National Looto Live!

I’M SOCIALLY DISADVANTAGED, GET ME OUT OF HERE!
The government have today announced a new money-making scheme to get the sluggish British economy going, whilst simultaneously clamping down on recent civil disorder.

Teams of looters and protestors, and gangs of disaffected youths, are to be organised, trained and armed, then pitted against each other in televised pitch battles, the television rights for which will be sold to BskyB and CNN Sport.

Prime Minister David Cameron elaborated on the scheme at a press conference outside parliament, inexplicably dressed in a Batman outfit, with Nick Clegg attired at his side as sidekick Robin. As Cameron spoke, Clegg slapped his gloved hands together eagerly, exclaiming “Holy loopy looters, Cam Man, that’s dynamite!” Cameron explained:

The world-wide media interest in Britain’s recent rioting and looting has been overwhelming, and part of our “Big Society” ethos is to look for ways to make fresh opportunities out of everything, but particularly out of human stupidity, which is of course an even more reliable and inexhaustible resource than wave or wind power. Nick and I, as the lead caped crusaders of this government, have drawn up a scheme for a national three-round rioting tournament. 

First round is hand-to-hand combat, second is sticks, stones and bottles, the third will be light firearms and explosives. All play offs will be sudden-death and the final will be fatal, not a single man to be left standing. Instead of National Lotto, this will be National Looto, and the stakes will be life and death. Live mega-violence, the ultimate reality-TV experience, beamed into a billion homes around the world. Britain will become the live looting violence capital of the world, second to none. Just look what happened to Las Vegas when it legalised gambling. This one’s a sure-fire winner. 

Teams will include Tottenham-Molotov and Salford-Sackers, pitted against old favourites like G8-Renta-Riot and Ulster-Bigot-Boys. The winners in each round will win a chance of a pitch battle against mounted police units with water cannons.
 
Quizzed over possible venues for these spectacular events, the Prime Minister smiled broadly and produced a list of the nation’s football stadiums, while his excited sidekick floated the possibility of rioting and looting becoming recognised as Olympic sports events in time for the 2012 games in London.

"Easy chum….." Cam Man grimaced behind his black face mask, hand on the shoulder of his eager young crusader. "Isn’t that Commissioner Boris I hear on the big red telephone…?"

Project: Spectrum

In the style of brilliant documentary Thunderbirds (about those secretive heroes from International Rescue), this new Americanised big-screen remake tackles a far grander story: interplanetary defence of the Earth against illegal visitations by alien terrorists. Not since War of the Worlds has there been such a terrifyingly outrageous tale of our ‘war of nerves’ against mysterious foes - reportedly so weird they are unknowable to human science.

With its operational HQ aboard the flying aircraft carrier dubbed ‘Cloud Base 9’, the planetary organisation officially known as ‘Spectrum’ is led by elite military veteran Colonel White (succeeding Colonel Straker, top star cop and Cold War spymaster of last century’s SHADO). Primary agents from Spectrum’s cadre of astronaut warriors include Captain Eddie Blue, and his partner - the reportedly ‘indestructible’ Captain Pete Scarlet, ultimate champion of Spectrum’s heroic defence strategy against outer zone mysterians. Not since the era of Quatermass, has Britain, and indeed the world, faced such implacable enemies from space. 

The mysterians (previously notorious as ‘mysterons’) are like psychic wizards with an almost supreme power over matter and energy, using alien technology which enables them (if that pronoun can be applied to what human scientists now suspect to be a hive mind) to regenerate living tissue from death, re-create wrecked machines, and any sabotaged devices, or specific objects of interest/ value, that have already been destroyed in spectacular explosions. Spectrum’s - and especially Scarlet’s - nemesis is the tortured soul of zombie maniac Captain Black (photo not available due to inter-world security concerns), who is represents the ultimate villainy of betrayal - once a Spectrum agent, identified as Conrad Turncoat, now a teleporting madman who will stop at nothing (“Nothing I tell you!”) to bring harm or doom and gloom to innocent lives of humankind. And there’s only Captain Scarlet, proving that one man can make a difference, with his famously bizarre ability of ‘retro-metabolism’ (which Dr Gold has so far failed to replicate in other Spectrum agents), to get in the mysterians’ way.

