006 On Wednesday, 59-year-old Catherine Mayo, a blithering claustrophobe on a United Airlines flight was wrestled to the floor of the plane and tied up with duct tape after suspicions that she had about her person a whole arsenal of contraband. 'Snakes on a Plane'? Bollocks to that. 'Catherine Mayo on a Plane'. That's the disaster movie we want to see... The TFT Guide to... Airport Security August 18, 2006 After the plot to attack transatlantic flights was uncovered last week, airlines have been busy stepping up their security. So if you're about to jet off to the Seychelles, or oblivion, depending on who else is on the plane, what sort of security measures can you expect? TFT explains... WAWIBF... Ryanair August 18, 2006 The week kicked off then, with the immediate aftermath of the hideous onslaught of the first Great War for the Heavens. With a couple of bottles of pop, al Qaeda - or somesuch - temporarily brought British air travel to a standstill, and managed to cripple it for life in the process... WAWIBF... Over-compensation August 18, 2006 Speaking of buses, anyone who's ever travelled by National Express will tell you that travelling by National Express is an unpleasant pain in the arse. As opposed to a pleasant one, that is. In many ways the Ryanair of their time, National Express may be cheap (relatively), but they're also cramped, uncomfortable and predominantly staffed by evil-doers. Having said all that however, at least they're not Megabus... Bankruptcy: Spendthrifts Like Us August 11, 2006 Here at TFT we don't like to scaremonger. We don't pass on fuckwitted emails about getting your drink spiked and waking up with your kidneys missing. We don't go around telling women that if they haven't had kids by the age of 26, they may as well consider themselves sterile. And we don't parrot every shock- horror story that the media carelessly spews out, e.g. 'Can tap water give you AIDS?'... Rapping in the Real World August 11, 2006 Rap music rarely provides the model for a lasting relationship based on mutual respect, as this lyric from 2 Live Crew suggests: 'Lick my ass up and down / Lick it 'til your tongue turns doo-doo brown.' It's not the greatest offer, is it? Even if you're open-minded about rimming members of a long-forgotten, misogynistic gangsta rap band, there's a horrible juvenility about it... The TFT Guide to... City Street Games August 11, 2006 Just recently you may have noticed the media getting a bit overexcited about something called 'city street games'. Usually organised over the Internet, they've included a mass pillow fight outside St Paul's Cathedral, hide-and-seek on the streets of Toronto, human Pac Man in Manhattan, and stalking other 'assassins' with a water pistol in London in a game called 'StreetWars'. However, the police have already raised concerns... WAWIBF... Carl Myles August 11, 2006 Carl Myles is a 20-year-old Welshman. Say no more, you might think. And you might be right. But you might also be a racialist. Maybe you need to think about that. So anyway, last month Myles was walking home from a party, worse for wear to the tune of 12 pints of super-strong cider. Plus of course, he was Welsh, so who knows what was going on in his brain when he spied Snowy, an 11-month-old goat by the side of the road... Drugs: Still Bad, Now With Added Confusion August 4, 2006 Imagine the evil looks Professor David Nutt, a senior member of a committee that advises the government on drug classification, must be getting for devising a new classification scale that rubbishes the reliable A/B/C one. After all that effort and money we put in to simply and firmly stating that all drugs must be avoided... The TFT Guide to... Putting the 'Cool' in 'School' August 4, 2006 This week Essex teacher Simon Smith called for an end to pupils being called 'clever'. The word, apparently, is uncool and makes pupils less likely to want to achieve, lest they receive a good kicking from their classmates. Simon Smith however, is an idiot... What we need to do here is to bring 'cool' into the classroom where it belongs. So how could that be best achieved?... Burger: Off August 4, 2006 Las Vegas, as a city, isn't big on self-denial. It sees quite a lot of money go merrily down the tubes one way or another... Roughly 87% of its homeless population were millionaires this time last week (we read somewhere that we made up). Sucks to be them even more as of this week, since the city council have made it an offence to give them food... WAWIBF... Rainbows August 4, 2006 Local hick Keith Klassen spelled out the problem on a TV news report: 'For me, it's like running up a Nazi flag in a Jewish neighbourhood,' he