When I was at university, I was the editor of a newspaper called The Sanctuary. Have a look at it online. It’s still going, but it’s not as funny since I almost got kicked out of university as a result of the trouble we caused with it. Since then I’ve been overtaken by Philip Laing, who pissed on a war memorial in Sheffield while on a pub crawl, as the most hated student in Britain. Now I can only romanticise those days spent with tabloid journalists outside my front front door, baying for blood and asking for comments.
As well as being condemned by the media and university, it wasn’t uncommon for our readers to rip the paper up in our faces when we were handing it out, because they didn’t understand why taking the piss out of Jade Goody when she was on her death bed was still funny. “Have you ever known anyone who’s had cancer?!” the girl screamed in the middle of the street.
We had been writing articles which said the rugby team had small dicks, and printing some idiot’s phone number advertising his services as a drug dealer for quite a while, to no great controversy. A couple of heckles in the street, a few people turning their backs in the pub, but mostly people thought our articles weren’t offensive enough to protest or take violent action against us. They just hated us silently and peacefully, as the British tend to do. But when the national press waded in to condemn our spoof advert for a serial killer commemorative tea set, we thought our cards were marked. We were putting the faces of child murderers on the tea sets which British newspapers sell usually emblazoned with portraits of Princess Diana and the Queen. The families of murdered children were offended.
We received an email from a reporter at the Birmingham Mail. It said we ought to respond to the criticism from the families of murdered children that our Peter Sutcliffe laurel edged plate and Fred West biscuit tin were causing offense. Instead of falling in to that trap, we decided to continue taking the piss. Under the name Christopher Philip Bacon, we sent them this statement:
“It is deeply regrettable that people waste their money on sentimental tat advertised in Sunday newspaper, which our ‘advert’ was clearly lampooning.”
The next day I saw this glaring at me from the news stands:
After that, the flood gates opened. I was receiving emails from press agencies and other newspapers, but refusing to comment. As a result, they all ran with the same story.
A couple of days later, the Birmingham Mail probably realised that we’d taken them for fools with our Chris P. Bacon pseudonym, so they sent a reporter round to my house to unmask me, Scooby Doo style. For the next few days I made sure that I showered and brushed my hair before leaving the house, in case they wanted to put my picture in the newspapers. I didn’t want to look like the suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed when they rumbled him, I wanted to look like Oscar Wilde.
I enjoyed being the most hated student in Britain, if only for a short while. Unlike Philip Laing, I did not face a criminal charge for my mischief because what I did was not illegal, just irritating to a lot of people. I did, however, have to face interrogation from humourless university officials who desperately wanted to kick me out, and I had to endure the wrath of The Sun’s comment page.
SIMULTANEOUSLY POSTED ON PLATFORM.
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This is really the only idea you could come up with to be soooo riskay and controversial? you just seem too fucking stupid and self righteous to be tasteful and funny so i’m not even going to bother suggesting it.
11.18.09 at 3:15 pm
@anna – perhaps you are unaware of the hysteria with which crimes against children are treated in the UK. It’s much worse than in the US. In Britain, this idea actually *is* controversial, and pretty risky.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9031532194656768989 – for example, caused an incredible stir.
11.18.09 at 3:31 pm
Wot? This was devilishly delightful! Good show!
Nothing beats a good lampooning… Anna is clearly a humourless twat.
11.18.09 at 3:34 pm
Lewis Parker can’t lose!
11.18.09 at 3:48 pm
damn, you messed up man! you said “a reporter” when you meant to say “a pressly chap” and you also, you mention “some idiots phone number” when you clearly meant “a dipsy womblers telee digitaroo’s”.. other than that though, this whole thing is pretty much in your own language.
congratulations!..
oops, I meant “cheerio didly doo scrib scrum and all of that fooferall”
please forgive my momentary flinglyio womblin’ pep pep!
11.18.09 at 3:59 pm
This just solidifies my belief that all the English are mincing queers
11.18.09 at 3:59 pm
Viz have done this kind of thing for years. Except theirs are usually funny.
I fucking hate smug English students. They always think they’re such trailblazers.
11.18.09 at 4:05 pm
I do say ol’ chap, you are clearly the most hated scribe in all of west klungsington. good show ol’ chap. how in the dickens were you able to achieve such a dastardly plot you knave! good show! cheers!
11.18.09 at 4:06 pm
what the devil? are you mad my good sir? disgracing the name of jane goody? I do say sir, you are the most hated student in the whole west end of gloopalump! if I were to ever see you at a roustabout or snuff shop in the pilkington mercantile I do say I would box your ears, yes?
11.18.09 at 4:10 pm
I do say, putting a mad chaps face on a tea set? that would earn you a good thrashing in the south end of west clumpsington! what in blazes were you going on about with all this then?
11.18.09 at 4:12 pm
I havent seen you in a forknight
11.18.09 at 4:14 pm
this almost made me spaloomp my earl grey all over my computery boxler!
11.18.09 at 4:14 pm
I do say, when you take a butcher at a fellow that had a go at some dustbin lids, some poor old chap is going to be rather cross! a real bertie woofter this fellow is, eh? I do say!
11.18.09 at 4:20 pm
oh..leave it out you hampstead heath! what in the dickens are you all shouting about, we’ll have no trouble here!
11.18.09 at 4:24 pm
‘eaven and ‘ell i’ve come up the apples and pears ter answer this and there’s a bit of a Pen and Ink, i’ll ‘ave ter get on the Dog and Bone ter clock if any of me china plates knows wot it could be!
