And
now he's got his hands on The Authority. Only evil can come
from this, you know.
For
those who want to see more of Frazer's work (especially
US editors), try here.
After all I want to be able to sell The Man Who Learnt To
Fly on eBay and retire.
Well.
Jo Brand standing next to a couple of muppets
I've
just won a Jo Brand Spitting Image puppet. Okay, for non
Brits.
a)
Jo Brand was a well known
TV comedian in the early and mid-nineties. Her act often
revolved around her size and her ability to crush men. Possessed
of some genuinely funny one-liners and same damn good satirical
points (she once chastised an audience for groaning at her
queries about what happened when Boxing Helena had her period,
when they seemed much less squeamish to hear her talk about
Helena's arms and legs being chopped off), she got a couple
of TV series out of it and a lot of stand up work. She now
presents a London radio show on Sundays. Hurrah.
b)
Spitting Image was a satirical
show that ran during the eighties and nineties featuring
topical sketches starring the good, the bad and mostly the
ugly politicians, pop stars, actors and generally anyone
the average Sun reader might possibly recognise. They did
this with caricatured rubber puppets.
Anyway,
last year Sotheby's auctioned all the old stock of Spitting
Image puppets, a few were snapped up by some TV company to give out as prizes and I ended up with one. Bargain.
Jo Brand next to another muppet
Tell
you what, it's going to make one
hell of a Guy Fawkes doll come November. Okay, again.
a)
Guy Fawkes, bolshy Catholic
who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament with a bunch
of his mates after a night out. Was foiled, hung, drawn
and quartered and his death is celebrated every year by
burning an effigy of him on a big pile of wood, slapping
adverts on the television about the danger of fireworks
featuring some kid with half her face missing, and generally
getting disappointed when you realise it's midnight, you're
freezing, soaked to the skin and holding a potato. Look,
read V For Vendetta. Anyway, weeks
before the fateful November day, kids line on the street,
sitting against walls and shop windows with a badly made
Guy Fawkes effigy (often a kid brother with a bag on his
head) shouting "Penny for the guy, mister?" If
you actually give them a penny, or indeed anything less
that a pound coin, they'll kneecap you.
b)
These footnotes explaining
the ephemera of British culture that I need to refer to
when writing this column are rapidly becoming larger than
the column itself. So why am I writing this column anyway,
which to be fair, isn't as comics-related as some might
expect?
Truth
is, I'm treading water. Find out
why soon.
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