The Movie Industry Presents: Six Steps to making ‘The Smurfs’ an International Hit

You didn’t hear this from us, right? You got that recording device switched off? Right, good, lemme just finish this cigare—no wait, you Brits like to call them fags, dontcha? Alright, I got some stuff for you. It’s a list I got from the Movie Industry’s filing cabinet – it’s got the six steps they took to make sure that The Smurfs will become a big movie hit and everyone will go see it. Got all kinds of dirt in this case, y’know? So you’d better have come good with the money I asked for. You better… wait, what’s that in your violin case? That’s not a string instrument. Fact, kid, that looks like you’ve got a…. machine gun?! No… nooooo!!!

So began our investigation into how you promote a film like upcoming Summer Smash ‘The Smurfs’, which will see the blue critters return to the big screen to once more fend off the attacks of the evil Gargamel. You want to know which six criteria the production needed to meet? Well, here they are. Read this, then go see the film – it’s going to be totally smurf.


Step 1: None of the film is to be a cartoon. CGI that shit!

The original cartoon series was massively popular not just in America, but other financially viable markets such as Canada and Australia. We need to tap into these markets by turning everything into CGI and adding a third dimension to the storytelling. Then we can flog some more of those 3D glasses that utterly nobody is talking about! Kids are tired of only seeing things in two dimensions. With the Big Bang sealing off about nine dimensions to us during the beginning of time (true fact - Ed), all we have left to ramp up the action are the third and fourth dimensions. The third is easy, but the fourth will be difficult. Note: can we persuade kids to lick a cinema screen at certain times so they can ‘taste’ the different smurfs?


Step 2: Get real-life humans to interact with the fake-ass smurfs

How are people gonna know to root for Gargamel if he’s a computer character? Get an actor to dress up in monk gear and that, and put him in the world. So what if he complains that it’s nearly impossible to act as if a tonne of tiny blue creatures are running round his legs? Jason Lee managed it okay, didn’t he? Reminder – David Cross will sell out for anyone. Perhaps turn Brainy Smurf into a human and cast him as that?


Step 3: Get non-actors involved

Smurfette is iconic because weirdos want to bone her 7-inch body senseless. Let’s tap into that market by casting someone with a slutty reputation as her. Obviously this means we can’t hire an actress, unless Helen Mirren is up for it. Nah, but we’ll have to get someone else. How about that Katy Perry? She’s single, free, and available, right? We hire her, and people will flock to this film like the flock of flock that they are. Flock, I say!


Step 4: Make things more American

Original story? Too French! You want to be reminded of how they betrayed us during Iraq everytime you watch the film? We got to cut that out, and send the smurfs somewhere American. How about New York? They can go to the Statue Of Liberty – they’ll be small, it’ll be really big. Sells itself! We’re onto a winner here, boys. Let’s all take a raise. Hey – we could make New York real, and have the CGI smurfs run around in it! That makes almost so much sense that I can’t breathe!


Step 5: Appeal to the minorities

All the smurfs are black, right? I always assumed that, because they live in mud huts and are crushed by the heels of The Man. We need to appeal to people who don’t like black dudes – can we hire Michael Richards? Failing that, let’s get some token character-actors and include them in small cameos. I’m figuring we get George Lopez to play a smurf nobody’s ever heard of before, and maybe we can get someone gay to be a smurf? Alan Cumming, yeah, he’d work. Make him Vanity Smurf or something, play to those stereotypes everyone loves. What’s that? You hired him to be “gutsy” smurf? WTH does gutsy mean? I’m gonna have to get my dictionary out for that one, man.


Step 6: Make the poster suitable for kids and adults alike

Put the smurfs in there, but make it so it looks like smurfette is totally cussin’ out. Y’know, they use the word smurf instead of normal words? Well let’s have her replace f^%$ with smurf, right? Man, I’m tired from all these great ideas I’ve been having. I’m gonna have to have a lie down with some cocaine. Is your wife doing anything this evening?

Making Up Jokes About Barack Obama

Generally Wilftonville stays out of American politics because we don’t approve of living in an America-centric universe. There are other countries, and the majority of them are way better than America is. Or at least, more consistent in their beliefs. Walk from one state to another in America and you’ll find that whereas your Jesus-ignoring, ethnic-approving, gay-marriage supporting self is highly beloved in the one, your beliefs will cause the residents of the other to actually hunt you down with pitchforks. America is an odd country. Racists live next to liberals, and one of the largest states is run by an Austrian. And on top of all this, they drive on the wrong side of the road (what UP, Australia?)

