March of the Lemmings Read online

  Sadly, the ease of modern communication means it has been impossible to escape from current affairs, even here, where news of Cornwall’s forthcoming post-Brexit collapse is finally making its way across the Tamar two years too late, borne by stumbling pack horses along EU-subsidised tracks.

  Legend tells us that Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table will rise from their Tintagel cave in a time of national need. But when Arthur wakes, it will be too late, and he will emerge blinking into a swastika night of burning burqas and adequate food, cursing his cockerel and blaming a bad pint.5

  Look instead for a solution to the Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Letterbox Johnson problem in the tale of Black Vaughan. According to Frederick Grice’s 1952 study, Folk Tales of the West Midlands, it was a wise man from the Welsh Marches who told the people of Kington to fill St Mary’s Church with twelve stout clerics and a pregnant woman, the latter to tempt Black Vaughan, in a strange half-echo of Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Letterbox Johnson’s own reckless proclivities.

  Sure enough, the chaotic spirit, a slippery devil that evaded capture by conventional means, soon entered the midnight church. But each time one of the clerics actually stood up to Black Vaughan’s verbal provocations, the demon shrank a little in size, until he was finally trapped in a snuff box and thrown into the deep lake at nearby Hergest Court, where he remains to this day.

  Stand up similarly to Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Letterbox Johnson’s bullshit, and he too will shrink to snuff-box size. But who will defy him? The collaborators of the Today programme genuflect giggling before him; the Daily Telegraph, Britain’s worst newspaper, funds his blatant falsehoods and algorithmically generated controversies to drive web traffic through its collapsing gates; the Have I Got News for You team, who taught Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Letterbox Johnson the skills he now uses to court the very worst people on Earth, hand their single tooth along their panel-show desk powerlessly; Theresa May cowers in impotence like King Théoden, as Jacob Rees-Mogg’s hard Brexit Uruk-hai approach the citadel; and news folk are wafted away with a tea tray.6

  Those in positions of power – journalists, fellow Conservative Party members wondering how things will pan out, people biding their time on the divided opposition benches, trembling television presenters in search of ‘balanced arguments’ in the face of blatant lies and transparent manipulation – know what this incubus is and what it is doing, and how it is prepared to put our futures at risk to achieve it. And yet they do not hold Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Letterbox Johnson to account. They will not shrink Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Letterbox Johnson to snuff-box size and sink him into the black lake of legend where he belongs. They will have to live with their failure. And, sadly, so will we.

  Twelve wise priests and a pregnant woman cast Black Vaughan out of Kington church and into the deep water. But, to be fair, what if the devil man Black Vaughan had his own funny weekly newspaper column? What if, instead of looking like a giant fly or a bull, he had amusing floppy hair, messed up to order? And what if, instead of swooping about like a frightening spectre, he had a tray of tea at the ready to catch his opponents off guard?

  No one could realistically be expected to stand up to such powerful strategies.

  1 I first came across this story in Frederick Grice’s 1952 Folk Tales of the West Midlands, which I read aloud to my cold and hungry children by candlelight while staying in an old hunting lodge on Offa’s Dyke in Monmouthshire, with no electricity or heating. It always seems odd to me that our national folk tales and myths are not part of the school reading curriculum, especially as loads of them are fucking fantastic, and certainly better than Horrid Henry or David Baddiel’s children’s book, Captain Farty Smell Pants and the Poo Poo Monsters of Wee Wee Island. Perhaps we could have bound our country together and avoided Brexit if all children were taught the tale of, for example, the magic milking cow of Mitchell’s Fold?

  2 I also took the kids, when they were four and seven respectively, to see a screening of Seven Samurai in Japanese, with English subtitles. Don’t you, again, wish I was your dad?

  3 Earlier that week, Boris Johnson had said that Muslim women looked like letterboxes. Boris Johnson doesn’t say anything by accident. Eight months later, when Muslims were massacred by a neo-Nazi in New Zealand, he delivered the customary message of condemnation.

  4 In July, it was revealed that Boris Johnson and Steve Bannon were in regular contact.

  5 King Arthur again! He is the new golem.

  6 Boris Johnson defused the letterbox row by offering a tray of tea to journalists camped at the gates of his country house, which they, as usual, found to be a delightful example of his charming eccentricity. Good old Boris! Such a wag!!