WHEN WHORLS COLLIDE

Leggy lovely Lieut. Green 

has parachute trouble…

Scarlet and Blue’s mission to save the world federation by thwarting each mystery ET plot, is performed with savvy and brio, with irregular but invaluable assistance from Lieutenant Green, plus various other Spectrum agents with codenames such as Grey, Beige, Amber, Magnolia, Pink, Khaki, Carrot, Ruby, Turquoise, Ivory, Sand, Crimson, Maroon, Pearl, Copper, Ultraviolet, Mint, Cyan, Vanilla, Slate, Lime, Mauve, android helpmates Chrome and Silver, and the unfortunate Yellow bastard. Impressionable or young fans and space cadets of Spectrum are warned never to copy the heroism of the organisation’s greatest asset: “Captain Scarlet is indestructible. You are not. Don’t try to imitate him.”

All-female ‘top guns’, former Angel interceptor pilots, Destiny, Symphony, Rhapsody, Melody, and Harmony, have since been promoted to the frontline of space defence on Moonbase Alpha - where they are deployed in tactical command of upgraded Lunar interceptors (older designs of the vehicles that Spectrum inherited from SHADO were deemed “too phallic” by women pilots), despite some criticism of the special initiative for its ‘affirmative action’ - resulting in rightwing political anger (prompted by notion of “chicks with nukes”), while lefty liberals directed their fury at Spectrum command for sanctioning the boosting to squadron status of these new-fangled orbital bombers. Meanwhile, back on Earth, the Charlie agency franchise has supplied new recruits as replacement Angels, always on standby, ready for immediate launch from Cloud Base 9 action stations, using codenames: Tragedy, Parody, Jeopardy, Veracity, and Apathy.

New pilots for Angel interceptors!

Spectrum is GO!

(With sincere apologies to sci-fi visionary Gerry Anderson, a singular genius architect of TV utopian futurism, and remarkable adventures in superb technocracy.)

Gromit award

How long is a television star and cinema idol’s career in dog years?

Gromit, the super-dog of British suburbia, finally wins long overdue and rightful acclaim, for magnificently expressive performances “of quiet courage, canine determination, and supreme humility,” in such classic adventures as The Wrong Trousers (1993), and Curse Of The Were-Rabbit (2005), and last year’s documentary series World Of Invention. The long-suffering sceptical companion of that blundering ‘inventor’ and cheese-addict Wallace, beloved national cult hero Gromit leapt to instant stardom in 1989, while portraying an intrepid astronaut from Wigan, in A Grand Day Out. 
 

Receiving his lifetime achievement award from the Royal Academy, usually reclusive Gromit remained tight-lipped, making no comment or even a sound of any answers, when accosted by reporters and well-wishers outside the academy’s hallowed halls. A blasé shrug, a poignant gesture of paw waving, the stoically resigned forbearance and air of that most gentle breed of underdog, evincing profundity from the champions’ pound, was the superstar thespian Gromit’s only response to the assembly of media pundits’ boisterous rhubarb of questioning.

In their prepared statement, read by a current Presidential Academician, the awards committee unanimously declared that Gromit was, without any doubt, “The greatest silent movie actor of his plasticine generation… and indeed, of the animated British 21st century!” The academic pres prof continued, “Never in the kennels of history…" blah blah.

DemDaleks

FAX 21’s on-going coverage of Dalek utopia…

#2

Beeb announced further news TV-movie biopic about Democracy Of The Daleks, which sees British ‘actress’ Gemma Arterton (schooled at St Trinian’s; a former spy – codename: ‘Strawberry’, fresh from her Persian assignment), cast in key role of the hybrid dalek empress, who was the dethroned loser of internecine AI & ‘spare parts’ wars against a benevolent pure-machine intelligence, despite her cyber-enhancements (including android human features), and stealth dalek tech.