However, seeing as there is only one new president every four years in America unless the current president is a republican, it’s worth looking into this “Obama” feller to see what’s really going on. Barack Obama, in case you were unaware, is not completely white. In fact, there is a whole half of him which could be described as “not white”. This is quite the turn-up for the books, because everyone outside of America assumed that all states were racist. It turns out that the USA happens to be startlingly not prejudiced anymore (nobody would call it liberal, yet, but it does seem to be heading that way, which is pleasing) and ready for “change”. And “hope”. Because that’s what Obama was promising. During the five-year election process he has constantly referred back to these two words as part of his platform, and they’ve worked out for him far better than Hilary Clinton’s “woman” and “sexism” words or John McCain’s use of “POW” and “necktie”. Why he thinks that quoting a form of Batman attack will help him in politics is anyone’s guess, as everyone knows what happens when politicians get involved with the Caped Crusader.

Pictured: A Fool.

It’s clear from his speeches that Barack Obama is an eloquent individual, and as this is unheard of for a politician the media have decided to jump on this and proclaim him to be the resurrected body of Jesus, which will annoy all deluded Christians (Jesus was white! They shout) and force all Rastafarians to smoke more. Well, perhaps the media aren’t that obsessed with him, but they do seem to think that there is nothing about the man which is mockable at all. Previous President George Bush was an international laughing stock (although we all laughed as quietly as possible, in case he tried to bomb us) and of all the other World leaders – Berlusconi, Brown, and so on – only Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy seem to be seen as genuinely decent at their job. Sarkozy, being French, doesn’t have to do much to impress anyone but Obama is in charge of a country which everyone can admit is pretty darned important. And it looks, at this point in time, like he’s going to do a good job.

This is great for America – good luck with everything, and all – but it does mean that it’s damnably hard to think up any good jokes about the man. He’s dignified and clever, but also witty and seems approachable to the average person. Where’s the humour in that? When you add to our woes with the simple truth that Obama is black, it means that it’s going to be seriously tough to say any jokes about him without coming off as a racist. Or ironic. It’s a massive problem which has been mentioned all around the World by many different comedians as something which they struggle with – Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, Marcus Brigstocke, among others have all worried that there are no good Obama jokes around.

There are many solutions to this problem, but because this is a blog we’ll only talk about the least obvious and most convoluted one: we have to start making up stuff about Barack. For example, did you know the following facts about Barack are all absolutely true?

1. At college he studied drama.
2. His favourite kind of animal is the llama.
3. He has no tolerance for a self-harmer.
4. My Name Is Earl is his favourite show, because it’s all about karma.

With these four facts in our possession, we can start arranging jokes based about Obama which will be hilarious. Let’s try one on, based on those four facts:

“Knock Knock”
“Who’s there?”
“Barack”
“Barack who?”
“I’m Barack from watching My Name Is Earl!!!!”

On top of this absolutely stupefying jubilant joke, nobody has yet realised that Obama’s initials are “BO”. Did you know that “BO” is also the abbreviation for ‘body odour’? Because it is! What a superb joke you could make from that, comedians of the world! We don’t stop here either, as Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. That means that any Hawaii 5-O jokes you might have are applicable to him! Yes! Can’t you see? There is so much on offer for you here, and you don’t even realise it yet. This is just the beginning. Do you know any good jokes that could be made up about Barack Obama, America’s forty-somethingth President? Write them in the comments section below, and let’s see if we can’t build up a collection for later use.

And who knows? Perhaps he’ll shatter the American economy and ruin the country. What a great day for jokesters that’ll be!

Why I Don’t Trust The Jews

A lot of Americans recently believed that Barack Obama was a Muslim, and that because of this he shouldn’t be allowed to become the awesome new President of the USA (or as we call it in Europe, ‘Disneyland’). This Islamophobia is not something that the Americans alone are guilty of, though – Britain seems to be obsessed with it. At least, the papers are. Every day the worthless newspapers spread panic about how the Muslims are going to take over all our jobs because;

A: They are ASYLUM SEEKERS. Agh! Asylum seekers!
B: They are trying to destroy the very fabric of British society which first enticed them to migrate over here
C: (They do the jobs better than British workers do)

Option C is not one you’ll see the papers mention very often. We’re not too bad though, overall, just as long as you don’t visit Bradford. Ever. In the Middle-East, I’m led to believe that apparently the Muslims are getting into wars with each other and other religions! That’s quite extreme indeed. It seems that The Muslims are not appreciated properly by the World. I sympathise with you, Muslim community.

