“Something shocking has and is still happening on the streets of London. We have no power over this new movement. It is here and it is here to stay. While we may avert our gaze and try to deny this new horror, it will all be in vain. The Government, in a desperate bid to save those who have escaped this plague upon our green and pleasant land, has drawn up evacuation plans.

The Skinny Jeans are here and they are multiplying. When out on a night in London’s trendy bars and clubs, I am mobbed by skintight jeans worn by spotty art students and music industry gurus. Fashionistas have dumped their comfortable off-the-hip ripped hipsters. The crusties are trading in their flares and bell-bottoms. The GAP kids are no longer satisfied with their 40-dollar pair of drainpipes made in the sweatshops of the Philippines. The tides of fashion have come full circle. Once again, the evil skinny has washed up on the shores of the Thames and has been crowned the King of Denim.

Why? Why? Should I have such a problem with this new fashion? Why should I have such a hang up with variation and change? Well, I’ll tell you why. It means I am getting on, no longer one of the new kids on the block; I really am closer to thirty than twenty. Nothing to date has made me feel this more than the re-birth of the skinny pair of jeans. My fashion sense is no longer cutting edge (it never was that hot to begin with). I no longer represent the youf of today, my generation has been pigeon holed, a type no longer able to be flexible to create and re-create our self-image. That is all for the young spotty people to do. That may be our only recompense; I am acne free and enjoy reading the paper on a Sunday.

This is the new me – the non-smoking, responsible drug taking adult that my former 19 year old self would be mildly ashamed of.

“”Where is your sense of irresponsible recklessness?”"

? says the 19 year old me. I reflect silently on the question from the comfort of my armchair, kick off my slippers, and take a sip of my chamomile tea before responding.

“”Youf is wasted on the young and permanently wasted,’ as Wilde said. ‘Everything in moderation.”"

The 19 year old me sighs as he looks at the figure of his future and shakes his head muttering his reply.

Wilde also said, “”We are all born in the gutter but some of us look to the stars.”"

With that, I jump out of my armchair, stop all this existential self-questioning rubbish, grab a bottle of Bourbon (Wild Turkey aged 12 years) and head off to my mate’s Halloween party. I will never wear a pair of skinny jeans, but I still have the right to enjoy the multi-flavoured merits of debauchery. (Just so long as it’s not on a weeknight.)

“

“CRAGFORD, AL – As L4L‘s loyal readers no doubt know, L4L revealed earlier this year that Aetna has partnered with KKK, Inc. to program their software and telecommunications systems.

When our roving reporter Chris Burke followed up this story, a KKK programmer boasted: “”You need a graduate degree, first-rate administration skills, the staying power of a camel, and balls like a bull elephant to get your due from Aetna, given the systems we have put in place. And of course, you had better be white and English speaking.”"

She laughed. “”Fighting for your full benefits will break all but the strongest hearts or wills. Second-language English speakers give up, and blacks and Hispanics are more likely to die of heart failure or stress diseases than to get their payouts.”"

Passing Burke a crystal flute of Piper-Heidsieck, the programmer, Lois Faumalyfe, expanded on the way KKK, Inc.‘s shares continue to feed the DOW, and how KKK clients are openly expressing satisfaction with their 00VRS software products and services.

These include several insurance companies involved in the Katrina disaster. New studies show that homeowners in black neighborhoods have been three times more likely to give up their claims than those from white neighborhoods, in the face of KKK strategies.

L4L checked with some of KKK’s success stories:

’The blacks got tired,’ said Doretha Kitchens, 58. She and her husband, Roy, live in the overwhelmingly black Lower 9^th Ward, and made call after call to their insurer, always ending up on hold. Finally, they crawled away with $34,000 in damages, instead of the $120,000 to which they were entitled.

Aloyd Edinburgh, aged 75, also of the Lower 9^th Ward, received $35,000 of the $85,000 his policy was worth, and a pirated copy of the Rolling Stones’ original recording of ‘I Can’t Get No Satisfaction’.

Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon stated that efforts were made to help, with websites and a toll-free number, but ‘the message does not get to everyone.’ Officials admitted that ‘victims slip through the cracks.’

Lois explained: ‘KKK, Inc. also had the contract for those ‘efforts to assist’. We set up the ‘helpful’ websites and the toll-free number. The joke was that the minority groups had no Internet or even telephone access, or they were in Houston, or something. And we gave the Commissioner ‘preferential pricing’ to avoid feeling that we had a conflict of interests. At KKK, that means we add an extra 45%.’

