:: Newspapers and Rudey Germans ::

Once again that bastion of taste, Metro, has come up trumps. Now owned by the Evening Standard, which is in turn owned by the Daily Fascist, this free piss-sheet is grabbed by scores of commuters on their way out of stations who then realise they’ve been lumbered. Whenever I get a copy I sigh with relief that the previous owner hasn’t done the crossword then proceed to complete the damn thing on my journey home. There is an argument which maintains Metro is something we should be grateful for: a free paper to read on the train or bus or tube on our way into work each morning. However, its positioning – and the fact that it is free – allows Metro to reach an audience who wouldn’t choose to buy a newspaper of any variety. The writers and editors of such a widely read publication should feel a grave responsibility to the general public. Instead we have 8 pages of bellicose rumblings about Iraq everyday, plus a few bits of stale celeb gossip stolen from PopBitch. In order to wash down this indigestible news-bolus, "funny" tales of woe from around the globe are sprinkled liberally through the paper. This is today’s example:

SEX TOY THAT MADE SPARKS FLY

A thrill-seeker electrocuted himself with a home-made sex toy. Manfred Lubitz wired himself up to the gadget, which had a vibrating mat, massage pads and electrodes attached to his genitals, to watch porn movies. Police in Malaga, Spain - where the 65-year-old German lived - said: "There seems to have been a power surge while he was watching a film called Hot Vixen Nuns. And the flat was damp." Mr Lubitz boasted to friends that his Orgasmatron, named after a sex machine in the Woody Allen film Sleeper, "was better than a woman, and a lot cheaper."

I sniggered at this as I do every day, at the tales of weirdness and woe: the man who got trapped in a folding bed, the Romanian factory workers who sold their sperm to make cash and save their workplace from closure.

But I have noticed a vaguely sinister pattern of late. Seldom do the stories have the wry tone of previous examples. They serve only to mock and belittle their subjects. This link shows that the past three such “funnies” have told of unfortunate, incompetent or perverted Germans. This is unlike Ananova, whose extensive “Quirkies” section often dwells on the misfortunes of Eastern Europeans, but has a wider field of derision.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that Metro, ultimately controlled by one of the most jingoistic warmongering right-wing tabloids, has chosen to focus its scorn on a nation which has been overtly critical of the Iraq War. Look out for stories of idiotic garlic-munching Frenchmen and vodka-related Russian mishaps in next week's editions.

This brings to mind an old Jo Brand joke:
  Once a week I splash out on The Sun... Well, it's absorbent isn't it?