  Denmark sows the seeds of discontent over Brexit

  3 September 2018

  It was Andrew Rawnsley’s column in last week’s Observer that first made me aware of the danger a no-deal Brexit would pose to British sperm supplies. Up to 50 per cent of our sperm is imported into the United Kingdom from Denmark alone, its cross-border movement currently micro-managed by EU organ and tissue directives, but now red tape may leave fresh sperm rotting at customs.1

  The sperm shortage sounds, initially, like a rather silly story, an example of ‘Project Fear’ at its most desperate, and it has been covered in a typically smutty way by the tabloids, who say we must stiffen our resolve, and harden our intentions, to produce more sperm, exactly as one would expect them to.

  But the breakdown in supplies of European, and specifically Danish, sperm will have genuine detrimental consequences for British couples trying to conceive artificially, and for scientific research, an area already set to be severely damaged by the withdrawal of EU funding and data sharing. With a national fertility crisis mushrooming, and our status as a global leader in scientific breakthroughs threatened, there has never been a worse time for Britain to be shut out of the sperm loop.

  As a diehard Remoaner, the troubling statistics piqued my interest. Perhaps I could exploit them to criticise Brexit? After a little late-night googling at my laptop, I realised that, typically of overworked journalists who can no longer afford to cover anything in real depth, the Observer’s Andrew Rawnsley had only scratched the surface of the Danish semen story. The sperm crisis ran far deeper than even Rawnsley imagined, and over the last week I have become the Carole Cadwalladr of sperm.

  It’s not a coincidence that in 1969, liberal Denmark became the first country to legalise pornography, including with animals (NB: it’s banned now). The vast proliferation of sexually stimulating material available, from everyday vanilla through to the strongest chocolate and/or strawberry flavoured imagery, soon made the cake and Lego loving land the international capital of onanism.

  Indeed, throughout Scandinavia, the act of solo sexual gratification is still euphemistically known as ‘going for a Danish’ (in Swedish, ‘går till en Danska’; in Norwegian ‘går til en Dansk’; and in Finnish ‘menee tanskaksi’).

  To give you some idea of how deeply the notion of the Danes as lonely self-pleasers is embedded in Scandinavian culture, the popular 1970s Swedish satire show Pappa Olaf ’s Karneval Av Idioter included a famous sketch, voted the funniest joke of all time in a recent Swedish poll, where a foolish Norwegian visitor to London becomes angry when he is offered a Danish pastry by an effeminate cockney baker.

  At first, commercial Danish sperm production was a small-scale affair. In the ’70s and ’80s, Danish sperm, packed in heavy, thick glass test tubes, was most commonly used as a mildly profitable ballast in the hold of their cargo ships. These Danish ‘semen-både’, as they were known in the shipping industry, mainly carried more profitable Danish products, such as bacon and fish bits, to Europe, the semen subsequently sold on to collectors and enthusiasts for minimal return once the more commercial products had been disposed of.

  But it was inevitable, as even the socialist Scandinavian states fell under the spell of the capitalist doctrines of Reaganomics and Thatcherism,
that sooner or later the great national Danish pastime would be monetised. By the end of the ’80s, Denmark was the unchallenged world leader in the business of commercial human sperm production. The Danish ‘sperm-salg’ industry became a major concern, swiftly nationalised under the Dansk Sperm-Salg I Hele Verden banner, and employing tens of thousands of men in the manufacturing process.

  But joining the dots of the supply chain of Danish sperm to modern Britain throws up a remarkable discovery: not only is nearly 50 per cent of our sperm sourced from Denmark, but nearly 85 per cent of that sperm is actually sourced from one Dane.

  Hans Thrigger Andersen is a wiry fifty-year-old who enjoys the life of a comfortable flâneur, and he FaceTimed me from the jazzy counter-cultural enclave of Aarhus, on the Jutland peninsula. It was easy to understand why Hans’s sperm-donor-directory profile pictures have, over the years, seen millions of British couples clamour for his sperm above that of most other Danish donors.

