In a serialized biography published in The Daily Mail, UK PM David Cameron has been accused of violating a deceased pig as part of a weird elite toff dining club ritual, back when Cameron was at Oxford. Twitter is predictably squealing with glee (#BaeOfPigs, et al).
By (somewhat) popular demand, here’s a pig-themed open thread to share porcine puns, boarish banter, swinish sport and rasher-related ripostes.
Or talk about other things, such as President Obama’s alleged plot [Gawker link] to double the number of black US presidents by 2020. Or anything else. Open thread!
BGinCHI
The love that dare not oink its name.
Anoniminous
My Labour and SNP friends are beside themselves with glee.
gussie
Aqua Buddha.
redshirt
Four legs good two legs bad.
AliceBlue
@BGinCHI:
I think we have a winner already.
JPL
One of my favorite tweets is I wondered who squealed.
Bobby Thomson
That’s all folks.
Scrach
I love bacon, but not in that way.
Amir Khalid
“This little piggie gave Dave Cameron a …”
paulw
SOME PIG
Thoughtful Today
Don’t forget:
Pig crate Christie.
JPL
Maybe Biden will choose Michelle for his VP. That would be awesome.
paulw
This kiddos is why I never joined a frat. The hazing sh-t was just not worth it.
BGinCHI
I wonder how long VW has been keeping this a secret.
catclub
@Anoniminous: But are they squealing with glee?
Bobby Thomson
Pork catch-a-Tory.
Not to be confused with.
MattF
Boink ‘n Oink Flavored Personal Lubricant. It’s even kosher!
JPL
This little dick went to market
This little dick stayed home
This little dick cried wee, wee, wee all the way home
Bobby Thomson
@BGinCHI: VW was hiding Cameron’s emissions, too?
Surreal American
“That’ll do, pig, that’ll do.”
Betty Cracker
@JPL: According to the story, which was floated by a wingnut lunatic who is always making up outlandish shit, the deal is that PBO would endorse Biden if he picks Deval Patrick as his running mate and if Biden agrees to serve for one term only.
raven
Whew, they set the Georgia Bama game for 3:30! That means a 12:30 kickoff in LA so I’ll have no problem seeing the game!
skerry
In a previous thread, folks were curious about George Prescott Garnica Bush. The name “Garnica” is a family name on his mother’s side.
He has tried (pretty successfully) to scrub the internet to remove any reference to Garnica.
benw
If it’s going to be that kind of party, I’m going to stick my dick in the
mashed potatoesdead pig!Gex
@Betty Cracker: Isn’t the only credible “plot” to double the number of black presidents by 2020 being perpetrated by the GOP? Picking a guy as VP is so much less a threat to accomplish this than running a guy for the top slot.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: He must not be a very good lunatic because Michelle is the obvious choice for the wingnuts.
rikyrah
the story is just nasty about Cameron
NotesOnCamp
Lordy! This is the basis for the best Black Mirror episode. They must have known this rumor already!
Bobby Thomson
Traditionally, an apple is the preferred garnish for the pig’s mouth.
Zandar
Dead pig? Maybe it was an UNDEAD PIG. Count Porkula, Lord of Hampires.
schrodinger's cat
Is any one really surprised by Cameron? An upper class English twit doing what upper class twits do.
ETA: He even looks a member of the Drones Club for crying out loud.
Frankensteinbeck
I’ve learned not to listen to rumors from unnamed insiders, even when they say things I’d like to believe.
boatboy_srq
Looking at the photo, I can see the resemblance.
Oatler.
The Daily Mail? You people…
http://flashbak.com/feeding-david-camerons-pig-fucking-through-hunter-s-thompsons-journalism-masterclass-40895/
Peale
Ugh. I guess I’ve never understood young men and their ghastly initiation rites. I’ve never been a social outcast, but never being cool has its advantages. The relatively few number of times when the option of fucking a dead pig came up in a social setting I was in in college can now be added to the list of side benefits of being permanently in the out group.
redshirt
One of the frats I infiltrated had a skeleton in a coffin and they did weird things around it as an initiation.
I went to a frat party at Dartmouth and they had a cadaver in their walk in freezer.
Frats are weird places.
PaulW
@Betty Cracker:
the argument seems to ignore the facts that 1) nobody signs up to be a one-termer anymore (they tried that back in the 19th century and all it did was make the intra-party squabbling worse), 2) Deval Patrick is not interested (at this time) to be on a national ticket, 3) Obama is clearly going to use his evil Mooslim Irish Alinsky Kenyan powers to destroy the 22nd Amendment and run for a third glorious term. All hail Dab.