At the same time the Christians are under attack from that Dawkins feller. He doesn’t think that people should base their lives around the writing of one book, and if you read his ‘The God Delusion’, available at many good book stores, he will advise you on how best to live your life away from the glare of religion. Mostly, he is not happy with Catholics. And why should he be? Those people have been going away once a week to those sinister-looking church buildings for years and years now. They’ve got something in mind, heed my words, and for centuries now they’ve been planning it for two or so hours a week. Also, they don’t like abortions – what kind of weirdo doesn’t love a good abortion?

But I’m not here to talk about the faults of Catholics and Muslims and Atheists. I’m here to talk about the real issues. I always have been, in a way. It’s just that you’ve never understood before what my posts about ‘X-Men’ and ‘How To Get Famous Women To Sleep With You’ were really about. They’re allegorical! I think that the main problem with society today is that it is doing too much worrying about Catholics and Muslims, and not enough worrying about Jews.

For one thing, did you know that all female Jews are surgically modified when they reach a certain age? The process is called a Bat-Mitzvah, and during it the girls are given a pair of wings to use, and an inbuilt sonar system. With these powers the girls then are able to fly around at night, drinking the blood of cows and peasants. Why isn’t the media reporting this?

It doesn’t end there. One thing that’s been bothering me for quite some time are the hats that Jews wear. These hats are sanctioned whenever they go into their place of worship, and you will not see a Jew in a synagogue without one. Nobody else seems to realise that these hats are resistant to telepathic intrusion, which means that the giant satellites the Government have in space are unable to read the minds of Jews once they start worshipping. There is a mental black spot above and around each Synagogue. What is it that the Jews see or think about in Synagogue that they need to keep secret from the rest of the World? Why isn’t the media reporting this?

And finally, the thing most Jews are known for: their fame. It’s long been known that Hollywood is run by Jews, gays, and Jewish gays (who have the most power of all), and that they use their power to influence the country. They have control over the entire population of California, for one thing (not the gays: they just suspiciously lost their ability to marry recently – another Jewish plot?), and their expansion is slowly taking over the rest of the two US coastlines. They have taken over the film industry, the TV industry, the music industry, and the media. Why isn’t the media repor- oh.

Jewish people must be stopped.

The Point of The Large Hadron Collider

It got switched on today. The big giant tube thing that somehow is going to redefine science for ever has been activated, and as scientists attempt to work out what dark matter is and how particles hit each other and all that, the rest of the world has been united in saying “huh”? Nobody knows what a Hadron is, you see, or why it is so important that we make them collide regularly. All we do know is that now it’s been switched on, there is a chance we might all be sucked into a black hole and killed, or something.

We’ve been researching the project to find out what the heck is going on, exactly. The LHC, as we shall evermore call it, fires particles down a 17km tunnel (can’t they translate that into metres for people who don’t speak ‘crap measurement scales’?) which is buried underground somewhere underneath France and Switzerland. These particles get sped up by giant magnets and start moving at such incredible speeds that when they smash into each other – as hoped – they will disintegrate and scientists can analyse what’s inside them. That’s about as much as we can understand about the whole thing.... and that’s what the man wants you to understand about it.

In reality the whole thing makes no sense. Why would anyone want to analyse particles when we still can’t make a loaf of bread last two weeks without getting mouldy? As a representative of the common student – not the posh ones, nobody likes an Oxbridge kid – Wilftonville cannot understand why science isn’t working to improve things for those people who suffer from having no money. As it turns out, the answer was simpler than we realised.

Go back to the second paragraph and look to see if there’s anything unusual there that bears analysis. I’ll wait.

Right, so hopefully you’ve now realised that for some reason this massive project has been located in France and Switzerland, instead of somewhere where the locals aren’t inbred, stunted smokers with a keen interest in vineyards and cheeses. That’s what’s going on here. The LHC causes black holes. The LHC is located in France and Switzerland.

The LHC is designed to destroy France.