  As a younger man, Hans, who is one of a small handful of full-time sperm-donating Danes, had the hard-rock angel good looks of Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, and he’s aged to sport the same rugged Viking charisma evidenced by the Canadian stand-up comedian and woodcutter Tony Law. It’s a ludicrous coincidence that Hans’s parents met in 1968, at an early Aarhus performance by Pekka Airaksinen’s experimental Finnish band Sperm, and conceived him that very night, but he dismisses any idea of environmental determinism as deftly as he evades my attempts to inculcate him into the second referendum narrative.2

  Despite the damage it will do to his livelihood and lifestyle, Hans is an unlikely champion of Brexit. ‘Listen, I have spent my life lying on my back like a lazy hog. Brexit will force me to make something of myself. Same as maybe it will for Britain. The kitten is out of its sack, man. You make nothing and you can’t feed yourselves and all your fruit is picked by Latvians. Sure, in the short term we are both taking a heavy cash hit, but maybe Brexit will make us get our shit together.’

  I tried to press Hans further on exactly what he meant, but he had a daily quota to meet. In the short time we spoke, the tired Dane had already given me food for thought. If a man whose precarious lifestyle, predicated as it is on an endless cycle of continual self-abuse, can rationalise the destruction Brexit will wreak on his career as an opportunity for self-improvement, maybe it’s time for all of us here in Britain to move on too and embrace the no-deal uncertainty as a chance for a new beginning.

  The bit about ‘going for a Danish’ is news to me. I am Finnish, and the proposed Finnish translation is not even idiomatic Finnish, grammatically speaking. I think the author has been had. It is possible that a variety of this works in the other Nordic languages; Finnish is not a Nordic language, not even an European one, and Finland is not a part of Scandinavia either … and the proposed Swedish and Norwegian phrases look phoney to me too. Aaaargh

  Are you sure you are a stand-up comedian? I would love to have seen you perform in a Sunderland working men’s club in the days when stand-up was actually populated by talented observational comedians, before talentless people people thought they could be a comedian and a journalist, when in reality they are neither. Radsatser

  Mastrubation in Swedish, ‘går till en Danska’. Never heard that expression. Runka is the most common bad word in Swedish for this form of self satisfaction. From Runkesten – the ‘rocking stone’. The stone is resting on a very little surface that makes rock back and forth. Swedish ‘Fika’ with a nice newly baked danish is also a wonderful type of self satisfaction. Best enjoyed in god company. I live in Sweden just to kilometers across from Denmark and I love Denmark as much as they evidently love them selves. I’m sure that mastrubation is more healthy than brexiting. Why not provide your own sperm instead of making things difficult? Scandia

  Geez the EU even control our wanks. FFS!! Catonaboat

  It seems genetically risky. If Hans is a long time serial sperm donor, he could have fathered many thousands of children. This could result in some half-siblings forming relationships and having children. Plus it’s probably time Hans retired from the sperm donor business if he’s in his 50’s. Janaka77

  Well as a Finn, I was slightly embarrassed that I had never heard the expression ‘menee tanskaksi’: have I lived such a sheltered life? If you google ‘menee tanskaksi’ or even the Swedish ‘går till en Danska’ the only hit you get is to this very article. I was wondering whether someone had played a trick on the author. Eearweego

  It’s probably just simple invention to try to validate yet more remain propaganda. Nicetimes

  As a Swede, let me tell any foreigners that there seems to be a lot a questionable claims in this piece … ‘the act of solo sexual gratification is still euphemistically known as ‘going for a Danish’. No, it’s not. Some people may possibly use that phrase, but as a 40+ y.o Swede I can safely say I’ve NEVER heard it before. Certainly not even in the top 20 of euphemisms for that act. ‘1970s Swedish satire show Pappa Olaf’s Karneval Av Idioter’ is completely unheard of – and dosen’t even produce a result when googled. And Regarding Danish pastries, they’re actually famous for using chocolate more then frosting. So I wouldn’t trust any of this, frankly. Rattenkrieg

  If you can’t be bothered to do some research and write proper articles, then choose a different career. Trevor Portman

  I’ve heard it all now, i fell down the stairs yesterday but it was not my fault, it was because of Brexit, how pathetic this article is. Brightdaysahead

  Cancel brexit because of a shortage of sperm? You really are scraping the bottom of the barrel now. Notfedupanymore

