"Someday my fat gendered THEM will come"

Most Hollywood productions seem to have gone woke these days with inevitable consequences. We see the debacle that is the latest addition to the Indiana Jones franchise (Dial of Destiny). Typical woke agenda peddled with a pedestrian, addled, befuddled, aged, incompetent Prof Jones being outsmarted by a sassy, smart, strong independent woman. With total production costs reckoned at a smooth $400 million and total box office returns predicted, as of date, to be around $310 million, the film is unlikely to turn a profit. But it gets much worse from a financial standpoint. For the film to enter the true 'profit zone', the production company, Lucas Films, needs to turn in box office receipts in excess of $600 million. This is due to all the subsidiary costs of filmmaking, such as marketing and advertising, etc. 

While I'm mid-rant, why not throw in a couple other cinematic disasters. Disney appears to revel in altering classic, timeless stories for the sake of inclusivity and the promulgation of diversity. Thus it has been revealed that the redoing of the Disney masterpiece, 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' from 1937, is to feature a brown-visaged Hispanic actress (Hola!) and a coterie of associated mystical forest denizens (wot no Dwarves?). In fact, the new title of the extravaganza is just 'Snow White', and although the production is still a year away, a leaked photo illustrates the characters involved in the screenplay. To be fair, there does appear to be one dwarf lurking among the forest critters. The other companions fulfil the gamut expected from the 'Diversity Checklist'. As they say, a picture paints a thousand words: see below. I would like to suggest an alternative title for this extravaganza: 'Off White and the Seven Gypos'.  Apparently, the producers are running free and wild with this classic 19th-century German tale, and our intrepid/tepid heroine will not be saved by a handsome prince this time.

Shit on a fucking Stick 

"Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's off to a Safe Place We Go"

And to conclude. The 'Little Mermaid' film of 2023 is shite, but it does have the saving grace of sporting a black Ariel. Here is my rendition of a mermaid-themed story, as related by a renowned West Midland journalist with a silly name.

Breaking news from the beautiful and majestic spa town of Tipton West, incorporating North Dudley and the environs thereabout. This reporter can conclusively report a confirmed sighting of the legendary aquatic mammal, ‘The Mermaid', frolicking in the Tipton canal at closing time. Mr Eli Mugumbo (who else?) relates the story with habitual poise: I had just left the ‘Felching Ferret’ hostelry after a particularly heavy session of imbibing alcoholic beverages. On this particular occasion, I had consumed 15 pints of Tipton Best bitter, 12 malt whiskies, sweet sherry and a magnum of baby sham. As I lurched down the towpath of the Tipton canal, wending my way home precariously after imbibing large amounts of alcoholic beverages which comprised………I digress. Although the light was poor and my vision befouled and bespeckled, I discerned out of the corner of my good eye a splishing and a splashing emanating from the said canal. On further inspection, I distinctly saw a mermaid reclining on a partly submerged fiat uno. It had the lower body of a fish and the upper body of a ferret (surely some mistake). As I approached, it transfixed my visage with steely blue eyes and rasped. “Fancy a good time, sailor?” Although taken aback, I recovered my composure and retorted with fortitude born of extreme inebriation: “Yer my bessie mate, I love ya, can ya lend me 20 quid for a case of Special Brew Extra, burrrrrrrrp".  Afterwards, as if in a dream, I distinctly remember being assailed by a large dorsal flipper which robbed me of my sensibility, and I fell arse (arse) akimbo into the broiling morass. I wrestled with the watery fiend fighting for my life. Luckily at that very moment, I emitted a vast fart, and the bubbles engendered propelled me forthwith upon the very towpath I had recently vacated, nay relinquished.

 Although later, the rubicund and abashed Mr Mugumbo stated that he may have tripped over a dead itinerant, and the flipping flipper may have been a figment of his frenzied imagination. After all, at the time, he was as pissed as a Rhino's arse (Arssssssssse. arse).

Piss Artists Impression of the Watery Tart

Afterwards, whilst encapsulated in a brief moment of sobriety, Mr Mugumbo admitted that he might have seen half a bloater cunningly nailed to a rusty perambulator.

Are merferrets a product of our atavistic and overwrought imagination? A mere fevered wraith of fancy. Or are there creatures lurking in our canals (dead tramps excepted) unknown to science waiting to be flung flapping into the light of day by brave and intrepid researchers, boldly ferreting (steady Shagger) into the dark, dank, slimy, ordure at the bottom of the recesses of our………. (Arse).