said, seemingly, like Mel Gibson, under the impression that it was the Jews that mercilessly persecuted and killed six million innocent Nazis, and not the other way around... Saddam Hussein: Inspirational *and* Suave July 31, 2006 The real reason Osama bin Laden hates Saddam Hussein is pretty obvious - it's simple jealousy. Poor Osama ate nothing but cabbage soup for *years* to get himself down to a camera-friendly size 6, and Saddam's gone and made it look easy in a matter of weeks with his radical hunger strike regime... WAWIBF... Picturing Pooves in the Park July 31, 2006 Generally speaking, there is nothing certain homosexuals like more than to go to a secluded place in the dead of night, preferably in or at least close to a public toilet, and have frenetic dirty sex with a perfect stranger. If perfection isn't readily at hand however, a pot-bellied van driver will often suffice... WAWIBF... Paedophilophobia July 31, 2006 No parent wants their kids to be molested by a pack of dirty great paedophiles. Or even one paedophile, acting on his own. And yet very few parents have ever actually suffered such a fate. Which is not to suggest that, if the unthinkable ever did happen, they would actually get something of a kick out of it, but rather to suggest that even the mere thought of one's children being sexually abused is *so* incredibly hideous that most people are prepared to go out on a limb and confidently declare that they definitely wouldn't enjoy it... WAWIBF... Watching the Detectives July 31, 2006 According to The Daily Mirror, plain-clothes detectives were out in Trafalgar Square on Tuesday looking for paedophiles when they happened across a Scotland Yard surveillance expert and anti-terrorist officer with a camera hidden in a sports bag. Turns out this veteran of the force was using his hidden camera to take upskirt shots of womens' private parts... Thinly Veiled July 22, 2006 Last week Deborah Orr wrote an article explaining why the sight of a woman in the Muslim garb of hijab offends her. The debate in the letters page of The Indie and elsewhere has been sizzling ever since. There have been sarcastic suggestions that if Muslim women are covered up to avoid inciting male lust, children should lead their fathers blindfold along the street... WAWIBF... Brotherly Love July 22, 2006 If sitcom star and animated cadaver Lesley Joseph is mutton dressed as rather garish, tarty mutton, and the BNP are a bunch of nasty turds dressed as turds which are ostensibly respectable but basically nasty turds fooling no one, then what the hell are the Brotherly Love, Freedom and Diversity Party? Well... TFT FIlm: 'Hard Candy' July 22, 2006 The word 'paedophile' inevitably sounds ugly to us, and it looks rather unlovely too. That Latinate 'ae'; it's all perverse and threatening. However, the US English version - 'pedophile', with the first syllable spat out to rhyme with 'dead' - is possibly ickier. As ghastly as both is 'Hard Candy', a film in which a sinister 14-year-old girl submits an early-thirties male photographer to a sunny afternoon's mental and physical torture... WAWIBF... Wanking July 22, 2006 Now we all like a wank. Anyone who says they don't is either lying, for strange and most probably religious reasons, or is Darren Moulding, who we went to school with and who was so bizarrely sexless and waxy and fond of chess that we actually believed him when he denied it. Eventually. So yes, wanking is common as muck. Less common however, is wanking in front of complete strangers... WAWIBF... Posh Kids July 22, 2006 They may have nannies, trust funds, skiing holidays, private schooling and ponies, but this week a very definite downside to life as a posh kid was revealed. Turns out they're like magnets for cancer. On the front page of The Daily Mail a survey carried out by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) revealed that, although there is no proof of a link between nuclear power plants and cancer, there is a very definite connection between personal wealth and cancer. TFT Meets: Will Rankin July 15, 2006 In 2004 Will Rankin was crossing the Great Wall of China when he stumbled and fell, making what was later described as 'a noise like a pregnant dinosaur'. He could have died. He should at least have snapped a rib, punctured a lung, or something. But he escaped with cuts and bruises. In 1993... Sticks, Stones and Monkey Business July 15, 2006 And so the World Cup came to an end, not with a bang, but with a big bald thug head-butting a defender's chest like the half-witted, slightly brain-damaged donkey he truly is. Ghastly, for sure, and yet in its moronic, infantile self-destructiveness, the attack