Finally: science we can all get behind! There’s no need to fear about what this does to religion anymore, or about if the LHC will cause us to realise new and more terrifying things about the world we live in. Because it’s sole purpose is to destroy France. God speed, LHC! One other thing we noticed today which interested us: they’ve finally built a vacuum cleaner than can go in more than one direction. James Dyson has realised that by using a ball instead of fixed wheels, the common vacuum cleaner suddenly becomes much more useful. Truly, this is the best day for science since they discovered that monkeys were sort of like humans but not quite.

The World Is Ruined Because Of…

Bread!

“Bread?” you ask me in that slightly annoying high-pitched voice you have. “What in the blue blazes could possibly be bad about bread? It’s a delicious part of any meal, whether it be in the form of toast, a sandwich, or… well actually, that’s just about the only two ways you can eat bread, but my point still stands! Bread is the best!” Yes, but it is also ruining the World. For why? Let me explain.

Point 1: I want to make clear that I am talking about a specific type of bread, here. I’m talking about bread which says it is ‘best of both’, in that it offers white bread with all the goodness of brown bread. For starters, this is wrong because there is nothing good about brown bread. It’s a punishment that fat people inflict upon themselves because they need to atone for their globbiness. Brown bread is the most disgusting thing you could possibly eat, bread that has bits of other things in it. When eating brown bread you can suddenly find yourself chewing something that, on further observation, appears to have the consistency and taste of a bit of rabbit poo. There are odd things in the bread, and on top of this the bread itself tastes awful. Brown bread is a horrific experience that no child should ever have to suffer. For bread manufacturers to actually promote the fact that their white bread tastes like brown bread should be commercial suicide.

Point 2: Best of both bread is simply not designed to be eaten. One of the most popular forms of bread, ‘toast’, relies upon the fact that you can see how well toasted the bread is by looking at the slice itself. It turns yellow, then brown, the black, and you can see this gradual change and decide for yourself whenabouts you want to stop cooking and put some jam on that lovely bastard. You can’t do this with best of both, because here’s the scoop: it looks brown. The whole point of best of both is that you can trick your friends and family with it because they are meant to think it looks white even though it is disgusting brown. But best of both is distinctly brown in colour! Thusly, when you put it in and take it out of the toaster, you cannot tell if it is toasted or not until it’s too late. This is bad.

Point 3: It tastes digesting anyway. I’ve already denounced brown bread, but best of both bread isn’t much better. It takes out the ‘bits’ but leaves in all the yucky taste that will astonish children and disgust all but the most fibre-orientated of grandparents. A lot of people will tell you than this type of bread tastes like cardboard, but don’t let them fool you – it tastes more like dry carpet.

Point 4: Surely best of both bread must suffer when it is in the supermarket, as neither the white loafs nor the brown loafs will talk to them, judging them ‘inferior’. This poor mixed-race bread must suffer dreadfully.

Point 5: Best of both bread sells itself on the fact that it is healthy and good for you, despite having the look of white bread. Excuse me, but wasn’t the process of bleaching bread white what made it bad for you in the first place? And roughly how bad can any kind of bread be for you, anyway? It still has roughly the same ingredients, but it simply streamlines out all the parts that taste awful and replaces them with bits that taste nice. What’s wrong with that?

Brown bread and ‘best of both’ bread is destroying our society. In this feature I had to change what I was saying on no less than six occasions, for fear of accidentally writing a potent metaphor about race relations. How can that be a good thing? I condemn this bread!

10 School Subjects That Are Pretty Much Total Bullshit

10: Art

Paintings and sculptures are things that, when done right, really can make a lasting impact on society. Having said that, Art lessons are a complete waste of time for anyone who isn’t already good at art. Art lessons are simply a series of humiliations in which the geeky kid who likes manga gets to show off how good he is at drawing dragons made of magma while all the other people struggle to draw buildings in proper perspective. No matter what the teacher does, there is no way you can simply become better at art from revising thoroughly, thus making the subject a harsh lesson in reality – some people are just born good. No way you can compete with that.


9: French

History escapes the list because it applies to everywhere. French can’t even do that. Aside of a few parts of Canada and Africa, the only place you’d ever need to use French is in France, a land famous for cheese, wine, and disdain. No matter how good you get at speaking the language, the French will never forgive you for one mistake you might make, even though they can’t pronounce “the” properly in English, let alone the other words. No, learning French is bollocks, pure and simple. You’ll never need it.


