I am slightly worried that the BBC News is dumbing down or trying too hard to be populist or compete with the tabloids - perhaps the sexy, half-witch/half-cartoon half innocent/half guilty sex game murderer/patsy Amanda Knox, has got all the journalists making pant tents or pant soup depending on their gender (but regardless of sexual preference - even straight women and gay men are turned on by the two faces split into two of Foxy Knoxy). Or maybe viewers have been finding all the talk of the economy and party conferences and desperate-faced, wearing his dad's suit Ed Milliband too dull and so the TV bosses are trying to hook us all in. But in the last two days George Aligiah has included stories at the top of the news about women in bikinis, today with a real salacious look on his face as he commented, "What summer should look like".
Kenneth Kendal would be spinning in his grave. If only he was dead.
Yesterday the BBC unbelievably ran a story about the singer Rhianna who had been filming a video in a field in Northern Ireland with not many clothes on and had been told to stop by the farmer. This is a bit of a non-story at best, though somehow it was accompanied by the whole thing being filmed from afar, almost as if someone was aware of a potential story, because they worked for Rhianna's PR and were phoning up the TV stations with one hand as they handed out money to the farmer with the other. At best the story should have made it on to MTV news and page 9 of a tabloid newspaper, but here it was on the BBC main bulletin. Look at the girl in her sexy red top. You get a good idea of what her breasts might look like. This is the NEWS. And if it helps publicise the release of a new single then that is nothing to do with us. I am surprised that Rhianna's publicist hasn't considered getting her arrested for some kind of sex murder. That'd really boost her profile.
Today the news was that it was a bit sunnier than you might expect for September (but only if you were an idiot and didn't realise that British weather is extraordinarily variable), which was the cue for a couple of bikini clad women running into the sea and George Aligiah essentially saying, "Phwoar, I'd quite like to fuck both of them, you with me viewers. If I had any spunk left after doing Amanda Knox of course. Oh no there's Ed Milliband's stupid desperate face, he's quite put me off my stroke."
Maybe you'd think the BBC should be covering the woman in Saudi Arabia who is being threatened with the lash because she went driving. Or are they thinking that in a way they are covering that with the bikini stuff, obliquely admittedly, but they're showing the Saudis just how liberal we are by comparison. Not only do we let women drive and vote, we'll find an excuse to get their arses and tits on the news if we can. That is what the Suffragettes were ultimately aiming for. The votes thing was just the first step.
Then after the little teaser at the top, the BBC news team cleverly kept the whole bikini story til the end so we'd have to stay tuned in to see thin cloth stretching over rounded body parts. Why risk losing viewers? Maybe Robert Peston could give us the report on the economy whilst gently turning some nipple clamps attached to his own nipples or Sophie Raworth could talk about the Labour party conference whilst lezzing up with Razia Ikbal. Come on BBC News, stop wasting our time with frivolous stories that contain nothing I can wank off to. Don't you know what your job is?
Christ on a Bike is available for preorder
Go Faster Stripe. Although the two disc set is available in the shops and on other sites, GFS is the only place you'll be able to get the exciting third disc which includes a live Collings and Herrin video podcast not available anywhere else and the 1999 series "Richard Herring in Fiji" about me trying to write a play on a tropical island and lots of other stuff too. There's almost 12 hours of extras in total.
It's a very competitive £17.50 for the set, though you can pay an extra pound and get the third disc sent to you as soon as it's ready and you can also buy a 16 page show programme for an extra £2 and all the profit from that will go to SCOPE.
If you order quick you will also be given a free copy of AIOTM: Secret Stand Up which retails for £12 (but has now been usurped by the more thorough AIOTM: The Complete Cumpkin. This offer applicable whilst stocks last (there's a couple of hundred of them at least).
There's a couple of clips on the site to whet your appetite. It's the perfect Christmas gift (much better than some myrrh). Order now and GFS will get it all sent to you as soon as it's available.