seemed an appropriate denouement for a tournament marred by disappointing football, foul play and ape-like thuggery... Suffolk Police: Pants July 15, 2006 This week BBC Online reported on the deliciously awful new binge drinking campaign run by Suffolk Police. Like most similar things officially produced and aimed at women or teenagers - in this case, teenage women - the pamphlet seems to have been conceived in hopelessly earnest good faith without a whiff of an inkling of its own rambunctious inappropriateness... WAWIBF... Diana July 15, 2006 Poor old Diana. They just won't let her decompose in peace. This week however, it isn't the Daily Express dancing around her grave - well, not primarily - it's The Sun with their wonderfully tasteful headline, 'I BEDDED DIANA'... The TFT Guide to... Remembering Syd Barrett July 15, 2006 This week we discovered that Syd Barrett, one of the founders of Pink Floyd, had died aged 60. Although a talented songwriter, Barrett was best known for going mental after taking shedloads of drugs and spending the rest of his life living with his mum in Cambridge. Still, at least he didn't have to listen to Roger Waters banging on about his dead dad every day. But as the tributes flood in, how best to remember this enigmatic and troubled musician? WAWIBF... Curses July 15, 2006 Mary Whitehouse wrote that if there was one thing she really couldn't stand, it was the expression 'Jesus fucking Christ'. Although she used asterisks obviously. At least six. But you can understand where she was coming from. Especially if, like Mary Whitehouse, you're a sex-fearing Christophile... WAWIBF... Soap Operatics July 15, 2006 Seven years ago last month, Nicola Pridham was, according to the tabloids, 'on tot of the world'. This was because she'd just had her 20th child. The press dubbed her 'Supermum' and the nation was said to have taken her to its heart. No one mentioned overpopulation, because it wouldn't have been nice... Pointless Change: The Only Constant July 7, 2006 Most right-thinking people do not fear change, but sometimes the sheer pointlessness of unnecessary change makes even the most progressive of us quietly transmogrify into Keith Waterhouse. (Although we do draw a line at criticising decimalisation, unless you're the kind of weirdo who gets a kick out of adding up in base 12.) It's been a good week for pointless change... Falling Out of the Ugly Tree July 7, 2006 Last week some sensible individual arrived gasping to cries of 'about time, fool' to announce something brilliantly obvious - fruit that is aesthetically substandard is to be made available to buy. Good old Waitrose, the Netto of the chattering classes, is going to give a leg-up to lumpen, grotesque, vaguely inbred-looking fruit and flog it at a cheaper price... WAWIBF... Rachel Bevilacqua July 7, 2006 If this is your first exposure to the Church of the SubGenius, then where the hell have you been? Get yourself over there at once and praise Bob. But be careful. It could cost you your children... Enid Blyton: No More Dick, No More Fanny July 2, 2006 There's something very wearisome about the recent outrage over the updating of various Enid Blyton novels. It's probably the way that traditionalists and rightwingers have been able to claim that the changes are yet more examples of (yawn) 'political correctness gone mad', accompanied by endless unfunny articles in the press lampooning the changes... Lad Mags: The Sexual Revolution Has Been Shelved July 2, 2006 This week an MP proposed a bill forcing a shunt of all glossy lad mags to the top shelves, beside their big-breasted porn brethren. Once more the nation rises sluggishly from its torpor and notices there are yards of happily unfeminist airbrushed cleavage at kiddie eye-level in its corner shops, and commences expelling piss and wind in equal measure... TFT Goes: Starkers July 2, 2006 ...Thus it is in the name of investigative journalism and simple curiosity that we find ourselves in the downstairs bar of Starkers, London's only naked nightclub. It is a club for the fabric-impaired that may include, but is clearly not restricted to, the volleyball-players who persist in legend as the archetypal nudists.... WAWIBF... Charles Lennon July 2, 2006 68-year-old Rhode Islander Charles Lennon used to be impotent. Unfortunately this was ten years ago, a couple of years before the advent of the cock pill. So what Charles did to put a stop to his midlife phallicrisis was to have an operation. Specifically, a penile implant. This is basically a steel and plastic device inserted into the penis - essentially a bionic nob... WAWIBF... Tea July 2, 2006 C-Ice Swiss Cannabis Ice Tea is, at