Satire

Trump is not the UK’s president

At approximately 8:30am on Monday morning I awoke in a cold sweat. My alarm was not set to go off until 1:30pm. What had disturbed my sleep? Something felt wrong, like an unseen force of evil was spreading its insidious influence across the land. I was confused, nauseous. Waves of anxiety were crashing against the shores of my usual stoic calm. I sat up in bed, straightened my man bun and resolved to find the source of this malevolent aura. I grabbed my phone from my bedside table and opened the Twitter app. Almost immediately, my eyes were drawn towards a news article, the headline of which made me almost vomit into my mouth: ‘Donald Trump has landed in the UK’. Of course.

donald trump jarvis dupont

Daenerys did nothing wrong

YASSSSS! SLAY KWEEEN! [insert several hand clap emojis here] After a two-week break at a Tantric Orgasmic Virtue Eco Retreat in the Yukon, I finally got around to watching Season 8 of Game of Thrones. I had heard that people were disappointed at how it ended to the point of creating a petition to change the results very much like Brexit, and I have to say, I was not in the least bit disappointed at not being disappointed. One thing that confused me however, was the way that many influential social justice bloggers were angry at how the character of Daenerys was portrayed. They accused the show of falling into the sexist trope of a woman being mad and hysterical, claiming that the writers had ‘failed women’. In my opinion that could not have been further from the truth.

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Here comes the sun

From our UK edition

When you see the opening caption ‘4.6 billion years ago’, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re watching a programme presented by Professor Brian Cox. And so it proved again this week, as his latest exploration of the solar system began on BBC2, with an episode about Mercury and Venus. Being an officially designated ‘landmark’ series, The Planets (Tuesday) has many of the features you’d expect: lush music, an impressive CGI budget, a ten-minute behind-the-scenes segment at the end. More surprising is Cox’s willingness to anthropomorphise the planets — and to regard the ones that aren’t lucky enough to be Earth with a touching level of sympathy. After all, it’s not their fault they’re so lifeless.

A milkshake a day keeps the fascists at bay

Yesterday a hero appeared in our midst. A valiant warrior armed only with a cold milk beverage. Not since the Normandy Landings have I seen such bravery against an impending Nazi invasion. Over here in the UK we have our own version of Donald Trump. His name is Nigel Farage. Like Trump he is a hideous Nazi, Hitler incarnate. A walking harbinger of xenophobic hatred, spewing fascism and racism. He is the cause of Britain’s pain and division. He was the one who decided that we should hold a referendum on whether to leave the glorious EU. It’s the mark of a typical fascist authoritarian to inflict democracy upon the ignorant masses. The result of that hateful vote has split our once tolerant and peaceful country in two.

milkshake godfrey elfwick

No #SexStrike please, we’re intersectional feminists

Alyssa Milano is a Hollywood actress, singer and activist, perhaps best known for her roles in box-office hits such as Embrace of the Vampire, Dinotopia: Quest for the Ruby Sunstone, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2. On Saturday, Alyssa posted the following call to arms from her 3.5million follower Twitter account: https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1127040792281767936 She was applauded and supported by the pro-choice movement, and by feminists and feminist allies from all over the media. On the face of it, you might think she was being incredibly brave and progressive. But let me tell you...

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An interracial couple have birthed a mixed-race youngling

Over the past few hours I’ve been forced to endure the ignorance of regressive ‘logic’ on the television, in newspapers, magazines and across social media platforms: ‘Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have had a baby boy!’ If I went into detail about how many ways that sentence is incorrect, I’d need to write a novel the length of which would rival Tolstoy’s War and Peace. For the more progressive thinkers out there, no explanation is necessary and so this article is for you alone. Anyone who believes that men have penises and womyn have vaginas should close this browser window, leave their house, travel to the nearest coastal town and throw themselves into the sea.

royal baby godfrey elfwick

Brace yourself Donny, spoilers are coming

Ever since that agonizing day on November 8 in 2016, Donald Trump’s Twitter feed has been dark, and full of errors. His Lannister-blonde hair glinting in his avi as his tiny fingers mercilessly excrete torrents of egomaniacal tweets, like an illiterate Cersei drunk with power. Well, no more. This will not continue. Last November, Trump made the fatal mistake of revealing himself to be a Game of Thrones fan by posting a meme, a commitment he reaffirmed in January and April. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1058388700617498625 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1081735898679701505 https://twitter.