8: PE

AKA: Revenge-time for all the fat kids who don’t understand maths. Rugby becomes a game where the athletic types play and everyone else stands around hoping the ball won’t be thrown at them; hockey is similar but with the added incentive of wooden (or metal!) club pain; if the teacher wants to stay indoors and read the paper, he’ll send everyone off on a cross-country run from the warmth of the staffroom. And for what benefit? All it does it keep children in shape, something they’ll never have to be in the Real World, when they hold down an office job and sit on their computer all day restructuring spreadsheets.


7: ICT

Nobody uses every part of Microsoft Office. Word I can understand, for writing essays/entries for critically acclaimed blogs, but Excel? Outlook? Who needs such things? I’ll tell you who: boring people. And why do children need to be taught how to use these things, anyway – the only places that require you to use complicated applications generally give you a course in how to do so before they take you on. For most children, ICT lessons are generally spent surfing the internet when the teacher is on the other side of the room.

6: DT

Design and Technology is an extended chance for children to injure themselves in a series of new and exciting ways. However, before they get to the fun part they have to spend months filling out cripplingly dull pieces of paper about ergonomics and profit margins. If anything, having DT lessons actually lessens the number of people who take up DT as a career. There would be far more designers if the subject was dropped, thus making DT totally bullshit.


5: Geography

Anything taught in a Geography lesson could also be learnt from reading about it in an Atlas. The capital of Portugal – in the Atlas. The population of China – in the Atlas. If you want to learn Geography – buy the friggin’ Atlas.


4: RS (or RE, whatever)

Leaving aside the whole part where a lot of the population of the World doesn’t actually believe in religion, RS spends most of the time reminding students of how other people are different. The Jews have crazy festivals like Passover where they eat strangely named stuff from a big bowl, and Muslims go spend all their time walking round a big black cube. Boy, those fellers sure are different! And the worst thing is, you don’t get to spend any time reading about the interesting religions. Jesus was hella dull, admit it. He just walked a lot and told stories. Dull, dull stories. Zeus – now there is a God! He’s all up shooting thunderbolts at people he didn’t like! Why Greek and Norse Gods aren’t taught in RS lessons is inexcusable to me, and so, for cultivating racial tensions, RS is BS.


3: Music

If someone has an ear for music, that’s a beautiful thing. However, in a room of 30-odd students, it’s more than likely that the talented will be overrun by those who can’t work a triangle (which includes me). Thus, in any given lesson about music, roughly 1/5 of the class will be wearing perpetual looks of weary depression, while the others mindlessly jab at note on a keyboard and repeatedly set off the demo function, snickering each time they do it.


2: Science (any)

Every important point made in a physics lesson is already obvious. The fact that things fall when you drop them, that if you push something it’ll move faster than if you left it alone, these are things that everyone already knows. Why do we need to be told why these things happen? The fact is, they do. And we would be happy to accept that, if only physics lessons didn’t repeatedly push reasons at us. Chemistry is a chance to play with acid and fire, and frankly that’s what the army was created for. Biology? Biology I kinda like. I still don’t get why we need to know why plants are green. Can’t we just accept these things and move on?


1: Maths

Thing is, maths is one of the most useful subjects there is… for about two years. Once we’ve been taught how to add, subtract, divide, and multiply, there are only a few more things Maths can teach which isn’t completely useless. Fractions and so on are helpful for some, but the relevance of equations in the real world is negligible. It seems pretty obvious that once children are taught the basics of maths, they should be allowed to only continue the subject if they have an eye on doing something financial as a job. To keep children trapped with trigonometry, probability, and – groan - surds seems like cruelty. Pointless, pointless cruelty. When was the last time you wrote a graph, anyway? Exactly.

Why America Should War With Mongolia

My personal stance on war is: it should only ever be against parasitic alien bugs. No fighting between humans should be allowed, because if we’re ever invaded by aforementioned alien monsters, we’ll need to team up to kill them all off. But yet, in this specific instance, I feel we should allow America just this one little war.

