[Before you begin reading this item I want to make it clear that I have not invented a single one of the following quotes. Neither are they, to my knowledge, from parody sites.]

Adam keeps challenging me to address the Kilroy-Silk question. But what could I possibly contribute to such an elevated debate?

After he wrote on the subject in yesterday’s Arab News, Dr. Mohammad T. Al-Rasheed was bundled away by the Metaphor Police:

The upheaval of rebirth is upon Arabs. Like a difficult delivery operation, it needed outside intervention in the form of a caesarian section. The baby was not forthcoming on its own so others had to move in lest the mother, the baby, and probably a few relatives die in the process. The boil on the skin of the Arab world that heralded the presence of a plague, let alone a virus, was Bin Laden. The surgical knife that went in to eradicate the source of the boil was the American invasion of Iraq. The problem is that this nation has twenty-two wombs!

[I say again: that was a real quote from a real article about Kilroy-Silk.]

A letter writer to Malaysia Kimi (“only the news that matters”) wondered why K-S’s views are so much more “acceptable” to “the Western intelligentsia” than those of Malaysia’s very own “moonbat” Mahathir. These views are so “acceptable”, in fact, that coppertone Kilroy is currently seeking alternative employment. This, according to The Slough Express, means that “reality” TV family the Gardeners have been “left in the lurch” because they were due to appear on Kilroy. The star of the clan is “feisty 56-year-old barmaid” Kathy. She’s bearing up:

“I still get noticed doing everyday normal things like shopping in Asda. Just today I went to Burnham Beeches and someone even recognised my dog Oliver from the TV”

Let’s briefly go back to The Guardian, where Kilroy-Silk’s secretary, who precipitated the whole row by sending an old article into the Express, did her best to repair the damage:

“Robert is very fair-minded; and on his show he just lets everybody have their say. He is not a racist at all – he employs a black driver.”

Even Joe Royle, famed for his sports column in the East Anglian Advertiser, took time out before discussing [retiring Southampton manager] Gordon Strachan to address the Issue of Our Time. He began in a novel way by complaining of “political correctness gone mad”. Then he defended the, er, Arab people:

I certainly would not describe all Arabs as mutilators and terrorists. My youngest son’s best friend is Iraqi and his mother, a doctor, is the most charming woman you could meet and I count them as dear friends.