godfrey elfwick spoilers

My day: Joe Biden

I’m running. Yes, I’m really running. One more time. Just not too fast, because at my time in life you don’t want to trip and bust your new knees. I’m a pretty damned good athlete. Young people like Bernie Sanders can take it slow in the carpool lane, but I’m running, because this is a battle for the soul of this nation. We can’t let old men like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris steal our future. I wish we were in high school — I could take him behind the gym. You know, I’d like to take both of them behind the gym. That’s what I wish. My days have never been busier. The first thing I do in the morning is check if my teeth are clean. They are, because they’ve spent the night in a glass by my bed. I get up, do some light stretching, and take a shower.

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matilda olofsson

My name is Matilda Olofsson and I am Greta Thunberg’s arch-nemesis

Greta Thunberg first came to my attention one Friday after I had spent the final hour of school putting cling-film over every toilet seat so that the following Monday, students and teachers would find themselves in a horrible mess when it came to do potty-time. The next week however, Greta encouraged the other children to join her in a strike, the purpose of which was to demand the Swedish government take steps to reduce carbon emissions. While this was going on, the school caretaker discovered my plan, and undid all my hard work. Curses. I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for Greta and that pesky janitor. From that day, I swore revenge.

Greta Thunberg, a modern-day Cassandra

Listening to Greta Thunberg, an articulate 16-year-old girl who feels passionately about climate change issues, I am astounded that our political leaders have not yet taken steps to relocate the entire human race to Mars. She makes it very clear that unless we all drastically change our ways, the world as we know it will end in the next two or three years. I for one, believe her. Americans may not be aware of Greta yet, even though she’s listed on the 2019 TIME 100 but it is imperative that we help this modern-day Swedish Cassandra to spread the word of our impending doom as far as possible. I spent the bank holiday Easter weekend digging a hole in my garden in order to install an underground bunker.

greta thunberg

I embrace my White Guilt, and so should you

As a child, I was horrifyingly oblivious to what it meant to be a white male. I ignorantly assumed that skin color should never be an issue. I went around treating everyone the same regardless of gender or race. I look back on those days now and cringe. Thank goodness I ‘woke up’ so to speak! I was lucky to grow up on a moderately large 20,000-acre estate in a 23-bedroom Georgian house which had been in my family for at least six hundred years. For the first few years of my life, I was blissfully unaware of my standing within society. This glorious childhood utopia did not last long. At the tender age of 12, I watched a film which put it all into perspective: Ratatouille. I remember the impact this movie had on me as if it were yesterday. My mind was awash with confusion.

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Twitting the twits

From our UK edition

Titania McGrath is the alter ego of the schoolteacher Andrew Doyle. A perpetually enraged ‘activist, healer and radical intersectional poet’, her job was to lampoon the imbecilities of the achingly ‘woke’ middle class left, and expose the manifest contradictions in what they were spouting. Her forum for this was, of course, that vast lagoon of hastily jabbered nonsense, Twitter — and it was very effective. So effective that for a while Twitter users could not be sure that it was a joke at all — an understandable confusion, given the real-life existence of people such as the journalists Laurie Penny and Suzanne Moore, for example, or the French academic Myriam François-Cerrah.

Jack Dorsey opened my eyes to Vipassanā

For my birthday this year, I took inspiration from Jack Dorsey’s enlightening experience and answered an advert on Craigslist for a 10-day deluxe Vipassanā retreat. Here is my diary documenting the experience... I called the number on the advert and was put through to ‘Graham’. I told him I was enquiring about the advert and asked where the retreat was based. ‘Doncaster, not far from Sheffield,’ he told me, and informed me that the train tickets were not included in order to give me an enhanced poverty-stricken experience. I booked my ticket for Doncaster that very night and went to sleep in anticipation of the gloriously spiritual awakening that lay ahead.