Memories of the KKK are strong in the South, and KKK, Inc. is making sure that they stay alive and well.

And very, very profitable.

“

“America’s troops, vigilant and brave they may be, are, generally, under-educated, yet this fact is being disputed by Commander-in-Chief George “”Dubya”" Bush blindly, as if the act of being in America’s military automatically makes one a well-read scholar of all of life’s intricate and complex philosophies.

I dispute this so-called fact, however, not based on statistics, admittedly, but on sheer common sense.

More often than not, an American with opportunities will not be inclined to throw himself into the arms of a multi-headed beast, intent on destroying all young, sad, desperate American souls it can come across.

The average volunteer is only eighteen, right? That makes him, at best, a high school graduate, right? Whatever his potential may have been, he is, by definition, under-educated.

Just because “”Dubya”" considers a good education a fifth-grade reading level and logic guided strictly by the hand of God does not make it so. As a matter of fact, it makes it just plain wrong. And dumb.

If you are in Iraq, and you have the ability to read this: congratulations. But I can tell you a couple of things about yourself, right now.

You are, most likely:

∑ Not a university graduate

∑ Of a lower-class upbringing

∑ A sadist

∑ A masochist

∑ A racist

∑ Delusional

∑ Republican

You probably fit into at least six of those categories. Your bunkmate does, too. And we didn’t even have to do a poll.

It stands to reason, of course, that you are incredibly brave, as well, but as I understand it, brave don’t mean smart, boy. And you don’t need to be.

All of that said, America’s soldiers do not need to be incredibly bright. As a matter of fact, I prefer them to be as dumb as bags of hammers, and the smarter individuals to stay behind and cure cancer and AIDS and make a more fuel-efficient car and better TV screens and write better novels and direct better films.

America’s soldiers are under-educated, yes, but, God damn it, that’s they way it should be!

“

“LONDON – I, like all upstanding English folk, went out and bought the Sunday paper on a crisp morning not too long ago. That paper was to change my life forever.

Squeezed between an article about the ludicrous amount of money that British Aerospace Systems are making due to lucrative U.S. arms contracts and another article about one of my housemates who had broken the world record for number of garlic cloves chopped in one minute, beating the previous record of 43, was an article on the new Scientology lodge that just opened for business in the city of London.

The Scientology folks had dug deep into their offshore bank accounts and come up with 40 million pounds (That’s English money for those of you who have never left America and only watch Fox News).

For years, I have felt an emptiness deep within me, a yearning for more than just the coldness of atheism. I had been brought up Christian, dabbled in Buddhism, stayed in a Taoist monastery in China for a month. None had any lasting affect. Maybe Scientology was the answer. Over a nice cup of tea, I persuaded all five of my housemates that we should become Scientologists. Being an open-minded bunch, when threatened with my wrath, they all voted in favour. My fiendish plan was to turn the house into the new East London Scientology Lodge, there by gaining exempt status from all taxes forever.

At first it all went according to plan. Lonely accountants, bored housewives, and BeyoncÈ wondered in to our house to receive the wisdom of Scientology, Mr. Cruise, dropped by to say ‘hi.’ We kicked him out for being too weird, but not before I told him how much I liked Top Gun. The supreme ruler of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, came and blessed the place by “”clearing”" the house of all its negative memories. Ron likes to wear a cape these days that reminds me of the one worn by Ming the Merciless. He strutted about the house like a religious pigeon in the mood for love.

I had begun to launder all the millions of dollars that LushForLife earns a month through the tax-free Scientology bank accounts. With luck I would have 3.2 Billion Dollars by the end of the year (compound interest – we love it).

This run of luck was just too good to last. The British government in one of their more enlightened moments realized that Scientology gives religion and science a bad name, so dropped their tax-exempt status.

My get-rich-quick scheme had ended in failure. It was time to find the back door out of this mess. However, the Scientology henchmen came round and activated the free-will suppressor chip they had installed during my first “”audit’.

This report for LushForLife is a call for help. I am currently on board the Scientology submarine with Tom Cruise heading for Australia (still a tax haven for Scientology). If anyone from Naval Intelligence is reading this, our coordinates are Latitude N10∞0 – S15∞0 Longitude E90∞0 – E144∞0. Please end my suffering.

“