  As a Finn, I have never ever heard the phrase ‘mennä tanskaksi’ and in our language it does not really make any sense. Neither me or anyone in my family had ever heard of the idea of self pleasuring as something particularly danish. This is a very minor detail in the article, I know, but still I’m left wondering where the journalist has gotten the idea or found the odd phrase. Iturpein

  I have come across the expression ‘going for a Danish’ when talking to a Swedish friend, who the had to explain as I did not understand why he couldn’t eat it while he was playing (World of Warcraft). Hoppier

  It shows the desperation of some remainers that Danish sperm becomes one of their last ‘scares’. Springinamsterdam1

  Hans wont get his act together. He will simply fall back on the Danish welfare state to fund him. ID1834560

  Another example of Fake News from Project Fear. Bryanyali

  ‘going for a Danish’ Really? Never heard the term, which of course may merely demonstrate my own ignorance, but the fact that a Google search for the phrase turns up nothing but a reference to Mr Lee’s article above and a reference to a four-year-old programme on Swedish Radio which deals with the natural sciences and discusses «Spekulation om dagens nobelpris i fysik kanske går till en danska» (speculation that today’s Nobel Prize in physics might go to a Danish woman – it didn’t) perhaps says a bit more on just how frequent this purported meme is in Swedish. Besides, anyone one with an elementary knowledge of Swedish orthography would realise that nationalities are not capitalised; i e, danska rather than Danska … Once upon a time, perhaps, the Guardian employed journalist who cared for the accuracy of their stories, rather than making it out of whole cloth. Mhenri

  The author is a comedian, not a journalist, Henri. I know, most people don’t realise either. Including those who have seen his stand up set or his tv shows. Thomas James

  ‘In the ’70s and ’80s, Danish sperm, packed in heavy, thick glass test tubes, was most commonly used as a mildly profitable ballast in the hold of their cargo ships.’ Ships normally take on ballast to replace the weight of offloaded cargo. Sailing with both aboard, let alone with neither, is very unwise. Unreliable research! Havin_it

  There is no such thing as ‘Dansk Sperm-Salg I Hele Verden’ (we don’t usually talk of ‘sperm’ but use the term ‘sæd’), and most certainly ‘swiftly nationalised under the Dansk Sperm-Salg I Hele Verden ban
ner’ is just utter nonsense. Also, ‘Indeed, throughout Scandinavia, the act of solo sexual gratification is still euphemistically known as ‘going for a Danish’ (in Swedish, ‘går till en Danska’; in Norwegian ‘går til en Dansk’; and in Finnish ‘menee tanskaksi’)’ – although amusing – simply isn’t true, and as has been pointed out, not even idiomatic. Lj1909

  1 This horrifying scenario is entirely possible.

  2 Pekka Airaksinen’s experimental Finnish band Sperm, whose work I had previously only owned as a bootleg CD-R, recently saw their entire catalogue reissued as a luxury box set by Svart Records, under the title 50th Erection.

  Take back control! Buy water!! Bin the Daily Telegraph!!!

  9 September 2018

  It is very easy to sneer and criticise without offering any viable solutions yourself. And I should know. I have been doing it for the best part of three decades now myself, across a variety of media, to deadlines, for money, like a snowflake Clarkson.

  But I am a shallow and cynical entertainer, not a politician who is supposed to believe in anything. And so, I suspect, when all is said and done, is Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Letterbox Johnson. And why not? It worked for Donald Trump.

  Each morning in the small hours, Donald Trump’s bladder slowly fills with urine. The president wakes and looks at his phone in the bathroom, while fumbling in his silken sleeping pants for the flesh pyracantha of his genital. He sees something true online and instantly sends off a combative tweet. Sad! Bleary journalists panic and the fairy tinkling of Donald Trump’s cold night penis dominates the daily American news cycle once more.

  Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Letterbox Johnson obviously aims to surf the British news wave in a similar fashion to the orange goblin. But unlike the instantaneous nocturnal pee-pee spatterings of Trump, the massive faecal log of Watermelon’s weekly column in the Daily Telegraph takes a full seven days to bake. Straining his handbag-pug face into a purple Eton mess each Monday morning, Watermelon temporarily blocks the U-bend of the British news bog with his latest stinking offering, before standing next to the bowl, and gesturing at his produce, like a delighted toddler expecting parental praise for his mastery of basic bowel functions.