Vipassanā

Fortnite should be banned, I agree with Prince Harry

This week, Prince Harry called for the popular game Fortnite to be banned, saying: ‘That game shouldn't be allowed. Where is the benefit of having it in your household? It’s created to addict, an addiction to keep you in front of a computer for as long as possible. It’s so irresponsible.’ I could not agree with him more. These days children spend far too much time indoors, playing on their video games consoles and other electronic what-have-yous. Very often, I hear the argument ‘But many kids come from backgrounds where the internet and video games are the most easily-accessible way for them to socially engage with other like-minded young people.’ What utter rot!

prince harry fortnite

Isn’t it time we forgave Brexit voters?

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I genuinely believe we should forgive the poor and uneducated working-class who voted Leave, along with the rednecks who voted for Trump in the US. I have spoken to many Leave voters over the past few days and every single one of them regrets voting to Leave the EU. Most of them broke down in tears, telling me that they were lied to and that they did not understand what they were voting for. I felt such pity towards them.

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An open letter to Donald Trump from Godfrey Elfwick

Hello Mr Trump, After reading Uri Geller’s Facebook post urging Theresa May to cancel Brexit or face his mental wrath, I have been spending the past three days learning to harness the power of my mind in order to deal you a devastating psychic blow. Make no mistake about my dedication to this, in order to prepare myself I have read the following books: Uri Geller’s Little Book of Mind Power, Discover How to Develop Your Hidden Powers by Derek Acorah, and Carrie by Stephen King. I also watched The Craft and a David Blaine DVD one of my friends had acquired from a charity shop for 30p, during which, the plastic spoon I was using to eat my yoghurt definitely bent slightly. I think this adequately demonstrates to you the potential of my powers.

godfrey elfwick uri geller open letter

White men: Captain Marvel is not for you

Captain Marvel is a triumph. Finally, we have a female superhero! This is progress. This is new. This is fresh. This is terrifying men all over the planet. Not since Ghostbusters 2016 has a movie featured such a strong female lead. I literally cannot think of ONE other comic book-based movie which has a woman in the title role. I wonder why this is? Oh, I know, it’s because Hollywood hates women. The star of the movie, Brie Larson is also a superhero in real life. She bravely spoke out about the negative reviews A Wrinkly Time received, stating that too many white men had seen it. Now, as a black woman, I watched that film with tears in my eyes.

godfrey elfwick captain marvel

Calm down! Your freedom of speech is not under threat

In the UK, leading far-right figure Tommy Robinson Yaxley Lennon has had his Paypal closed down, his Twitter account banned and, most recently, his Instagram and Facebook accounts removed. Very much like in the US last year when probable white supremacist Alex Jones had his Twitter, Facebook and YouTube shut down, or when Facebook did a cull of almost 600 US political pages before the 2018 midterm elections. As usual, the tinfoil hat-wearing alt-right Nazis are crying out that free speech is under threat. This ridiculous overreaction always makes me laugh. These people have no idea what free speech is. They assume that freedom of speech means you are free to say whatever you want without severe consequences! Imagine that?!

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I am holding an open audition for my attackers

Jussie Smollett told authorities he was attacked on January 29 by two men who were ‘yelling out racial and homophobic slurs.’ He went on to claim that one attacker had put a noose around his neck and poured an unknown chemical substance on him. Since this was first reported, so-called ‘evidence’ has emerged to suggest that the attack was possibly staged, with Smollett knowing his ‘attackers’ before the event, and that he even went so far as to pay them. Now, the drama surrounding this seems a complex one, but it’s really very simple. Even if he did stage the attack himself, it’s still valid. Jussie Smollett is a busy man. He does not have time to wait around idly for genuine homophobic racists to jump him in the street.

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The life of a transblack genderqueer Muslim atheist at 27

Like the rest of the world, I was utterly disgusted at this week’s Esquire article which focused on the life of a 17-year-old white American boy. The front cover of their magazine featured this odious creature, his face contorted into an alt-right smirk. It’s obvious from his expression: he is perfectly content in openly mocking minorities while stubbornly refusing to check his privilege, and no doubt playing racist games on his mobile phone while day-dreaming about joining the KKK. [caption id="attachment_10406845" align="alignnone" width="800"] This white boy’s sickly and pallid grin made me feel nauseous[/caption] What made this front cover article even more despicable, is that it was released during Black History Month.

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