ow To Run A Pythonesque Religious Extremist Kidnapping.

            

                          So, you are a bunch of mercenary, bigoted thugs throwing a hissy fit because the civilised world has                           decided not to live their lives according to your narrow-minded barmpot ideas.

                                       That’s ok  -  it’s a free world. ;-P   

 

                                       Try not to lose your sense of humour though.  Remember: just because you don’t seem to                                    understand the underlying message in your own holy book, doesn’t mean you can’t understand                                the humour in a surrealistic farce.  Everyone has a sense of humour , so make sure people see                                 yours!

 

 

Step 1: Your Name.

The most important thing about your name, is that it can be abbreviated to a three-letter acronym.  Stealing someone else’s name and rearranging the words will both save you time AND bring a smile to the face of anyone who has seen “Life of Brian”.  Better be quick though  -  many of the best names are already gone and you want an acronym that will not get caught on the tongue of any infidel newsreader. Don’t give them a chance to steal the comedy limelight!

 

   ooky's Law Of Organised Marks Of Respect.

 

             Having been watching the news for some time now, I have noticed a trend in the length/enthusiasm of organised, public marks of respect. 

To explain this trend, I have developed what I call Pooky’s Law:

 

                                       “Society’s diminishing sense of proportion will eventually

                                       be counter-balanced by it’s diminishing attention span.”

 

People seem to have less sense of proportion than they used to.  I guess years of mental-poison spewing forth from the Daily Mail has damaged our ability to be objective about anything or put things in proportion.  We insist that the time we live in must be more significant than any previous time in history.  As a result, when anything unfortunate ever happens, we think of it as being as more tragic than anything else that has ever happened.  Conversely, events like birthdays are considered to be one-off miracles that should be well noted, because who knows when it might happen again? The end result of this is that we make the one minute silence last a little longer than it used to be and we clap like performing seals en-mass when Bob from finance has a birthday.  

Over time, the phrase “one minute silence” has stopped being as descriptive as it used to be, because one minute seems a little cheap now.  The one minute silence has lost some of it’s meaning and power.  To put it another way, the massive tragedy of human loss and suffering that was

World War II has always warranted one minute a year, yet the death of the next Z-list celebrity will probably get two.

 

Now I’m not saying that say, a fatal bus crash, does not deserve a mark of respect, and I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t

say “happy birthday” on Bob’s 30th and give him a present.  I just think we should stop trying out-do ourselves every time

we have to show a public mark of respect.  At this rate, we will be launching fireworks and hanging up piñatas when

Michelle in marketing gets a new car and the Queen will be required to write a letter to Bob’s son Timmy if  he gets

a grade of “C” or above in GCSE General Studies.  How are we going to grieve over tragedies in 10 year’s time? Will

40 days of bereavement be enough to mark the anniversary of the eviction of Blonde Arsehole #2 from

Series 3224 of Big Brother?  Will businessmen symbolically leap out of high windows to escape the crushing

burden of guilt after forgetting to press “extra milk” when getting Bob a drink from the coffee machine?

Where will it end?

 

Well, it will end when the period of silence is longer than our average attention span  -  when it is too difficult to keep

our mouths shut for that long.  After one or two ambitious attempts at a five minute silence, we seem to have

arrived at the equilibrium length of two minutes.

 

Two. That’s how long the majority of us can be trusted to

keep quiet without starting to fidget.  Two.  It’s not that I want a ten-minute silence to become the

standard-issue mark of respect, it’s just that I’d like to think we had longer attention spans than that.

 

Looking on the bright side however, at least I won’t be lynched for refusing to take part in a three week silence

to commiserate the death of Timmy’s pet goldfish.

 

Step 2: Choose an inappropriate victim.

Kidnapping an important politician or military personnel might provoke a retaliation from a much bigger gang than your own.  If no-one is

listening, then it doesn’t matter how good your jokes are.

You need to pick someone less significant.  A charity worker or journalist is a good option as these people are not considered to be appropriate

military targets by anyone, anywhere. Kidnapping a charity worker or journalist gives the impression that just like a man going shopping before

the match starts, you just ran out and grabbed the first thing you could find that was even vaguely similar to what you were told to get.

Some people in the press might object or report the incident in an unsympathetic light, but don’t let that worry you: Very few people think

everything the tabloids tell us to think.

             * If you have time, make sure the first couple of victims you present to the world are actually other terrorists.  When you get your first

                proper victim, let them go if they claim to be a terrorist as well.  Upcoming comic talent should be encouraged.*

 

Step 3a: Think of a blatantly unrealistic demand that you know you will never, ever get.

Good examples of this are:

· The withdrawal of the entire US army from your country by tea time today.

· That everyone in the entire world convert to your way of thinking and adopts a lifestyle you personally approve of.

· The release of all prisoners who loosely share your religion, regardless of what they were arrested for.

· The release of a specific person who really deserved to be locked up and cost millions to catch in the first place.

                          * Nothing is funnier in a demand than showing you don’t keep up to date with current affairs.  Demand the release of someone who very                                 publicly died weeks ago, or someone who hasn’t even been arrested yet.  Demand a law be repealed whilst it is still only in the discussion                              stages or demand an apology for something that never actually happened but was reported on April 1st. *

 

Step 3b: Make a vague threat that could mean anything really.

Warning of “unknown consequences” gives the impression you haven’t actually thought the plan through this far yet.  The image of the naïve, charming, disproportionately optimistic extremist is very much in vogue right now.  Show everyone that you really thought your demands would be met and that working  out a threat was a bit of a waste of time really. 

 

Step 4: The victim’s televised statement of support for your cause.

                Let’s be frank: You are not going to get what you want.  When the deadline arrives, what are you going to do?  Beheading is soooo last year and                     will make you look like the bad guys.  Much better is to make a compromise and conditionally release the victims.  Make them read a statement on                     camera saying Michael Moore has the right idea about Bush and that your religious opinions are the only true path to enlightenment.  If done                        properly, it will convincingly look like they wrote that speech themselves.  Other people will follow their example and before long, people all over                   the world will be converting to your bizarre interpretation of a book that everyone else thus far has interpreted very differently.  All the                         scholars who spent their entire lifetime studying that book will look pretty silly after come along your awe-inspiring intellectual prowess and prove

               them all wrong by making some civilians genuinely convert to your religion at gunpoint.

 

Step 5: Growing old gracefully.

Disappearing into the “where are they now and who cares” files might be good enough for pitiful cultural disasters like Daphne and Celeste, but you are better than that.  Don’t just burn out—fade away slowly by never doing anything else again, but voicing regular support for other up-and-coming extremist jokers.  Gradually voice less support until BBC News don’t even bother mentioning it anymore when you put out a new tape.

Above all, don’t dwell on your less than complete success.  When all is said and done, you did at least manage to convert the victims, who right now will be honouring their life-changing commitment to your opinions by bringing their sons to their new house of worship.  Don’t think about how your demands were not met, think about the smiles you brought to the world with your sense of humour.  After all; without a sense of humour, we are no better than the animals.