Thoughtful Today
Interesting backgrounder:
“Ben Carson’s Religion, Explained.”
Miss Bianca
@Frankensteinbeck:
*Especially* when they say things I’d like to believe.
pseudonymous in nc
@NotesOnCamp:
Charlie Brooker says no, and I believe him. (And the pig-fucking in that episode was done to save a life, not to gain the respect of one’s upper-class peers.)
PaulW
I admit I am a bit concerned about the whole story re: Cameron + Dead Pig, except for these points:
1) this is blowing up in the British print media, where the libel laws are more harsh than here in the U.S. If a paper is publishing anything scandalous about a political figure, they’ve gone through some pretty serious toothcombing by their law firms to make sure it can survive a libel claim.
1a) There’s reportedly a photograph. While the papers hadn’t published it now, I have a good idea that the Daily Mail or other UK papers wouldn’t print this kind of story unless they had physical evidence of some kind to verify it all, and are likely waiting for the counter-claim before going public with it.
2) the story itself – about how a current politician was a member of a reckless social club (what we would ID as a frat here in the U.S.), and that said club used sick or disgusting initiation rites to join/stay as a member – fits a lot about what we know about fraternities in general.
3) there are details more scandalous in the story about Cameron’s behaviors back then – the rampant drug use for example – but the elements of this tale – the grossness factor, the pure schadenfreude that lends itself to punning and servile humor – is too memorable to ignore.
That said, I honestly wonder how Cameron is going to move forward from this. How the hell can ANYONE deal with this Prime Minister in person without snickering, or mentally imagining OH DEAR GOD THIS GUY FACE-F%CKED A DEAD PIG. Even the Pope would have a problem meeting with him…
Betty Cracker
@PaulW: It seems like there are Biden rumors from non-lunatic sources that say if he runs, he’ll run as a one-termer. That’s one of the reasons I don’t think he will run. Like you said, it’s a recipe for disaster, and I’m sure he knows that.
Just One More Canuck
@BGinCHI: stolen
catclub
@PaulW: Also 4) Obama has already endorsed Biden for President by making him his VP.
It makes no sense.
goblue72
The pig thing is both totally gross and also of the kind of totally unsurprising hazing ritual you’d expect from an American public university frat, let alone whatever a bunch of upper class toffs at Oxford decided to come up with.
As for the drugs, his pot use sounds about on par with what you’d find going on in your average American college dorm room on any random night of the week. That weird colored glass tube your kid has sitting on his dorm room shelf is NOT a flower vase. Even sounds like Cameron tried to get the UK on the path to more sane drug laws and de-criminalization earlier in his career – only to be beaten down by the rest of this party while Labor looked on whistling past the graveyard. Not surprised he doesn’t want to touch the issue with a 10 foot pole at this point.
If there’s anything to criticize him for in his past, its this: Supertramp?
Seriously dude – lame.
GregB
I will stand up and defend David Cameron against this scurrilous smear that he was blown by a dead pig.
The pig was most definitely alive.
catclub
LGM seems to be dead. I get database error when I try to go there.
Anybody know for sure?
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker: Biden said on The Late Show that a person shouldn’t run for president if they weren’t totally committed. Planning on being a one-termer sounds like a less than total commitment, and that’s another reason for thinking he won’t run. Besides, I have not heard him comment about running in a tone conveying anything other than reluctance.
Amir Khalid
@GregB:
It would take a brave man to put his, um, manhood in the mouth of a live nonhuman animal. Is David Cameron that brave?
goblue72
@Amir Khalid: Maybe Uncle Joe is just angling for a promise to be appointed SoS in a Clinton Administration in exchange for “not running”.
Mike J
David Hameron
redshirt
Porky’s 4: Tory Ho!
Bobby Thomson
@catclub: me too.
Poopyman
I’m surprised no one has brought up the Boar’s Head carol, and relatedly the Boar’s Head feast, originating in (no surprise here) Oxford.
Is Cameron a grad of Queen’s College?
MattF
@catclub: Same error for me.
Poopyman
@Poopyman: Nope! Brasenose College.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Totally random thought that occurred to me today: every network late-night talk show host is a Roman Catholic now. Kimmel’s a former altar boy, Fallon claims he considered becoming a priest, and Colbert is a current CCD teacher. And if you count Conan, there are four.
