It's all getting interesting over in the United States of the US, with Governor Sarah Palin now on McCain's ticket. This is an extremely shrewd move for several reasons:
Firstly, Palin is young. Very young. At a mere 44, which is barely out of school, she'll have an impressive nostalgia connection with the voting public. It's only a matter of time before she starts a speech with, "Do you remember Dangermouse? Vote for me". This is a massive improvement on McCain's previous campaign slogan of, "Who here remembers The Jazz Singer?"
Now McCain is old. Very old. But if they're on the same ticket, McCain's age takes precedence and they both get to travel for half price. You may think that I'm trivialising the situation there, but it takes a lot of travelling to win an election and this could give the republicans a crucial financial edge over the Obama machine.
Sarah Palin is a woman. This is significant because neither Barack Obama or Joe Biden are even close to being one. Hillary Clinton was once a woman and the people who were going to vote for her for no other reason and don't consider policies, now have another woman to back.
But what kind of policies, and what kind of woman, you ask? Well, an extremely right wing Christian one. The kind that thinks that foetusus have feelings, but homosexuals don't. This is of course drivel, as you'd know if you, like me have ever watched Beaches with a gay man and an embryo. It wasn't first-trimester Johnny who was crying, I can tell you. In fact, his tear ducts hadn't even developed yet.
Palin is very anti-abortion. I have it on fairly good authority that not only does she want to change the law, repealing Roe v Wade, she actually wants to make it retroactive. This would force women who've had abortions to track down the potential father and re-impregnate themselves.
This would be most tricky if the guy has since been imprisoned for rape. You'd better hope that prison allows conjugal visits, you little lawbreaker.
All of this is necessary as, according to The News, kids today use abortion as a contraceptive method. I'm a tad doubtful. I'm also pretty sure no one uses neck surgery as a method of road safety, but if the government won't even tell you about seatbelts in case it encourages driving...
I'll be back in the Land Of The Americans™ at the end of the month. I'm also doing my Edinburgh Festival Show in London, Brighton, and Manchester. Hopefully more places too. All the dates are on my page.
Here's me sort of describing it for edfest.tvI'm also doing another episode of Charm Offensive this week, which is very exciting for me as Armando Iannucci had a hand in roughly half of my favourite comedies ever.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy to listen online.
I think Paramount is repeating my half-hour special, but I still can't get any information on when it's happening. If you see it, I hope you like it.
And finally, here's me on npr, which is like America's Radio 4, talking about the London Olympics to a brilliant presenter, Robert Siegel, who's very good at making comedians sound like they're not crowbaring in jokes. Thanks to Jeffrey for the link.