Ashcroft: The Sequel

And you thought this lunacy might disappear once Ashcroft left and the Boobs of Justice were revealed once more.



Running Scared directs us to this:

US distributors of the film Merchant of Venice, which premiered in London this week, have asked the director to cut out a background fresco by a Venetian old master so it is fit for American television viewers.



US networks have been embroiled in controversy over naked flesh since Janet Jackson exposed a breast during a half-time performance during the Superbowl. A lesser fuss has blown up about a trailer for the hit television series Desperate Housewives on Monday Night football, in which an actress with her back to the camera drops her towel in a locker room.



Distributors regularly ask for cuts in films so that they can be shown on US tele-vision and by airlines. The request to "paint-box the wallpaper" - cover over the fresco - was contained in a letter from the US distrib-utors, Sony, to Michael Radford.



The director had already anticipated one request by shooting extra scenes for television in which bare-breasted prostitutes are fully clothed.



He was also asked to remove scenes of male kissing, a brief female kissing scene - and simulated slaughtering of goats.



The fifth request was to cut out footage showing meat carcasses.



Finally, according to Mr Radford, there was "a very curious request which said 'Could you please paint-box out the wallpaper?'. I said wallpaper, what wallpaper? This is the 16th century, people didn't have wall-paper."



When he examined the scenes, he realised the letter was referring to frescoes by Paolo Veronese, the acclaimed Venetian 16th-century artist, which, when examined closely, showed a naked cupid.

Only in this fucked-up country in this fucked-up millennium can 16th century cherubs in paintings be likened to kiddie porn. Kind of makes you wonder what kind of bizarre sexual fantasies the people making the rules have.