Satire

Tuesday

Tyler Grant

How to have the perfect phone call

It’s oft repeated, but bears repeating, that our president is a man of perfection. From his perfectly done steaks to his perfect tweets, the guy is a stalwart example that you can, in fact, have it all. And when it comes to telephonic perfection, he resides somewhere between Carly Rae Jepsen and Hinder’s 'Lips of An Angel' in his communiqué with other world leaders.So when he tweeted: 'I JUST GOT IMPEACHED FOR MAKING A PERFECT PHONE CALL!' — you know that the phone call was damn near perfect.Which leads us to the quintessential question — what are the elements of a perfect phone call?For one, finding a quiet place devoid of distractions. In this hypothetical, I like to imagine a bathroom with a high vaulted ceiling and good marble work.

perfect phone call

Friday

Godfrey Elfwick

A Godfrey New Year

Portland, Oregon A new year, whether you follow the Greek calendar or the Latinx, is like the first page in a new diary, its date set by patriarchal theocracy, its entries written in guilt. I’ve always questioned the tradition of making and then forgetting resolutions. I view them as an empty promise of redemption, like the fad diets with which late-capitalist dysmorphia tyrannizes the fat-positive. This year, however, I decided to indulge my curiosity. Yes, dear reader, I have made a resolution. ‘B-b-but how on Earth can Godfrey Elfwick’s holistically beneficial way of living xir’s best life be improved upon?’ I hear you stutter in bewilderment.

new year

Thursday

Ben Sixsmith

My evening with the Bernie Bros

The stench of beer and cheap deodorant filled the bar in which the ‘Bernie Bros’ were meeting. The scene looked straight out of Fight Club except that the young men assembled there were hairier and none of them had abs.Your humble correspondent watched as the barman prepared a cocktail that combined Jack Daniel’s and Monster Energy.‘What's that?’‘Our speciality,’ he said, ‘It's called “Hillary Clinton's Tears”.’‘I'll have a Coke,’ I said. (I was driving.)‘What are you?’ he sneered, ‘some kind of woman?’I surveyed the crowd. Most of the men were bearded. About half of them were bespectacled. They were all either obese or rail thin. Some of them were gaming. Some of them were podcasting.

bernie bros

Tuesday

Jarvis Dupont

Vince Vaughn owes me a colon cleanse

After imbibing a heady yuletide mix of carb-infused non-alcoholic mocktails, along with the occasional accidental consumption of a gluten-polluted canapé at friends and family soirees, I felt I was due a detox. So, last week, eager to fulfill one of my New Year’s resolutions, I Ubered myself along to a Nature’s Holistic Wellbeing clinic and booked myself in for an intensive week of colonic hydrotherapy. I was assured that the treatment would cure many of my ills and would help with the ‘release of emotional wastes stored in the colon’. I must say, as expensive as it was (even Father was slightly miffed when I presented him with the invoice), it seemed to have worked because this morning I awoke without a care in the world.

vince vaughn

Thursday

Stephen Daisley

The gloriously unhinged progressive pushback against the Babylon Bee

Going viral is ordinarily pay-dirt for a small website: new readers, more subscribers, and a bigger slice of that sweet, sweet Google Ads revenue pie. Unfortunately for satirical Christian news-site the Babylon Bee, it went viral in the wrong way: it made fun of Democrats. Last week, its spoof story 'Democrats Call For Flags To Be Flown At Half-Mast To Grieve Death Of Soleimani' attracted 750,000 shares on social media. The headline and the body of the text are patently absurd and obviously satirical. Of course Democrats didn’t call for the flag to be flown at half-mast for Soleimani. It’s not like he was Osama bin Laden or anything. Donie O’Sullivan, who covers ‘disinformation, politics and technology’ for CNN, saw darker forces at work.

babylon bee
sussex royal
Cockburn

An exclusive first look at the Sussex Royal catalog

When Cockburn heard that Harry and Meghan had trademarked ‘Sussex Royal’ in preparation for franchising themselves to a grateful American public, he went straight to Harry and Meghan’s modest country cottage — restored by the taxpayer shortly before they declared their ‘financial independence’ — and went through the trash. What he found was a right royal scoop: the handwritten product list for Sussex Royal. It’s treason to run this in the UK, but the Spectator USA HQ has been outside the jurisdiction of Harry’s grandma since 1776, so here goes:Eau de Markle™A sophisticated ladies’ perfume containing extracts from Meghan’s sweat glands.