You see, America have never properly won a war, in my opinion. Sure, they were on the winning side for WWII, but they were barely involved in that one properly at all – twas the Russians reeeeeeeeally. And England (not Britain) too, naturally, because England is the most heroic nation on Earth even though technically we’re not actually a nation but shut up. They had that Independence Battle against us, but we let them win that one because we had bigger things to deal with. Namely, saving all of Europe from Napoleon. So yes, we gave them that one. In the years that have gone by though, America has been just itching to have a proper war that they can win, on their own, to make themselves feel better about not being able to pronounce the word “aluminium” correctly. They went over to Vietnam for reasons I don’t quite understand (although I believe that the President was forced into this war by Oliver Stone so he could have a career), and lost that one, and they are currently slightly maybe perhaps not quite winning in Iraq. I don’t want to make any guesses on that one, it could go either way.

And now America is looking over at North Korea and Iran with narrowed eyes, whispering something about “goddamm foreign yuppies” and preparing to attack them. To this I say: do not do it, America! You lost against Vietnam, right, and they don’t even have nuclear weapons! How are you going to do against countries that slightly maybe perhaps do? Don’t even go there! The rest of the World doesn’t want you to go over and attack these countries – this is ALL YOU. We know, alright? It’s been a long time since you won a battle, and your actors barely ever win Oscars anymore cos of Australian and Brit actors, and you’re still jealous you never invented the Beatles… but there is another way to save face.

Attack Mongolia.*

Mongolia has a proud history – Genghis Khan used to be in charge of that place, and once upon a time you couldn’t walk in a straight line for bumping into Mongol warriors. They’re a pretty cool nation, that owned a lot of the World for a long period of time, but the thing is - they are no longer any good at fighting! Their army has sucked for centuries now! Heck, I bet they haven’t even got steam power yet, let alone nuclear capability! Go attack them! You can go over, bomb the hell out of them, and then stroll back into the UN building with a cigar, smiling, and tell everyone else “hey guys, guess who just themselves won a war, eh?” Wouldn’t that be fun? Plus, I’m pretty sure they’re all Buddhists or something, so you can release all that pent-up racism you’ve been storing ever since you realised that Muslims don’t believe in Christ. And the Buddhists will forgive you. It’s in their religion.

So as far as I'm concerned, what's stopping y'all?


*I’m sorry, Mongolia. Nothing personal.

Five Beatles Songs That Make No Sense

3: Blackbird

What ‘They’ Say The Song Is About

Many people think that the song is about empowerment of some kind, with varying suggestions coming in saying that Sir Paul is trying to empower the South Americans, the female gender, blackbirds (Bill Oddie would be proud) or black people. In fact, a user who has for some reason decided that “1Cancer” would be a great idea for an internet forums name is the first to suggest that the song is about the plight of African-Americans, which leads to this classic reply from another user – “yeah, that’s what I heard too *agrees with 1Cancer*”. Now if that alone doesn’t single-handedly prove the genius of internet forums, I don’t know what does.


The Song, Then

You may have noticed that all the songs I tend to pick on are written by Paul McCartney, and the reason for that is that I haven’t ever forgiven him for breaking Jane Asher’s heart. Poor girl, she never knew what was coming. But anyway, let’s get to the song. Paul describes a bird singing at night-time, which for a start is biologically very very unlikely. Apart from owls, have you ever heard birds singing at night-time? Everyone knows that birds only sing in the early morning, and they only do it then so they can annoy anyone nearby who happens to be trying to sleep. Said it before, I’ll say it again: birds can be cruel. So say we accept this as fact though, that the bird has perhaps got a mixed-up bodyclock and starts singing at night-time. Showing his skills as an empathiser, he tells this bird with “broken wings” to learn to fly, which seems unnecessarily cruel to me. Dude, the thing is in some quite hideous pain right now, and you want it to fly? Why, is this one of your sick, sick games? You’re a monster, Paul McCartney!
And this is made worse by the fact that he continues to taunt the crippled creature with the line “you were waiting for this moment to be free”. Way to kick a bird when it’s down, McCartney! We’ve established that the bird is injured and in pain, and now you continue to taunt it endlessly? You’re a heartless Scouse bastard. Yet of course, many people would suggest this song is about black people, and there’s just one flaw with that logic: black people can’t fly. Or at least, not that I know of. I know black guys can jump really high, but I’ve yet to see them take off into the air and start soaring around merrily, laughing at the white folks below. Although… that would probably make for a good Stephen King novel.
So we’ve established that the song isn’t about black people – when have they ever had troubles, anyway? It’s not as if they were cruelly enslaved by other people for generation after generation and perceived to be an inferior race, people! What a—wait, what? They were? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH OLD PEOPLE? First they have all these wars, and now I find out they’ve been enslaving other races just because they’re different? I am so ticked off to hear that, you have no idea. I’m going to go to a residential home right now and beat up some pensioners, as my own personal way of making up for Segregation – black people of the World, I hope this small act helps in some way to heal the wounds that my ancestors caused for you.

