The Weekly Wit: Going Bananas...

A fruity renegade stalks the streets; Ban nice things for The Economy! And the bananas world of modern art.

The Whittling Boy by Winslow Homer (1873)

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Welcome to the fifth edition of The Weekly Wit, a satirical review of news and culture.

A Very British Vigilante

A madman terrorising townspeople by pelting them with tomatoes this week claimed his ninth victim.

Detectives in a drowsy little corner of England are ‘baffled’ by a series of drive-by attacks which saw bystanders pelted with tomatoes from a passing car. The drive-by fruiter took out his latest victim with a single grape.

In a cluster of towns in Sussex, England, townspeople say they live in fear they too could be struck at any moment.

In the month-long campaign, one victim got smacked on the head with a tomato, and another bloke took an apple to the bonce. The madman also blasted a tomato off a woman’s arm.

In the latest incident, police said: “A woman who was pushing a buggy was hit in the leg with a tomato and her husband was hit to the side with a grape.”

Talking to the media, Caroline Bendell, from Sussex Police, said: “Most of these attacks have occurred during daytime hours when the victims have been out alone in open and public places. In all cases, the victims have been going about their daily routine when they have been hit by items believed to have been thrown from a vehicle.”

She continued: “There have been no links established between each of the victims, however, it is believed that these incidents are part of a series.”

Following a police appeal, a young couple came forward to claim they too were attacked on Easter Sunday—with a tomato and a grape—making them the eighth and ninth victims of this deranged Raskolnikov.

According to The Telegraph, “Residents in the towns have been left fearful that they may be struck at any moment.”

Apparently, we Brits have imported the American culture of unhinged violence—kind of.

One theory of American violence is that young cultures are prone to exaggeration, hence American achievement in both the great and the grotesque. Mature cultures, then, tend toward understatement.

Anyway, it appears our very own madman—or vigilante, your call—has adhered to this theory.

To the British eye, fruits and vegetables are plainly terrifying. Those perishables, as we degrade them, are as alien to us as the American gun culture.  

We don’t eat anything unless it is encased in pastry or deep fried, preferably at the same time. To be subjected against one’s will to the horror of fruits and vegetables would by popular decree be a crime worthy of hanging.

Perhaps the drive-by fruiter means well. After all, we Brits are well-known for our aversion to fresh food. Despite the British Empire once dominating a third of the world, the premiere cuisine to our name is and always will be a bag of Mr Trotters Pork Scratchings.

Police later discovered a cache of 200 sacks of tomatoes, thousands of apples, pears, grapes, and a hit list of potential targets, all concealed in a disused warehouse outside the town.

One local resident told Oxford Sour: “We are all deeply shocked by these tragic events and by this harrowing discovery. We never knew those red mushy things were called tomatoes.”

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Mencken Taxes

Mencken famously defined Puritanism as ‘the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.’

This week, our former chancellor George Osborne urged the government to ban smoking and slap sugar taxes on milk and orange juice.

George Osborne, a blistering sunburn on the arse of Great Britain, wants to ‘go a step further’ by taxing biscuits and cakes and raising the smoking age every year until it’s illegal for youngsters to smoke at all.

These measures will reduce obesity and cancer. Or something. No doubt, they’ll boost economic growth.

The news came as I was enjoying my seventh cigarette of the day, accompanied of course by a large glass of populist Portuguese red (the Portuguese possess this mad idea that ordinary people can and must enjoy themselves.)

Then I thought, ‘Hang on a minute.’ I should trade these daily pleasures for the lovely prospect of boosting economic growth before wasting away in a nursing home whilst my children count the days until which they can pilfer my house.

Such taxes are dignified as ‘consumption taxes.’ That is, a tax on the sensual pursuits—alcohol, tobacco, and now, sugar. They call them ‘sin taxes.’ We could call them ‘Mencken taxes’—levies on someone, somewhere who may be happy.

The poorest pay such punitive enfeeblements given they still, mercifully, know how to enjoy themselves.

As wearily predicted, the madcap Kiwi smoking ban has gathered admirers across the globe. The pressure group, Action on Smoking and Health, also known as Against Smoking and Happiness lauded the Puritan move.

I do wonder what these frivolous mullahs will do if they ever manage to ban smoking.

And yet, the French smoke more, drink more, eat more saturated fat, read more books, enjoy more extramarital liaisons, and are more productive, richer, and live longer than we miserly Brits. They’re doing something right.

You can live as long as you like, as long as you don’t like living.

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Modern art goes bananas…

A banana which was duct-taped to the wall in the name of art has in the name of art been eaten.

A South Korean art student this week gobbled up the centrepiece of a £100,000 artwork in what he dignified an act of rebellion.

Noh Huyn-soo ate the banana with which artist Maurizio Cattelan beguiled the art world at Seoul’s Leeum Museum of Art.

You know the one. The banana duct-taped to the wall. The piece, called Comedian—geddit? Comedian—is Cattelan’s most iconic piece.

Anyway, that piece again became art. Or something. Mr Noh first told gallery staff he was hungry. Then he claimed he was furthering the ‘act of rebellion’ which Mr Cattelan’s work personifies.

“There could be another rebellion against the rebellion,” he said. “Damaging an artwork could also be seen as artwork. I thought it would be interesting. Isn’t it taped there to be eaten?”

Mr Noh then placed the empty banana skin behind the duct tape. Museum staff later replaced that with a fresh banana.

Mr Cattelan said he ‘has no problem at all’ with the student’s rebellion against his rebellion, which, if we are to indulge in such sophistry, could be an act of rebellion against the rebel’s rebellion.

Known as an absurdist, Mr Cattelan sold the original artwork to three buyers. Given that bananas are perishable, the buyers bought the ‘idea’ rather than the artwork itself. Reader, I’m no economist, but the buyers handed over the money for nothing.

Perhaps I could sell them the ‘idea’ of my work. A blank page. Every day. Forever.

I must ask: would that also constitute an act of rebellion? Would that too, be art?

Who cares? It’s money.

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Witticism of the Week

“The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavour upon the business known as gambling.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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What I’m Reading

• National Review: Why Trump Can’t Win by Andrew McCarthy

• Notes From the Middle-Ground: Of Course Trump Can Win in 2024 by Damon Linker

• The Atlantic: A Country Governed by Fear by Elizabeth Bruenig

• New York Times: Requiem for the Newsroom by Maureen Dowd

• Spectator World: Bad Jobs are the Root of America’s Problems by Michael Lind

• Book: Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

If you missed it…

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A personal note…

Thank you for reading Oxford Sour. Feel free to send this column on to like-minds. And of course, please subscribe.

Buzzfeed delenda est,
Christopher

Oxford Sour

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