least as far as Barry Gorman of The Tea Council is concerned, not a proper tea. But then Barry Gorman doesn't even recognise chamomile as a proper tea. Which it is. So the makers of C-Ice probably shouldn't be too concerned with what a reactionary old beverage-square like Gorman thinks. But they should also be aware that all proper tea is theft... Children: The Cause Of and Solution To All of Life's Problems June 24, 2006 This year's unofficial 'Won't Somebody Please Think Of The Children' week was a huge success. First up, on Sunday, the News of the World and the Home Office agreed that Britain is better off with its 'child sex beasts' out of sight and out of mind, instead of in plain sight where we can see... The TFT Guide... To The Power of The Tabloids June 24, 2006 This week the government was accused of basing policy on the reaction from the tabloids, something it hotly denied, although it's obvious that New Labour is so keen to appease the tabloids that Rebekah Wade may as well sit in on cabinet meetings with a big rubber stamp... WAWIBF... Bavaria June 24, 2006 Just before last Friday's Holland Ivory Coast World Cup soccer bout kicked off, hundreds of Dutch fans were forced by FIFA officials to take off their lederhosen and watch the bout in their sweaty keks. It wasn't a sex thing however. It was a money thing. Specifically, a marketing thing. As you may have noticed if you've watched any of the soccer, Budweiser is one of the main sponsors of the tournament... WAWIBF... The Wayne, The Truth and The Light June 23, 2006 Nike must be tickled pink with the stinking furore kicked up by their Rooney Christ ad this week. Sanctimonious MPs and religious leaders both have been lining up to play into Nike's hands by denouncing the ad. The Reverend Rod Thomas of Church of England evangelical group Reform was the most amusing. 'It's quite a disturbing image and because the paint is wet, it really looks like blood,' he said, quivering... Kate Crimes June 16, 2006 Good old Kate Moss. Good old strangely apposite symbol of spunky Britishness and bulldog spirit, not unlike Jordan in many ways, but with human breasts and a terribly sore nose. There were sighs (or perhaps snorts) of relief in her camp this week as it was announced she would not be facing drug charges... WAWIBF... Naked Civil Servants June 16, 2006 From the various accounts of how bad things became at the Rural Payment Agency office in Newcastle recently, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the end of the world is clearly well nigh. Not since the subhuman madness of the Katrina Superdome have we seen scenes so reminiscent of Sodom and Gomorrah... The Grad Grind June 16, 2006 A study published this week by the thinktank Demos found that - yet again - employers aren't happy with the calibre of their graduate recruits. Again! It's a refrain so familiar it might as well replace 'Er' in the common idiom. So what irks our capitalist pig-masters this time?... WAWIBF... Hot Cockles June 16, 2006 If we were 12-year-old Jake Oliver, we would invest in a BlackBerry and a fake Rolex, and we would hang around dodgy areas and flaunt them. Jake was in the news this week following his enviable dispatching of a would-be mugger in a balaclava... Bluewater Comes To Baden-Baden June 16, 2006 At first glance, the press would appear to be in love with the wives and girlfriends of the England team, judging by the number of photo stories about them. There's Carly out shopping, there's Michaela by the pool, there's Nancy being glamorous. Even the sight of Cheryl Tweedy twatting a jigaboo would only slightly detract from their overall loveliness. But there's a dark subtext to the endless shots of the not-terribly-interesting Germanic adventures of Carly, Melanie, Michaela, et al, and it is 'Just look at these trashy, working-class spendthrifts!' WAWIBF... God June 16, 2006 God showed His true colours this week when He was called upon to save one of His flock, and was, frankly speaking, found wanting. A wacky 45-year-old Ukrainian man was at a loose end and so decided to put God to the test... WAWIBF... Chris Evans June 12, 2006 What a smashing week it's been for the hitherto godforsaken people of Chennai in India. For it was this week that 'Sport Relief Goes All Out For India', featuring the good peasants of Chennai and special guest, perennial TV stool, Chris Evans, was beamed into living rooms right across the known BBC world. Foraging for sustenance in mountains of human waste... TFT Goes To... The Bodies Exhibition June 12, 2006 Gunther von Hagens is, by anyone's standards, a creepy bastard. With his sharp cheekbones and sunken eyes and big black hat, he