Five People Who Could Bring the World to a Screeching Halt With One Click of Their Mouse

There are many people in the World, most of whom have no power at all. They're useless, essentially, but generally - quite nice. However, there are at least five different people who could, if they so wished, destroy the World from their laptop. These people could easily click a button, and end life as we know it. So, just so you're warned, here are those five people you should never get on the wrong side of.


1: Jimmy Wales – President, Wikia. inc

What Power Do They Have?
Jimmy Wales was one of the two creators of Wikipedia, a website which aims to be a comprehensive encyclopaedia for anything you may wish to know. It does this by making every single entry accessible by anyone, so that as new information is discovered, it can be noted down by anyone. As such, Wikipedia has become the largest source for information in not just the Internet, but the World. It’s totally free to use, too, prompting students across the world to shout “Screw you, Oxford English Dictionary! Your website requires me to pay? I’ll just use Wikipedia instead! Ahahahaa!”

How Could They Halt The World?
Wikipedia is the first source for information for a whole range of people. As a student myself, I’ve spent more than my fair share of time searching through the articles about Walt Whitman and Post Structuralism, and I can testify that Wikipedia is incredibly useful for anyone. It’s become part of the world culture, too, in a way that few other websites have. The fact that anyone can add in information about their hometown or something they specialise in is enticing, and the fact it’s free means I can spend my money for more useless things such as alcohol and over-elaborate fancy-dress costumes. Imagine, then, if Jimmy were to take all this away from us. If he shut down the site. People wouldn’t be able to find things out anymore! My entire generation of students would suddenly find that the only way to learn things is through hard study and using a “library” filled with “books”. Needless to say, we’d all fail our exams, be thicker, and unemployable. No more scientists! No more anthropologists! No more… accountants! The world would shudder to a halt, no doubt.

Reason This Won’t Happen
If Jimmy ever went nuts and did this, you can rest easy in the knowledge that Wikipedia was co-created. Larry Sanger, who puts the “co” in that phrase, is currently at work on a successor to Wikipedia, written only by experts. Imagine that – a Wikipedia which is almost always correct! It’d be like an online Stephen Fry.


2: Al Gore – Former American Vice President

What Power Do They Have?
After losing to George Bush Jr in the American elections, Al Gore vanished into the wilderness reserved for forgotten politicians, and likely had a cup of tea with John Major and William McKinley (no, me neither) while he was there. We all thought he had gone for good, but then he cropped up in the film “An Inconvenient Truth”, which repeated the syllabus of all schoolchildren for the past TWENTY YEARS and made everyone WHO ISN’T UNDER 40 aware that global warming did, indeed, exist. He made it a global agenda out of nowhere, and helps numerous charities too. So to stand next to Al Gore is to tell the world “I’m a nice guy too” - even if you’re Bono, who secretly eats children*

How Could They Halt The World?
Many, many idiots have banded together to say that Global Warming doesn’t exist, saying that it’s something Al Gore has made up just to get attention. A few people even suggest that Al is causing global warming himself. Sounds stupid, but what if they’re right? What if Al Gore has a team of supporters grouped at the north and south poles even as we sit here, waiting for his word before whipping out some flamethrowers and melting that bad boy? In the event that this is actually true, we should probably start signing stuff that says we’re going to use more renewable energy now, eh? Y’know, before he gets his men to flame up the icecap some. He strikes me as the kinda guy who would be happy to kill off all the penguins if it means he becomes president, so the question here is not ‘if’, but ‘when’ he presses the button. On the plus side, his vice-president might well be his former roommate, Tommy Lee Jones. And that would just be awesome.

Reason This Won’t Happen
GLOBAL WARMING EXISTS


3: Bill Gates – Chairman, Microsoft

What Power Does He Have?
Bill Gates OWNS Microsoft, the company that reaches into practically every house in the Western World and provides us with webbing excellence (or, in the case of Vista, an online traffic jam). Microsoft not online provide computers, but also the software that runs them. Microsoft Office, which provides people with an electronic way to write, manage finances or create presentations, is used by an estimated 90% of all computer owners. Heck, just by typing in Microsoft to word, it automatically puts in a capital ‘M’. This guy essentially is the reason we can type our homework, dissertations, stock reports, letters, anything.