Tuesday

Cockburn

Exclusive: the Iranian cultural sites Trump will bomb

Hours after Donald Trump tweeted a threat to target ‘52 Iranian sites’, some of them ‘at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture’, Cockburn met an Iranian exile source at the Moby Dick House of Kabob, Connecticut Avenue, Washington, DC. The source took Cockburn’s order and then slipped a tiny piece of paper no bigger than a grain of rice into Cockburn’s baghali polo. As baghali polo is a rice dish, Cockburn didn’t know this until he’d eaten it. It took 24 hours to recover the message. When Cockburn read it, he realized that he was holding the president’s target list.The first five targets are listed here.

iranian

Monday

Jarvis Dupont

Finally, Gervais said something I agree with

I imagine you were all expecting me to write a scathing review of Ricky Gervais’s recent diatribe at the 2020 Golden Globe Awards. Well you would be wrong. Because you see, that is precisely what Ricky is counting on. When he stands there, obnoxiously pimping his own ego in front of the world’s most caring and compassionate people, he is doing it for the attention he so obviously craves. Yes, it was a truly disgusting display (not to mention a staggeringly apt symbol of toxic white male privilege) to see this abhorrently wealthy japesmith spewing his vile alt-right propaganda disguised as ‘jokes’ directly into the faces of the humble and benevolent Hollywood glitterati.

gervais

Tuesday

Christopher Buckley

Headlines of the coming year

This article is in The Spectator’s December 2019 US edition. Subscribe here. January to March ‘Caucasians Are The Best’ Remark By Biden At Iowa Caucus Renews Concerns Over Age Declaring An ‘End To These Endless Security Agreements,’ Trump Tweet Announces US Will Withdraw From Nato ‘Why Do We Need To Defend Germany? Did They Defend Us At Normandy? NINE!’ New Whistleblower Bombshell: $391 Million Military Aid To Ukraine Conditioned On Start Of Construction Of Trump Tower Kiev Trump Tweet Hints At Displeasure With Lawyer ‘Rudy Is A Great Guy But He Is Making Trump Look Evil And Should Stop Going On TV NOW!!!

headlines

Thursday

Jarvis Dupont

J.K. Rowling is a TERF!

Yesterday we witnessed a stunning and brave victory of tolerance over reality. Vile TERF, Maya Forstater lost her case at an employment tribunal for, amongst other things, referring to former SNP councillor and non-binary transgender individual, Gregor Murray as ‘he’:I mean, does they look even remotely like a ‘he’ to you??! Before quitting the party, Gregor had been suspended for ‘abusing a woman on Twitter’. They has obviously been targeted because in my opinion, calling an ignorant TERF a ‘cunt’ is a perfectly legitimate way for a non-binary politician to behave.

terf rowling

Wednesday

Dr Sebastian Gorka, DrG, FBE, CPA

Christmas greatness: a Yuletide sermon

This article is in The Spectator’s December 2019 US edition. Subscribe here. ’Tis the season friends. The season to be merry. But also the season to remember. Especially those who gave their everything. For us. Great Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect the greatest nation on earth. I speak, of course, of the true meaning of Christmas. The Yuletide. The winter festival. The hinge of the Judeo-Christian cultural year. The subject of so much opprobrium from the secular left. Christmas is under attack. It has to be defended. President Donald Trump is fighting back. But we all have a responsibility to stand up. To say ‘No!

sebastian gorka
nativity
Godfrey Elfwick

Godfrey Elfwick’s Nativity drama

This article is in The Spectator’s December 2019 US edition. Subscribe here. Portland, Oregon How do you survive the festive season when you have a social conscience? Dear reader, allow me to impart to you my experience with this predicament, and some wisdom along the way. Once again, the Chr*stm*s season is upon us. Like a virus, it cares not whom it infects and cannot be completely avoided. I choose not to celebrate this holiday, both as a Muslim atheist and a social-justice progressive. Like Th*nksg*v*ng, Chr*stm*s is a toxic symbol of white heteronormative greed. Like the river of evil slime depicted in Ghostbusters II, it seeps insidiously into the fabric of all our lives.

Friday

Jarvis Dupont

What went wrong in the UK election?