Weird.
bystander
Just read that the Jimmy Olson of my childhood, Jack Larsen, has passed away at 87. I guess that just leaves Noel Neill.
Biden will be savaged if he jumps in. I hope he knows that all the crocodile tears will dry up in a trice and we will be back to an endless chorus of “gaffe machine” alternating with plagiarism. Every two-bit jerk will opine ad nauseam about the burden Biden bears having been so deeply involved with the Kenyan in Chief.
Poopyman
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Also the answer to the trivia question: “What do late night talk show hosts have in common with the Supreme Court?”
paulw
@goblue72: the drug allegations involve coke. Which is more troubling
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@PaulW:
I suppose it’s possible that there was actual, um, completion, but I’m guessing it was more about sticking the relevant body part in the relevant orifice and laughing. Though I guess you never really know with frat guys — some of them at USC seemed weirdly fond of watching porn in groups, which I would think defeats the purpose if one is hetero but surrounded by people of the same gender.
Still, you don’t want to be the politician who has to deny fucking a pig. You just don’t.
Thoughtful Today
Has anyone else noted that in modern times:
Right-wingers always love pork.
GregB
@Amir Khalid:
It is a reformatting of an old joke wherein the person stating defense of an accused person is actually applying a deeper line of insult.
Which reminds me, there was some Republican running for Congress or something who seemed to defend the concept of man on animal lust, much to the chagrin of Rick Santorum.
Benw
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): maybe the Catholics are stuck on late-night TV because the Jews run Hollywood?
JPL
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): The idea of it would be a turn off for me. Who wants to be with someone who might have f..ked a pig.
Frankensteinbeck
@Miss Bianca:
Those books were deeply formative for me.
redshirt
@paulw:
Am I the only one who doesn’t give a fig about politician’s drug use when young?
If they were doing drugs now, yeah, big problem. But a 21 year old doing drugs? Who cares.
lamh36
Did my weekly weigh in. Didn’t lose as much this week as last, but realized I’ve lost 20 lbs since I begin this WW points plan!!!
https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/646024076134248448
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@catclub:
Apparently a bunch of Amazon’s web hosting servers (metaphorically) blew up over the weekend. If they were hosted there, they may not be back up yet.
Amir Khalid
@redshirt:
There were Republicans who kicked up a fuss when they found out — by reading Dreams From My Father — that Obama had used drugs as a teenager and young man.
redshirt
@Amir Khalid:
Of course there were. And Bill Clinton didn’t inhale.
I don’t care, and I suspect most people don’t care either.
Bobby Thomson
@Frankensteinbeck: but even if it’s untrue, we’ve learned that some people literally will defend pig fucking.
catclub
@Thoughtful Today:
No longer true. Part of the reason the Congress no longer works is that almost all the pork has been wiped out and so there are no bits to trade to get things done. Thad Cochran is now hated by a large fraction of the way far right because of all the pork he brought home
-but traded with the enemy to send some pork to _those_ people.
catclub
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): So some of the cloud went — poof!
C.V. Danes
pork(ing): the other white meat.
Shakezula
All that rooting around by the DMail sows truffle for Cameron.
Marcion
Hey y’all,
I’m trying to get in touch with Richard Mayhew to ask a question about Medicaid benefits. My mom is considering going on Medicaid but as a Lyme disease sufferer she’s worried specifically about prescription coverage. I can’t seem to get anything by using the ‘contact’ drop down menu on the front page, though. Does anyone have his email? Thanks.
Eric U.
@paulw: I delivered papers to the frat section of town. I hated hazing season, there was always some weird shit going down. One of my college roommates stole the signs from every frat house in town and hid them in our basement. Unfortunately, he wrote about it in the college paper where he was a regular columnist. Turns out, contrary to popular opinion, frat boys can read. Or maybe someone read it to them, effect was the same.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@lamh36:
Congratulations! How are you going to reward yourself?
Thoughtful Today
The woman who fired 30,000 people and then pigged out with a Golden Parachute:
Piggishness is still piggishness.
john b
@NotesOnCamp:
Came here to post basically the same thing.
redshirt
@Eric U.:
LOL. As a senior in high school in a college town, me and my sign stealing crew stole quite a few high quality signs from inside frat houses – beer signs, some electric, some neon, and quite a few posters.
We never talked though, and never got in trouble.
shell
Maybe he should change his last name to Hamm
Steeplejack (phone)
@Marcion:
bjdickmayhew at Yahoo.