How Could They Halt The World?
One word: virus. It’s reasonably well-known that Gates releases software which needs to be updated every three months through extra ‘bonus’ patches and upgrades, which thus means you have to continually buy new packages. Bearing in mind this act of tricky genius, is it really such a stretch to believe, as I firmly do, that Gates installs a dormant virus into each piece of software his company creates, so that if anyone ever tries to hurt him, he can simply activate it and thus destroy most of the computer software known to man? Is that really so unlikely? My friends, this will happen one day – if someone tries to take out Gates, or perhaps if he gets really bored, then he’ll lean over and push that button. And then we’ll pay.

Reason This Won’t Happen
Bill Gates is a geek! He’s a nerd of the very highest stature, and if he were to activate the virus (which I like to believe he’d call “The Ballmer Ball-Buster”), it’d mean he’d no longer be able to watch Star Trek episodes through Windows Media Player. And I don’t think he could work a VCR.


4: Tom Anderson – Co-founder, Myspace

What Power Do They Have?
Myspace is a social networking site that allows millions of unloved teenagers to go online and complain about how unloved they are to nobody in particular. Myspace is a massive, massive site – and every time someone new joins, Tom automatically becomes their friend. At this very moment, Tom has approximately 215 MILLION friends. Many of these people worship the very feet of Tom. In their eyes, he’s a God. In the eyes of everyone who isn’t a 15-year old who can’t use the focus on the camera while taking photos (Stop taking photos from an elevated angle! It looks like you’re retarded and can’t work a camera!), Tom is a man who sold his company to (eeeeeevil!) Rupert Murdoch for trillions of dollars.

How Could They Halt The World?
Read what I just said. Tom has 215000000 friends. If he asked them all to revolt and announce him the new leader of the World, he only needs a very small percentage of them to join before he has a massive taskforce to hand. And then he’d march on us, followed by an army of short, fat teenagers with hair over their eyes. Normal people wouldn’t stand a chance against him, especially when you consider the fact that he has the power of Murdoch on his side. Together, the two of them would reshape the World in the way they wanted – and personally speaking, Murdoch is a terrifying man, as anyone who has ever watched an episode of Fox News will agree. This guy doesn’t even believe in Global Warming, guys.

Reason This Won’t Happen
There is much speculation as to what Tom Anderson actually does, with many people certain he’s just a figurehead for the company now, and doesn’t actually run the site himself. In any circumstance, the kind of people who use Myspace would likely explode upon contact with the outside world anyway, thus rendering any army Anderson may try to create ineffective at best. Against most major countries, with the obvious exception of France and Italy, he would likely lose.


5: The CPC – Communist Party of China

What Power Do They Have?
Well, they rule China, the quickest developing country in the World. That’s right, the biggest country in the world, with one of the largest populations, is ruled by the Communists. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just that as far as GCSE history has taught me, communism never ends well. Then again I had a tendency never to listen to my teachers, and China’s been doing significantly well as a nation over the past decade or so.

How Could They Halt The World?
What do the BBC, Wikipedia, Amnesty International, Project Gutenberg and the United Nations have in common? All their websites are blocked by China. Want to start a journal online or put up some photos from your last holiday? The CPC blocks livejournal, flickr, all those sort of websites. Try looking for China’s other political parties online, and you’ll find nothing. They’re blocked. And just you try to Google “Democracy” - you can’t do it. There are many more sites which the CPC have blocked, which includes most of the websites mentioned above. But how is this relevant? It’s relevant, because I have an irrational fear of Communism. At the moment, China is happy to have nothing to do with the rest of the country, but imagine if they started thinking ‘hey, we have voters who are currently overseas – what if they go online?” If they wanted, I’m convinced they could extend their censorship to other computers around the World. Imagine that – the BBC would be out of reach, charities and political parties would lose their footing, Google would be practically useless… Communism would take over, friends. And there’d be practically nothing we could do about it.

Reason This Won’t Happen:
There is no reason to suggest this won’t happen. The Chinese don’t care less what we think, y’all! They’re bad-asses - they’d destroy the internet and not think twice about it.



*DISCLAIMER: This may not be true.