Lips and Pricks

Ok, one last thing about Big Brother. I promise. There's something about pouting Pete Burn's unfeasibly plump lips. They send out ripples of revulsion; felt all the more keenly after being told that the first of his lip jobs had gone horribly wrong; images of pus filled lips blistering, sore and cracked. This account of cosmetic 'enhancement' brought back memories of the infamous case of John Wayne Bobbit and his surgically re-attached penis. You recall, perhaps, that Bobbit went on to subject his phallic join to the ultimate in quality control - in hard core porn films!

Bobbit had been relieved of his penis while semi-comatose with drink, by his long suffering wife. She'd fled from the scene, organ in hand, driving away, organ on dashboard, and then disposed of it through an open car window. Armed with searchlights, and an artist's impression drawn soon after Bobbit's loss, the Las Vegas police found Bobbit's stolen goods which were then surgically returned to their rightful owner.

So what then of Bobbit's subsequent career move, starring soon after the reattachment in the hard core John Wayne Bobbit Uncut ? I wondered at some of the more fantastical reasons for his new found stardom. Could the penis have been enhanced with silicon before being sown back on? Perhaps a simple increase in size, or even an eye catching variation on the cylindrical theme. What if the Bobbit original was never found, resigned to its roadside landing, and Bobbit had become the first recipient of an organ donor's ultimate sacrifice, tissue typed, cross matched, and unfeasibly well proportioned! Of course , the real reason his CV was so well received was simply the novelty of a penis with such a history. But should we really dismiss the idea of phallic transplants as the perverted product of an over-active imagination?. After all, what 100 years ago would have been considered flights of fancy, have now found their landing sites in the cosmetic clinics of Harley Street and Californian vendors of the body perfect. It is not inconceivable that fifty years hence, penile transplants might be big business, driven by the obsessive demands of the under-endowed, and the desire of the deceased to cheat in some small way the celibacy that death enforces. Bobbit may have been reacquainted with his penis, resurrected from its roadside landing, but there may come a time when more wholesome victims of roadside tragedies might find their penises subject to the searchlights of big business.

Tune out and switch of

Rattle the bars, breach the walls and cry freedom. Once again it's that time of year, when the claustrophobia experienced by big brother inmates is vicariously experienced by those outside the compound walls. When the omnipresence of Big Brother inside the house is mirrored by the ubiquity of Big brother conversations, gossip and news: in work canteens, offices, and overheard conversations on the train, on the radio, the internet, tabloid and broadsheets, from the mouths of fellow workers, friends, commuters, journalists, presenters, priests, politicians and bloggers. Help me out of here! It's inescapable, pervading the cultural atmosphere. Transmitted digitally by Channel 4, manifesting as sound and vision in its early infectious stage, it has, as it always does, mutated into human to human form. And what accounts for the success of this contagion? Well, partly it's because Big Brother quenches the thirst for a reflected reality whose fascination lies in its distortion, like the contortions that stare back at us in a hall of mirrors. But then why does it provoke such condemnation and evoke such revulsion? Because everything is designed so as to reflect back to us only the most undignified and grotesque aspects of the human condition: subservience and selfishness. And of course, the successful spread of the contagion is partly because of its ability to arouse such antipathy. Rather than ignore it, I write this blog and expedite its spread. Rather than ignore it, I stop awhile, while channel surfing, stayed by a morbid sense of curiosity, buoyed by a self-righteous sense of indignation, and give thanks - "there but for the grace of god go I" - and bemoan the failings of democracy as I am confronted by the thought that many of these inmates might actually have some say over who governs me. Perhaps I should just tune out and switch of.

An ode to gorgeous george

Sir, I salute your oratory, your eloquence, your anti-war stance, but abhor your sycophantic salutations that gave succour to Sadam. Sir, I salute the swipe of your rhetorical tounge lashing Bush and his lackey on the Senate subcommittee, but I bemoan your guttersnipe jibes at Hitchens and your courting alley cat sentiment at the grapple in the apple. Sir, I support your impeachment of Blair and Bush and the neocon-archy but condemn your absence from a government's one vote victory. Sir, I share your taste in cigars and fine wine, but in invisible spilt milk while you wipe down your whiskers?