Sun Returns To Bonking Basics

The premise of the Terry Southern novel The Magic Christian - memorably made into a seriously OTT 60s film starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr - was that everyone has their price: people will do anything for money. Some may need paying rather more than others, though. Today has brought a superb example of this concept as the Murdoch Sun has returned to what it does best - leering aimlessly at the prospect of sex. Or lack of it.

What has sent the inmates of the Baby Shard bunker into Finbarr Saunders mode is the local tightening of lockdown rules in Greater Manchester (this also affects east Lancashire and parts of West Yorkshire, but this is clearly too intellectually challenging for those at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun). The new rules mean sex is not allowed between people who do not live in the same household. Except if they book into a hotel.

Who, then, would care to lower themselves to peddle a little titillation to the masses? Step forward the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, who is now the paper’s alleged political editor. The size of his wedge (fnarr fnarr) is clearly enough for him to be ordered to demean himself without getting the hump (kersnick kersnick).

So readers were told “BAFFLING new Northern lockdown rules mean couples who do not live together can have sex in a hotel, campsite or B&B but not in their homes, gardens, sheds or houseboats. Emergency coronavirus restrictions imposed on the region last week were signed into law yesterday - banning 4.5 million people from going to each other’s homes”. The headline “Mancy Panky” adds to Cole’s humiliation.

Just to ensure readers knew what he was on about, there was a helpful graphic telling them all about “Romping”. That’s what the Sun used to euphemistically call “Bonking”. Because nobody understands what Screwing, Shagging, Humping, Fornicating or Fucking actually mean, perhaps. Anyway, you can’t do it in a yard or passageway. Nothing about “behind a French dresser in a department store”, but that’s a different film.

Adam Wagner - not his finest hour

Would anyone else care to demean themselves by featuring under a headline telling readers “New Lockdown Blow (yik yik) … Romps banned in Manchester … Rest of UK at nookie risk too”? Sadly for his reputation, which was generally positive until today, human rights lawyer Adam Wagner would. Must have been a decent bung (spab spab).

Attempting to keep a straight face, he tells Sun readers “All gatherings, defined as ‘two or more people present together in the same place in order to engage in any form of social interaction with each other’, taking place in a ‘private dwelling’, are banned. And that includes gatherings for sex”. BUT “This is not legal advice, if you are considering having sex in the North of England please consult a lawyer”.

Most of the North of England is outside Greater Manchester, of course, but to the London-centric press this is a mere distraction. The point is to sell more copies and score more clicks, and this story shows the level of desperation that has set in at the Sun.

No barrel is too low to scrape in an effort to keep their end up. Fnarr fnarr indeed.

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