11.18.09 at 4:41 pm
splingly wonkle dunkly zimplim zong de wambler, clorg zeep beeep bloop po pap pap!
11.18.09 at 4:43 pm
mexican outlaws smuggle drugs in dead bodies and sell little kids kilos. what the fuck is this shit?
11.18.09 at 4:50 pm
I do say gbrl, you need a blork to the old wimble wombles, that would clink your bloomers in a hinkle! I do say!
11.18.09 at 4:56 pm
is this really considered content? is the well drying up? why is this so?
11.18.09 at 5:03 pm
I think tandy makes a goggle.. maybe it’s optimus..
11.18.09 at 5:04 pm
this is as gay as this…
http://perezhilton.com/
11.18.09 at 5:04 pm
gbrl, I don’t think you are peeper glazering the real important woimble womb. this old bloke took the piss out of jane goody, AND he milfrend the gloikiol sckleeb fee fah blerthnin in west shloinkington. this is SERIOUS news!
11.18.09 at 5:06 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_Pratt
11.18.09 at 5:07 pm
such a hated student, I do say, of all the students I hate, this guy takes it.. I mean “this yamble really fluffed the chad on the hooofuh fuh fuh”
11.18.09 at 5:07 pm
fuck jane goody and her cancer hair cut.
11.18.09 at 5:07 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Montag
11.18.09 at 5:09 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worf
11.18.09 at 5:10 pm
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Spencer_Pratt_2009.jpg
11.18.09 at 5:20 pm
better than this…
http://www.mopie.com/0408/24.html
11.18.09 at 5:24 pm
THIS JUST TURNED INTO A MONTY PYTHON SKIT.
Jolly Good indeed!
11.18.09 at 5:31 pm
fartingtonshire, HAHAHAHAHAHHA!
11.18.09 at 5:39 pm
seriously, lately street boners is kinda reminding me of another website I frequent.
http://www.matthewmcconaughey.com/
jk livin’ you guys!
11.18.09 at 5:46 pm
well, i thought it was funny
11.18.09 at 5:48 pm
http://bp0.blogger.com/_OAPIKtdhN2Y/R8MG-fuyH-I/AAAAAAAAABI/tAJQnLOXEAc/s1600-h/Robinson+Boyz+Thug+Niggaz+Thug+Livin–f.jpg
11.18.09 at 6:02 pm
well you certainly havent let your 15 minutes get to your head. exposure to the press doesnt make your joke any funnier, just look at jade goody oh wait shes dead cancer joke haw haw haw haw haw. youre just a boring prick who hasnt been told hes a boring prick by everyone else yet.
11.18.09 at 7:07 pm
You’ve obviously had a full life. I suggest you now go to Arlington, urinate on the eternal flame and scream out “Marilyn, they did you wrong!”
11.18.09 at 7:42 pm
why is there never any cock on this site? this would’ve gotten more than a scan from me if there were some male full frontal. every time you write about a woman, you get to see sum’n. i want to see cock. possibly balls too. but shaved, not hairy. thanks a million.
11.18.09 at 11:49 pm
sikipedia.org
11.19.09 at 3:18 am
I can’t stop reading everything with a foppish accent now. Thanks.
11.19.09 at 3:36 am
Viz have been doing this for years as a previous comment pointed out. The best was a porcelain doll of Hitler as a coy toddler called Ein Naughty Little Boy.
11.19.09 at 7:20 am
Americans taking the piss out of the British accent… seriously… you all sound like cheap radios, lot’s of irritating noise with no fucking content. Well done… 10 out of 10 for proving your all still dicks…
11.19.09 at 8:20 am
One time I took all my clothes off and ran out on the field during a football game!! Hahaha I’m so rebellious and cool.
11.19.09 at 8:49 am
Man this was one of the best plays I’ve seen in a long time. I literally couldn’t stop laughing at the comments, and the fact that the papers were actually responsible for blowing it up to a national level. If they really had a problem with it, they would simply have ignored it. The fact is the they KNEW it would irritate people, and get them all riled up. The same thing you KNEW. The difference is that they were pretending to be impartial
11.19.09 at 8:51 am
Hey GBRL.
Ill take your Montag and raise you one Jonas Brothers:
http://www.ticketqueen.com/images/itinerary_sml/jonas%20brothers.jpg
11.19.09 at 9:01 am
The comments on this post are funnier than anything that’s ever been posted. Good show.
11.19.09 at 2:10 pm
hey mosquito sound ear person, look at this original post, I could not help myself, the dude is like “I’m so evil, I’m the best, oooh, look out, I put some rapists face on a tea set and made fun of someone with cancer” you’ve got to be kidding me (transalted: ye must be hovin’ a muvafuvkin go at me, cor blimey, too right?)
besides, I was bored, and stoned, and.. so what. fuck you! (translated: go about takin’ a piss in ye mimblesnumpf)
11.19.09 at 2:38 pm
hey Edward Longshanks, that dude gbrl has one a pretty funny photoblog thingie, check it out.
http://velvetsmog.tumblr.com/
11.19.09 at 2:50 pm
“one a pretty”?
rad, I’m too stoned again…
11.19.09 at 3:00 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxpE_ssDRbk
11.19.09 at 3:42 pm
Is this one of those faggots from radiohead?
11.19.09 at 7:40 pm