This is a selection of some of my satirical writing. It's something I dip in and out of, as and when the feeling takes me. As topical satire has a limited shelf-life, I've given a bit of context before each piece, so you know what was in the news at the time. Because comedy always works best when it's explained beforehand.
Like cigarettes, the Daily Mail shouldn't be on display in shops
Scientists have known about the devastating health impacts of the Daily Mail since the early 1930s, but their findings were suppressed in a bid to prop up sales of royal commemorative plates and patio awnings.
​
With most copies bought ironically as toilet paper, much of its dwindling circulation can be found permeating our country’s sewer systems. However, as with unwanted pet alligators, flushing has only exacerbated the problem and today, as well as being massive, these alligators are now racist.
​
This piece was written when the display ban on cigarettes was first mooted.
Imagine a Bear Grylls cookbook...
I can't remember precisely what this was in reaction to. Possibly the horse-meat scandal, possibly some now long-forgotten spat between Oliver and Bear... which, now I come to think of if, sounds like a painfully middle-class foray into the burgeoning children's book market by Kirsty Allsopp. Or possibly nothing. Either way, it's a nice idea: sun-dried puffin lungs in a red ant jus, anyone?
Clowns
This was a reaction to the ridiculous suggestion, back in 2011, that police officers should travel to work in their uniform to give the appearance of greater police presence on the streets. It was idiotic for all sorts of reasons.
Clowns, however, should absolutely be forced to travel to and from their clowning appointments in full get-up. If only as punishment for never actually having done anything funny.
Wonga
​I have a rule when it comes to financial services: be very wary of any company that uses cartoon characters in its advertising. This is usually done for a very simple reason - to seem nonthreatening. To put us off-guard. Surely that gregarious pelican in a stove-pipe hat won't repossess my washing machine? Yes. Yes he will. That pelican's a cunt.​
Personally, I think bailiffs should have to dress up as the advertising characters of whatever company they're representing. Then we'd all see what's going on. Anyway, I digress. This was about Wonga's own financial woes at the time.
No idea, however sacred, is beyond ridicule
In January 2016, the headquarters of the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, was attacked by IS, killing 12 people and injuring 11 others (it was four at the time of writing).
​
My piece, below, was the first written satirical response to be published in the UK and was retweeted over 200,000 times. It should go without saying that this is not an attack on Islam, any more than the attackers were representing Islam. It's an attack on them.
We all know someone like this
This is based on a bloke I lived next to, and (if I'm honest) my own interactions with my niece.
Bloody trains, eh? Amirite? Yeah, imrite
Every decade or so, science gets itself all over the news about an asteroid or the large hadron collider. Back in 2011, it was because physicists thought they'd observed neutrinos (a type of particle) arriving at a detector before they (or even light) should've done. Which should be impossible.
​
It turned out it was impossible and the whole thing was bollocks (a measurement error, apparently), but it did provide the inspiration for one of my favourite pieces, below.
The face that launched a thousand ships...
Just a daft flight-of-fancy off the back of a ridiculous idea, this one.
Al-Qaeda's unfair recruitment process
After Osama bin Laden was assassinated, do you remember seeing his position advertised anywhere? No, neither do I. Then, a couple of days later, who's announced as his successor? Only one of his best fucking mates! No interviews. No equal representation for women or people from other faiths or socioeconomic backgrounds... nothing.
​
Also happening (and referenced) at this time: Sepp Blatter retaining his top job, uncontested, at FIFA.