looks almost exactly like the baddie out of 'Poltergeist II' - the 'God is iiiiiin his holy temmmple' guy. He's a caricature of an anatomist, a bloke who coldly cuts up cadavers without a blink. He invented the process of plastination in the late 70s... WAWIBF... Damien Cooper June 9, 2006 On Wednesday of this week, as on any other day of any other week, a large number of babies were pushed bawling into this wonderful shit-filled world of ours, without so much as a by your leave. Let alone an agent. Naturally, a large number of these babies were born around six o'clock, some of them - wait for it - at six minutes past six... Worldwide Whatever June 3, 2006 Congratulations. By reading this, you are using a means of electronic communication whereby information is passed from one computer to another, commonly known as 'the Internet'. You find yourself in the happy, somewhat virtuous position of riding on the cutting edge of modern technology to which millions still do not have access... Web Celeb: Wandering Scribe June 3, 2006 Here's a fairytale for the Internet generation: this week a woman who was homeless and living in her car, and who detailed her experiences in a blog, won a book deal with publisher Harper Collins. As a result, Anya Peters is now housed, and the blog itself has been nominated for a media award. 'It still feels like a dream - it's completely turned around,' she said... WAWIBF... PRegnancy June 3, 2006 Rejoice! Melissa Parker is due to give birth next week. Despair. The woman is an idiot. Melissa is due to give birth next Tuesday. The sixth. The sixth of June, 2006. Aargh! Six! Six! 2006 minus 2000... can it be? It is! Six! The Number of the Beast! Naturally, she is distraught. She told The Sun: 'When I got my due date I thought, "Oh God, I'm giving birth to Damien from The Omen"'... The TFT Guide To... Not Getting Involved June 3, 2006 Recently a student was stabbed and killed while trying to intervene in an argument between a man and a woman on a train. Not only is it a reminder of the UK's knife culture, but also a worrying example of a situation that we've all found ourselves in, i.e. having to use public transport. But what should you do if you see an ugly incident and feel you should intervene? TFT advises... WAWIBF... That Darned Pope June 3, 2006 What is wrong with this bastard of a pope that he has to wring every last ounce of joy from the soul of every poor sod that crosses his path? We heard last month that his visit to Poland would result in an embargo on televised porn, *including* late-nite chat fodder, 'cause they know what he's like... Cut-Off Point June 3, 2006 Inevitably, in the wake of the Virgin Trains stabbing, calls for long kitchen knives to be banned have rung out. This urgent suggestion comes from a team of Accident and Emergency doctors from the West Middlesex University Hospital, according to the BBC. Their research, published in the British Medical Journal, includes consultation with ten top UK chefs. We're suspicious of the whole thing, frankly, although we are prepared to admit they might have a point... UK Eurovision Travesty: TFT Commiserates May 27, 2006 This year's landslide winners Lordi (imagine ZZ Top pretending to be Slipknot in their 14-year-old sisters' platform Goth shoes) represent the very best of Eurovision, and something like genuine controversy. So gloriously ludicrous are they, so manifestly upsetting to anyone who was cheering on any of the more traditionally poppier songs, that all you can do is remove hat and genuflect. But of course this was to the detriment of our own Daz Sampson and co-writer John Matthews, aka Ricardo Autobahn, who were left languishing in the green room as the points trickled in. TFT caught up with Ricardo again as he teetered on the ledge of his Athens hotel room window. (Thankfully his room was in the basement.) F4J: FFS May 26, 2006 It was the week following Sven Goran Eriksson's fake sheiking, and the whole world and his dog wanted words with the man himself. 'Any questions?' asked the FA spokesman, at last. A sea of hands. Sven immediately pointed to the blonde hackette from 'Take a Break' magazine. 'When it's cold,' she asked, 'Do you think they should play football indoors?'... Better To Have Loved And Lost - Better Still To Have Signed A Pre-Nup May 26, 2006 Hey, ladies! Form an orderly queue, because Mike Davies is single! 'Who is Mike Davies?' you might ask. Well, Mike lives in Bury and is a contributor to BBC Online's Have Your Say discussion board. And this is what he has to say: '...The only reason I would ever get married is for having kids and for that, there is no way I'd marry a British woman...' </