26 Degrees of Kevin Bacon!

It’s the game that’s sweeping the nation! From lifers in high-security prisons on godforsaken islands to bisexual peers in stately homes in some long-forgotten corner of Olde Englande, everyone is playing 26 Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Now you too can join in the fun at home! Or at work... As in the example below for your entertainment.

1. Bacon is meat that comes from sheep
2. A sheep is a type of goat, but not as sexy
3. "Sexyback " was a single by Justin Timberland
4. Timberland is a brand of shoe
5. Shoes are worn on your feet, not on your hands
6. Hands have four fingers and one thumb. Unless you’ve been involved in a terrible industrial accident, in which case you have my sympathy
7. "Sympathy for the devil" was a big hit for the Rolling Stones
8. Stones can be found on beaches, in quarries and (very small ones) in gravel
9. A gavel is a hammer used in court
10. Courtenay Pine plays the trombone
11. Bones are a choking hazard
12. "The Dukes of Hazzard" was a great TV show that was recently turned into a great movie
13. Another great movie was Baz Lurhman’s action-packed “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet”
14. “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet” was a remake of “West Side story” without the songs
15. Songs have tunes
16. Tunes are a type of cough sweet
17. Sweet things contain sugar
18. Sugar is the name of the character played by Marylin Monroe in “Some don’t like it hot”
19. "Hot fuzz" is the hilarious new film from the makers of “Shaun the sheep”
20. Sheep give us Bacon
21. Kevin Bacon!

And that’s twenty-six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Twenty-one degrees. Enjoy!

Baghdad's museum Of Modern Art (BOMA) open its doors at last

By our Iraq Showbiz Correspondent Bruce "get me outta here" Fallsteen.

The great and the good of the Iraq art world were gathered in Baghdad last night for the opening of BOMA - The Baghdad museum Of Modern Art. And what a glittering night it was. Anyone who is anyone and still alive was there. And so was some of the finest 21st Century art from this lively nation:

The first thing the visitor sees once he gets past the ticket barriers, body scanners, armed guards, metal detectors, tanks, soldiers and missile launchers, is Hamad Ibrahim's witty triptych, Oh Shit! My Entire Family Is Dead! which takes pride of place in the building's delightfully airy atrium.

Above: An art-lover in front of Abdul Hamar's Untitled No. 3

Passing into the main gallery space, one cannot help but be entranced by Abdul Hamar's Untitled No. 3 (above), which consists of a bloody hand-print on a bullet-scarred wall.

Elsewhere, Baram Obak's installation Cheer Up! uses balloons, neon lights and giant candy bars to illustrate the total futility of existence, while Malika Haroun's life-size chocolate sculptures of dead babies raise questions about the role of the artist in a world that's totally and utterly fucked.

All in all it was an auspicious debut for this new and impressive gallery, marred only slightly by a colossal suicide bombing event at around nine fifteen which killed seventy-eight people and injured another one hundred and twelve. At which point your reporter made his excuses and left.

Hi. I'm James Cameron

Yes, that James Cameron. The one who made Titanic. Remember Titanic? Big movie. Big, big movie. That was back in 1997. Since then? Not much, actually. I did a documentary for the Imax cinemas. What was it about? Ummm... The Titanic. Anyway, what I came here to tell you, is: I have a new documentary coming out soon, and it's not about a big boat that got sunk by an iceberg. Nor is it about Arnie as a robot from the future. Remember that? The Terminator? There was a sequel, too, called Terminator 2. I did both of those. Remember? They were pretty cool.

So, anyway, this new documentary I've been working on for, like, years... It's out next month, I think. It should be pretty controversial, though I say so myself. It's not about aliens or secret agents, either, by the way, in case you were wondering. Remember those? Aliens. True Lies. Both mine. Awesome, weren't they? You bet.

Anyway, this documentary. It's all about Jesus and me. I've discovered that Jesus had a son called Judah and that He lived with Mary Magdelene, or something along those lines. There's DNA evidence and all sorts of neat stuff. It's totally awesome. It's like CSI: Nazareth, or something. Totally cool. All this evidence and stuff was just lying around waiting for me, James Titanic Cameron, to come along and discover it. And that's exactly what happened.

By that way: what do you think of my office? Awesome, huh? Check out that plasma. Twenty thousand dollars. Incredible. And all those Oscars! You ever see so many in the one room? I don't think so. Boy, if they gave an Oscar for Best Controversial Documentary About Jesus, I'd win, hands down. You bet. Kudos to Marty Scorsese, by the way. He deserved it. I mean, The Departed is just so neat. I tried watching the original version, but it was in some foreign language so I stopped.

