Away in a Mange-aaagh
Everyone's favourite dermatologically-challenged songsters The Skinned Choir will be out and about this festive season serenading shoppers on London's busy Oxford Street with their own unique brand of tortured shrieking. The choir, which consists of 14 close friends who have had the skin of their entire bodies flayed off to make them more sensitive artists, will be howling agonised versions of well-loved Christmas carols during peak shopping times between now and Dec 24th. If you like them - why not bring along some mulled wine for them to chase away those winter blues? (all the more keenly felt without their skin to protect them) If you don't like them - why not bring along a handful of salt to throw?
Emma to Emerge
Pop afficionados are eagerly awaiting the emergence of Emma Bunton from her pupa this weekend. The former Spice Girl left the larval stage of her life cycle over five years ago and has since then remained dormant in a chrysalis like shell spun from lycra, glitter and her own secretions. During this time the only sign of life has been an intermittent languid pulsing and the occasional single. “We’re not sure quite what form the new Emma is going to take,” admits Steen Rotherham, head of top 40 Entomology at Bradford University. “Hopefully she’ll be some sort of beautiful butterfly - although we all remember the debacle last year, when Neneh Cherry emerged from her cocoon as a big slimey thing with pincers and had to be destroyed.”
Santa in the Sky with Diamonds
Californian rocker Stannis Dunkeld, guitarist with White Diarrhoea, has shed some light on why so few children in the Los Angeles County area received Christmas presents last year. "Every year me and my bro Pebbler leave out milk and cookies for Santa, right?" he told us. "Last Christmas Eve we got so high watching Muppet Christmas Carol on laserdisc that we decided to spike the fucken goodies! We put half a fucken blotter of acid in the milk and swapped the cookies for these freaky hash ones we bought in Amsterdam. Twenty minutes after he flies away from our house we see his magic sleigh turning fucken cartwheels in the sky. All the fucken presents fell right out and landed in the ocean. Santa was half-naked and screaming that his beard was full of snakes. We nearly fucken crapped our pants, we wuz laughin' so much."
Shops and rugs and rock and roll
Henry™ vacuums have just launched a new range of pop themed vacuum cleaners. Rather than bearing the normal “Henry” face, the vacuums will sport lovingly designed replicas of the faces of popstars. The first range (which should be in the shops in time for Christmas) will bear the features of My Bloody Valentine. When asked whether it would not be more commercially astute to start off with a better known band, Head of Marketing Martin Carruthers replied that they were perfectly happy with their choice of design. “My Bloody Valentine were one of the seminal bands of the nineties,” he told our reporter, looking somewhat puzzled and offended. “Besides, if this is a success we hope to do a follow up range featuring The June Brides.”
Der-Der-Der Dud!
This year's most unlikely Christmas single is definitely not generating goodwill among lovers of classical music. Mistletoe Fifth is a recording of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony with the sound of sleigh bells added.
"I think it turns a quite po-faced piece of music into something much more seasonal and jolly," said Guy Harderwijk, Managing Director of Copyright? Copywrong! Records. But Jacob Browning, President of the UK Classical Music Association, has struck Mr Harderwijk from his Christmas card list. "It's a travesty!" he told reporters yesterday, barely controlling the gnashing of his teeth. "It's utterly cynical and soulless and it makes me want to - oh god, excuse me…" He then dashed out of the press conference with his hand clasped over his mouth.
Osmond's Outrages
There was a furore amongst animal rights protesters this week when evidence emerged that Donny Osmond, an ardent campaigner for the Dog Suffrage League, had been involved in his youth in one of the last century’s most vile pop practices.
In the 1950s and ‘60s it was common for male teen idols to inject themselves with rendered lipids from immature canines. It was believed that this solution made their little rosy cheeks appear plumper, more boyish and hence more attractive to female fans. Although the use of “puppy fat” (as it was known in the business) was formally outlawed in 1974, there are rumours that a clandestine trade in the oily fluid has been continuing on the black market - as recently as 2003 a case was brought against one R. Keating, although the evidence was later dismissed as “circumstantial“. The allegations could not have come at a worse time for Osmond, following as they do hard on the heels of last month’s “Crazy Horses” oat-spiking scandal.