Boris Johnson won the UK general election with a huge majority. My country is officially dead to me now. How could this have happened? I was absolutely certain Jeremy Corbyn and his woke Labour comrades would win a resounding victory. The celebrities were out in force posting their achingly sincere videos telling the plebs how they should vote. Actor and comedian Steve Coogan posted a fantastic speech in which he branded anyone who voted Leave in the EU referendum as ‘thick’, and at the time I was sure this would sway any undecided voters.

election

Wednesday

Jarvis Dupont

Jameela Jamil is the sassy pro-choice voice we need

I was scrolling through the ‘Woke AF’ Twitter list I created on my account in order to help me keep up-to-date with some of the most influential minds of my generation this week. My attention was piqued by a tweet from Jameela Jamil; British actress, radio presenter, model, writer and most importantly, feminist activist. On Friday she had written:‘Receiving THOUSANDS of messages about how I made a mistake having an abortion 7 years ago and how I must be a miserable person... I am in fact a happy, thriving multi millionaire, madly in love, with free time, good sleep and a wonderful career and life.

jameela jamil

Saturday

Godfrey Elfwick

Disney wants A Whole White World

The Disney brand has long been known as the animated version of white colonialism. This was made predominantly clear when the first feature-length Disney movie was released, entitled Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. As if the main character’s name didn’t make it obvious enough, rumors that Walt Disney was a Nazi have been abound on the Internet ever since the rise of Starbucks and the invention of the MacBook Pro, and have plagued his legacy. Perhaps labeling him a National Socialist without physical proof at the whims of woke hipster sociology students is a bit of a stretch, but there were undeniably characteristics of Nazism in Disney’s politics, which are noticeably woven into his animated works.

aladdin
lawn darts
Digby Dent

Digby Dent on lawn darts in winter

New Haven, Connecticut Greetings friends. Old Digby Dent (BR ’89) here. I’ve been press-ganged by the good folks at The Spectator into sharing a few reflections on living well as the fiery splendor of autumn gives way to the dour cold of winter. The leaves are gone, the days grow short and it’s dark by four in the afternoon in Boston. Worse still, the obvious recreations of warmer days having given way to the inconstancy of the third season, we find ourselves waiting for enough snow to ski, cross-country or alpine. What is to be done in the unsteady interregnum from now until The Game? Sailing is no damned good if you can’t guess how cold it’ll be on the water.

Wednesday

Jarvis Dupont

Leave Jessica Yaniv alone

Once again brave trans activist Jessica Yaniv has hit the headlines after she was refused an examination by a gynecologist. When will this hateful persecution of trans women end? Yaniv tweeted on Tuesday: ‘So a gynecologist office that I got referred to literally told me today that ‘we don’t serve transgender patients’. And me, being me, I’m shocked.. and confused... and hurt. Are they allowed to do that, legally? Isn’t that against the college practices.

yaniv

Thursday

Jarvis Dupont

Black Friday is racist

Every year we are forced to endure a week long festival of capitalist peacocking, as the world’s largest multi-billion-dollar corporations invade our high streets and inboxes. Like a sex-worker gyrating her hips in the window of an Amsterdam brothel, these brazen online stores spare no shame in their attempts to woo me into their banner-bedecked bordellos with ‘tempting offers’ and ‘unmissable deals’. Not that I’m saying sex work is shameful, you understand, it’s an admirable and empowering trade for anyone who has the proficiency for it. But when it comes to spending my wad, the last thing I want is Amazon dot com twerking like a cheap whore in my inbox.

black friday

Saturday

Godfrey Elfwick

My morning with Black Lives Matter UK

This article is in The Spectator’s November 2019 US edition. Subscribe here. Portland, Oregon It was a bright April morning and the sun shone benevolent golden rays upon me as I strode purposefully up the steps to the door of a house in the London district of Islington. Pressing the Victorian brass doorbell, I heard the comforting chimes of Toto’s ‘Africa’ emanating from within and nodded my head in approval. After a few seconds the door was opened by a charming white-passing transracial man who called himself Babatunde (I later found out his birth parents had named him Rupert). He graciously invited me into a spacious studio apartment decorated with tribal carvings from Ikea’s African Solnedgång collection.

black

Friday

Jarvis Dupont

When a comedian is pro-censorship, I start finding them funny

Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, made a keynote speech today at ADL’s 2019 Never is Now summit, in which he viciously chided the Silicon Valley tech giants for their irresponsible approach to censorship (or rather the lack of it thereof) on their terrifyingly influential social media platforms. Cohen was at the summit to receive the ADL International Leadership Award, and began by making it clear that throughout his career, the aim of his comedy has been to uncover the insidiously passive acceptance of racism and bigotry that lurks within our society.

sacha baron cohen