Subscribe

Now it has infringed on my wanking, Britain is officially a police state. By Roy Hobbs

FOR years I’ve ignored the erosion of our civil liberties. CCTV on every building? Fine. Proscribing Palestine Action? Whatever. But now I realise our freedom is in grave danger if it’s becoming a major hassle to rub one out.

With the so-called ‘Online Safety Act’, Generalissimo Starmer has crossed a line. Poorly-acted porn videos are the issue that has awoken my political consciousness, and I have no choice but to join the resistance. 

And so I ask you: will you stand with me, comrade? If being an Englishman means anything, it is liberty. And there is no freedom so important as having a five-knuckle shuffle in one’s own home on one’s own broadband. What else was the Second World War about?

Apparently this is all ‘for the children’. But I’m not a child, I’m a 58-year-old plumber with a healthy – and pro-LGBT – appreciation for women discovering their bisexuality, and the occasional optimistic search for ‘big tit MILF needing combi boiler fixed’. Where does it end? Are they going to send a SWAT team every time I open an incognito tab?

Dictators have always banned material to control the minds of the people. And this is bound to lead to dictatorship, because Starmer has now lost every single male vote in the country. The state must stay out of a man’s home, his search history and his trousers. That is the social contract as defined by Rousseau. 

If a man wants to see deepfakes of Camilla Parker-Bowles in a thong – a purely hypothetical example, obviously – then he should be able to do so without Big Brother peeking over his shoulder. What next? A Labour candidate blackmailing me on the doorstep by asking if I’ve perused any partners of King Charles recently?

They say it’s about ‘online harms’. But the only harm being done is to my mental health when I try to download a free VPN and end up with a computer riddled with viruses which I have to take to the computer shop so that a fat nerd can snigger that I’m the eighth that day. 

I didn’t ask for this fight against tyranny. But then neither did Volodymyr Zelensky. I will resist, and when I hear the PornHub jingle again, I’ll know our struggle is won. Give me wanking or give me death.

Sign up now to get
The Daily Mash
free Headlines email – every weekday
privacy

Smashing Pumpkins, and other very silly bands who think their work is profound

SOME bands take themselves way too seriously. However it’s generally a good idea to not be so up yourselves you don’t realise people are laughing at you. Like these acts.

Smashing Pumpkins

Dressing like Uncle Fester is not the best way to convince people you have something important to say. Billy Corgan’s affected hush-SCREAM-hush vocals are often laugh-out-loud hilarious, although not as funny as his lyrics which supposedly channel the Word of God. The Pumpkins very quickly disappeared up their own grunge backside – and that’s the very worst kind of backside to disappear up.

Mansun

Most of the Britpop crowd realised they were lucky to get their 15 minutes and just had fun with it. Mansun, on the other hand, went into full-on prog-rock mode with only their second album. Awkwardly channelling The Marquis de Sade over a cacophony of heavily processed guitars, the only statement this band were making was: ‘We are pretentious dickheads.’

U2

If you want people to take your socio-political commentary seriously, best not to paint your face red and prance around pretending to be the Devil. Bono, The Edge and the other ones took holier-than-thou posturing to the next level, deeming their music worthy enough to be bestowed upon everyone in the world without their consent, courtesy of an iPhone download. The world responded with a collective middle finger, but there’s no evidence Bono thought: ‘Gosh, now you mention it, I really should stop being a twat.’

Fleet Foxes

Those comedy beards may not be hiding smiles, but Fleet Foxes remain unintentionally daft. Holing up in a remote log cabin in order to write about loneliness is the height of silliness. And if you want to preach about the importance of human connection, don’t throw hissy fits when the audience talks during gigs. These guys deserve to be on the receiving end of a pint full of piss. Or a bear.

Manic Street Preachers

They started out as boiler-suited, sloganeering wallies, a ludicrous mess of eyeliner and spray paint. Now in their late fifties, their look is more ‘darts night down The Bull’ but they remain as ridiculous as ever, singing about stuff they read in a book but don’t really understand. Like circus clowns who don’t know why everyone is laughing.

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions

With their black turtlenecks and moody stares, this is a band who look like some GCSE drama students have been told to ‘act French’. Lyrical references to Norman Mailer and Simone de Beauvoir are pure sixth-form nonsense. Then there are their songs about women with Perfect Skin. If they weren’t funny, they’d be creepy.

Next story ›