Hi - I've been trying for Newsjack for a while and figured it's time I got some feedback.
Interested in general style comments and relevance as well as specifics on the sketch.
Will start commenting on others (it's only fair) as soon as I have the time. Eoin
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NJ SKETCH: UNCIVIL WAR
JUSTIN:
Katie Price a.k.a. Jordan started a feud this week with Kelly Brook when she wrote "You're a heifer, Kelly, but still a hot one." For more we go to our Entertainment correspondent... Ah? You're not our Entertainment correspondent?
CORRESPONDENT:
Home Affairs, Justin. After all the non-stop media coverage, the people are dangerously polarized on this issue, which has now become a matter of national security. Tensions are already sky-high in Ulster where the Unionist majority is drawn to Jordan's Paisleyite severity, while the Nationalists, who tend to like a little meat on their bones, are uniting firmly behind Brook. Fortunately the young male demographic, which is most predisposed to outright civil conflict, is not yet split on the issue, with the overwhelming opinion being "I'd do them both, preferably at the same time".
JUSTIN:
Isn't this an over-reaction? There's only been one Civil War and that was over parliamentary power.
CORRESPONDENT:
A common misconception, Justin. It actually started because Henrietta Maria called Elizabeth Bourchier a fat-ankled crook-pated coxcomb.
JUSTIN:
I did not know that.
CORRESPONDENT:
Few people do. And the tragedy is that those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it.
JUSTIN:
Is there any cause for hope?
CORRESPONDENT:
The Government has a crack team of etymologists parsing the offending phrase to see if there's a face- saving way out-Just a minute-I'm getting word that there may be a breakthrough. The origin of the word heifer specifically means "young" cow, and is therefore not unambiguously pejorative. This could provide the diplomatic opening we've been looking for.
JUSTIN:
Sort of like when Kruschev sent conflicting telegrams to JFK during the Cuban missile crisis?
CORRESPONDENT:
Exactly like that, Justin. With the stakes just as high. But it's also important to remember that we've made it though similar difficult situations before without savage bloodletting stealing our youth just as surely as did the battlefields of the Somme. There was Lennon versus McCartney, Oasis versus Blur, and that perilous time in the eighties when we tethered on the brink on the abyss.
JUSTIN:
Reagan versus Gorbachev?
CORRESPONDENT:
Ridgeley versus Michael.
END