What's that? Oh, that. You like it? It's so cool, isn't it? "You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!!!" Cracks me up every time. It's like philosophy, but you can understand it.

If Lennon Had Lived...

Above: John Lennon, yesterday.

If John Lennon had not been assassinated on that fateful day in 198(check which year, before publishing!) the world would be a very different place than it is today, or was, or something. Imagine, if you will, that Lennon is still with us. What's he up to these days?

1. Providing voice of "Scouser, the Drunk Skunk" in Shrek 3.
2. Duetting with Bono on hastily re-written version of Imagine, to commemorate the victims of 9/11. "Imagine there's no towers/it's easy if you try".
3. Breakfasting with George W. Bush.
4. Describing Mark Chapman's four-volume biography "Lennon: a life" as, "scarily detailed".
5. Duetting with George [also-still-alive] Harrison on hastily re-written version of Imagine to commemorate the victims of 7/7. "Imagine a bomb's gone off in a bus in Fitzroy Square/It's easy if you try".
6. Divorcing Yoko Ono after she admits affairs with Bono and Brian Eno.
7. Marrying Heather Mills.
8. Divorcing Heather Mills Lennon.
9. Hosting "Live 8" - a charity spectacular to highlight world poverty, injustice, third-world debt, and the release of the new Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite iPod.
10. Turning in his grave.

Hi. I'm Zoe Williams

Yes, it's me. I used to write for an obscure national newspaper it was called the Guardian have you heard of it; perhaps you have - perhaps you haven't (I wouldn't know - it's just a hunch). Anyway, as I said, I think, it's a great and wonderful honour to be the new columnist for the SCUR indeed. Anyway.
I was reading Grazia magazine just the other yesterday and it suddenly struck me why don’t women look like women any more I thought I mean why is that does anyone know? Men, shoes, jelly-moulds, laptops, but not women. I mean, what is it with that? My theory (and it is just that – a theory; that’s all it is. For now. I may work on it a little and turn it into an ideology or the kind of thing you live your entire life by or I might just make myself some more toast (marmite or marmalade? Tough one).) is this: women don’t like looking like women any more. I can’t put it any simpler than that. Here’s an experiment for you to do at home or at work or wherever you happen to be reading this (the list is endless): look out of the nearest window and see if you can spot a woman. See? You can’t. And that’s because women don’t look like women any more. I was talking to my girl friends t’other day ‘bout this very issue and they all agreed with everything I said it was ace. More coffee? I said, and they all agreed again it was ace. Women, I ventured, don’t like looking like – you know – women any more. What is it with that? I mean, what’s that all about it gets on my nerves, actually? No-one had an answer. Like, surprise. They all just sat there drinking their coffees. My own take on the issue is that women don’t like looking like women any more and that’s an end to it. No big deal. Jeez. Get over it.

Mitchell and Webb Apple Commercial Divides Nation

Left: a hastily-doctored version of the Apple ad which in no way represents the views of blogger.com. OK?






The new ads for Apple, featuring comedians Mitchell and Webb, have polarised opinion throughout the UK. As you might have gathered from reading the headline. But anyway. A poll has revealed that exactly half the country’s population thinks Mitchell looks the most twattish, while the other half thinks Webb looks the most twattish. When asked, “Which one, out of Mitchell and Webb, looks most twattish in this ad?” half of those polled pointed at the chubby one and the other half pointed at the thinner one. When asked, “Have you ever seen anyone lose their street cred quicker than these two fuckers?” a staggering ninety-five per cent of those polled said, “No”. The remaining five per cent just laughed, or muttered, “What about Newman and Baddiel?”

Mitchell (46) and Webb (46) refused to comment on the poll’s findings, although a spokesperson for the plucky pair informed reporters that they were very busy at the moment, what with all this money lying around.

Robinson? Robins-off!

The BBC’s Political Editor Nick Robinson was last night said to be “devastated” by the news that he is to be replaced by the cartoon version of himself, featured on the Beeb’s website.

The controversial drawing

The cartoon, created by an unpaid student temp in 2002, has proved unexpectedly popular with internet users. “We felt it was time to bring the graphical, 2D version of Nick to a wider audience,” said a spokesperson last night.

And there are considerable cost savings, too. While the real-life Robinson can command upwards of one hundred pounds for appearing on the news, and 150 pounds for standing outside No. 10 and making wry comments, the cartoon is practically free.

If the replacing-human-with-crude-icon experiment proves a success, the BBC has not ruled out similar developments for other presenters. Jonathon Ross could be replaced by a child’s drawing of a dolphin, while the label from a jar of Marmite could be substituted for Natasha Kaplinsky.