Tuesday 9 October 2012

Islam4UK To Cancel Remaining Tour Dates

Just found this on the same hard drive, must have been written some time in January 2010. Can't think why I wouldn't have published it...


So, Islam4UK, the Muslim boyband fronted by singer/songwriter Anjem Choudary have called off their upcoming gig in Wootton Bassett, the largely tweed jewel in Wiltshire's crown.

Islam4UK aren't your average boyband, with a distinct political slant to their crooning - showcased in such hits as 'Sharia My Dear' and the Dr Dre produced 'Cali-phate Love' - which has led them to be likened to such bands as Rage Against The Machine and Zig and Zag.

Islam4UK are an unofficial offshoot of the 'rad-rad-radical' underground Islamic funk movement known as al-Muhajiroun. The group al-Muhajiroun were officially banned from producing pop records in 2005 when then lead singer was banned from the UK when former Home Secretary and Mousekateer Charles Clarke deemed the singers' guitar driven tunes as 'not conducive to the public good.'

Bursting onto the scene at an impromptu park concert entitled 'Summer Ummah' in September 2002, they quickly attracted attention with their imaginative stage dressings, including flaming model aeroplanes and pappier mache twin towers, and a distinctively powerful encore song in 'Stone You Baby One More Time'.

Critics have called the cancellation of the gig a 'cynical media stunt'. North Wiltshire MP James Gray was quoted as saying;

'He [Choudary] was trying to make a cynical political statement, the whole announcement was to get media coverage via this stunt – he admitted that himself – and he achieved it cynically, using this media stunt. He received lots of coverage. It was a media stunt. It was unfortunate he's used Wootton ­Bassett in achieving this, it was really quite cynical, this stunt.'

Indeed, previously slumping ticket sales in what would be the ninth Summer Ummah have already received a fifty percent increase, whilst stocks of Islam4UK naked calendars and tankards have run completely dry, leaving the band's manager Simon Cowell forced to reemploy much of the child workforce, some now as old as thirteen and nearing retirement, used during the Spiceworld campaign.

Animal Behaviour - revisited

I just found this on a portable hard drive we bought in Bolivia. God knows.

It is said that men, given half a chance, will act like animals.

For instance, take my flat mate, Robin. He's an ass. He's pretty clueless when it comes to the birds and the bees, but being as mad as a March hare, he honestly thinks he's the bee's knees. The black sheep of our group of mates, he lives in cloud cuckoo land. The way he carps on about women, he's like a dog on heat. Honestly, he could talk the hind legs off a donkey.

All of his successful cat and mouse games have one thing in common though, we're never there to witness them. 

So, after a particularly spicy cock and bull story one day at football, we decided to join him that evening and watch him in action - fly on the wall style. Plus, I'd recently split up with my girlfriend, so, newly free as a bird, I thought I'd put the cat amongst the pigeons and see if I couldn't kill two birds with one stone. See if what was good for the goose was still good for the gander. For the last few months, female interaction had been as rare as rocking-horse shit.

So, dressed up like a dog's dinner, we stroll into this bar in our little one horse town. The place wasn't big enough to swing a cat in and was as rough as a badger's arse, but Robin promised come nine o'clock it would turn into a cattle market. We hoped so, because at first glance it was truly pony.

The clientèle were a rag-tag bunch, mostly mutton dressed as lamb. To think any different you'd have to be as blind as a bat, but Rob obviously felt like he had something to prove – namely that females automatically think that he's hung like a donkey – and he was nervously fidgeting like he had ants in his pants. So we relocated to the balcony for a bird's eye view on proceedings. 

His bird-brained theory was that when it comes to fillies, the early bird catches the worm, so he headed to the bar. And if there's one thing this boy can do, it's drink. Like a fish. Pretty soon he'd had a fair few beers, he'd got pissed as a newt and the monkey business began.

I already felt dog tired, and honestly a little bit like a fish out of water, but Robin had a mission. Not one to chicken out, he grabbed the bull by the horns and began to scout the room like an eager beaver, whilst we sat there and watched him dance around like a headless chicken.

After an unproductive period, Rob came up to join us and filled us in on the plan – get out his puppy dog eyes and watch 'the bitches' be drawn like so many moths to a flame. We'd already started to regret following him to this den, but, as Eric would say, as seagulls we were following the trawler because we expected sardines. The problem was, we were only witnessing trout fishing.

So far it seemed that our man's plan was to get as drunk as a skunk. And that was it. We were convinced that he wasn't going to get anywhere, dancing around knocking into people like a bull in a china shop. But stone the crows, eventually his hard work paid off. Look what the cat had dragged in! This old duck, all pigeon toed and dog eared, asked him to buy him a drink.

She was dressed as crazy as a box of frogs, with a camel toe the size of my wallet. But, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he cleared the frog from his throat and duly accepted. 

Beaming up at us like the Cheshire cat that had got the cream, proud as a peacock, as he'd not only proved his point he'd gone and found a cash cow. That sly fox was a snake in the grass all along!

Cash was something that I'd lost that night, having bet that he wouldn't get a sniff. I was as sick as a parrot. But preferring to take the chance on being hung as a sheep as well as a lamb than going home empty handed – I bet double or quits that he wouldn't seal the deal.

The thing was, Robin had counted his chickens before they'd hatched, forgetting that a bird in the hand isn't always the same as being in a bush. Having got the nod from his ladybug, we'd made for the exit to go back to ours.

It was raining cats and dogs as we queued up for the taxi, when a bull of a man came up to us and pushed Robin in his pigeon chest. He looked angry, with a face like a bulldog licking piss off nettles. My mate looked up at this dragon of a man and suddenly became as quiet as a church mouse. The man barked something about his girlfriend being 'as slippery as an eel' and how 'a leopard never changes it's spots'.

But she replied with something, stubborn as a mule, about 'making a mountain out of a mole hill' and that it wasn't as though they had been 'at it like rabbits'. Unfortunately, my friend let the cat out of the bag and said 'That's not what you told me was going to happen'.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back. The bulldog pushed his bird out of the way and turned and squared up to my mate – looking like he's just about to go ape shit. My mate now thinks he's going the way of the dodo - you could see the goose pimples on his arms and practically hear his barking spider tense up – but before he had the chance to chicken out and leg it like a rat up a drainpipe, the old mother hen chirped in that there was a policeman coming and, like the Worm Wot Turned, slapped the big bloke around his chops.

As the pig picked up his approach, the bulldog, strong as an ox, picked up his girlfriend and shifted her out of the way. My mate, who had been jigging around like a cat on a hot tin roof, saw his chance – and donkey punched the bloke in the side of his head.


At that, like a bat out of hell I frog marched Robin into the taxi and sped off, only looking back to see the ox being nabbed by bacon. The law is an ass.

When we finally got home, after a quick cat nap in the back of the taxi, I bid Robin goodnight, tucked him in and told him not to let the bedbugs bite. 

Half an hour later I stuck my head round the door to tell him to stop snoring like a pig, when I realised he was actually rabbiting on in his sleep – about how beautiful the girl was and how he'd beaten up this massive bloke – I was going to wake him up to laugh at him – but I thought it'd be best to let sleeping dogs lie. Nothing but another elephant in the room.
Tomorrow was another day, and the world was our oyster.

Next time, a post without a single animal orientated simile – just to prove I'm not a one trick pony.