THERE were fresh demands last night for the rest of the world's clowns to be fired into orbit immediately.
As Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté paid £18m to travel to the International Space Station, anti-clown groups pledged their support to ridding the planet of each and every one of the deeply unnerving circus performers.
Charlie Reeves, an anti-clownist from York, backed the mission, adding: "Ever since I was a child, I have dreamed of a clown-free world.
"That Stephen King novel where one of them went around ripping children's arms off certainly made me suspicious of their overly friendly approach and at the same time replaced the school caretaker as the thing that made me shit my pants."
Reeves said a giant, all-clown space station could operate on a relatively modest budget by cutting out 'unnecessary luxuries' including buckets of glitter, water-squirting buttonhole flowers and oxygen.
Meanwhile in orbit, Laliberté enchanted his fellow crew members with an eerie, zero-gravity mime to poignant piano music, adding: "I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and confused the shit out of God."
But a NASA spokesman insisted: "What if they make contact with aliens? Our first conversation with extraterrestrial life will be conducted via a series of car honks, dropped trousers and insanely coloured bunches of flowers pulled out of their ass.
"Remember, in space nobody can hear you say 'that's not entertaining'."
But Reeves is adamant that blasting the planet's clowns into orbit will make the world a 'better, less French place'.
He added: "While we're at it, we should also put all the magicians in a big submarine.
"And then blow it up."