Germy Shoemangler
@lamh36:
Slow and steady wins the race. Congratulations!
Betty Cracker
@Marcion: Might want to leave a comment in one of his threads if you haven’t already.
ETA: Even if just to alert him to check his email. He might be like me — I don’t check my Balloon Juice email very often unless someone tells me they’ve sent something. Otherwise, weeks might pass before I see it.
Germy Shoemangler
Watched some of the PBS documentary on Walt Disney; particularly the era of the animators’ strike, and then Walt naming names in front of Dick Nixon. (Ron Reagan was another friendly witness… surprise!)
Thoughtful Today
[facepalm]
“almost all the pork has been wiped out”
As long as you don’t count the privatization of public resources and public services.
Pork is pork, whether it’s going to corporate defense contractors, corporate insurers, the growing corporate surveillance industry, the privatization of schools and prisons… etc….
But sure, if you accept our Neo Corporatacracies redefinition of “pork” as “corporate profits”….
I don’t.
Again, in modern times:
Right-wingers always love pork.
eric
@Marcion: where does your mom live? curious for fellow lyme travellers. thanks
TG Chicago
It’s Bobby Jindal saying stupid things!
Most of that isn’t outright offensive and ignorant. But then he throws in the “hand on the Bible” bit and gets real stupid real quick.
Jindal wants a president who will fight hard to protect religious liberty, but only if he swears by Jindal’s religious book. I wonder if he’d say that a Jewish president would need to swear on the Bible.
muddy
Don’t buy a poke in a pig.
annamal
Re the Hameron story, Charlie Brooker (who was responsible for the infamous Black mirror episode where spoilers………a sitting prime minister screws a pig) is looking quite prescient about now.
misterpuff
@Bobby Thomson: A baby’s arm holding an apple.
Thoughtful Today
Erm,
“I wonder if he’d say that a Jewish president would need to swear on the Bible.”
…
“Old Testament.”
rikyrah
Break it down, Harry. Show that clown Carson for the fool he is.
…………..
CSPANVerified account
@cspan
.@SenatorReid: “Shame on Dr. Carson.” The Senate minority leader responds to @RealBenCarson’s remarks on Muslims.
https://twitter.com/cspan/status/646030253802983424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Roger Moore
@TG Chicago:
And he wants one who will condemn cultures that treat women as second-class citizens. Great, Bobby; I feel denying access to abortion and contraception because of your religious views is treating women as second class citizens. What do I win?
ETA: And I wonder if he would condemn Theodore Roosevelt, who did not use a bible when he was sworn in for the first time. How about a Quaker who would affirm rather than swear- as the Constitution specifically allows?
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@lamh36: I just re-started it myself (I went off it last year because I’m an idiot), and my husband has joined along with me. Great plan, but obviously it requires sticking with it. Congrats!
schlemazel
@Germy Shoemangler:
I was stunned to see that bit. Nice old Uncle Walt just became lower than whale shit in my book. Not just the “naming names” part, for which eternity in hell seems to nice, but full out lying to smear people because they had the gall to form a union. He know he was lying about people and he knew his lies would ruin careers at the very least.
Heliopause
Will you kindly please henceforth refer to him as Pigfucker David Cameron. Full title, please, not PF David Cameron. Thank you.
Peale
@TG Chicago: I know there are people from other countries that post here, but are there other countries with so much time on their hands that they have a week-long debate about whether they would vote for a candidate who as far as I know isn’t even running and doesn’t even exist right now?
goblue72
@redshirt: I don’t – there’s a certain kind of so-last century to the prudishness and feigned horror our culture displays in connection with the idea that our political leaders are human beings – “Obama was a stoner!” “Cameron partied with the Studio 54 crowd!”
If it turned out he was mainlining in the bathroom or freebasing coke, or some other similarly hardcore drug activity – sure. But hanging around with the posh party crowd while young and occasionally doing a few bumps? Yawn.
Some of us have managed to graduate from well-regarded academic institutions and had responsible, quite successful adult lives while having partied on various drugs in your youth – pot, coke, ecstasy (or whatever the kids call it these days), shrooms, acid, etc. I’ve gotten blitzed on hash in Morocco, scored MDMA in Amsterdam for the Millennium, did enough lines of Columbian flake during a Spring Break from college to probably march all the way to Bogota from Boston, and even once tried some opium from a buddy who was traveling in India. My only regret is listening to the Moody Blues once while on an acid trip – talk about cliche.
And yet somehow I survived my twenties to mature adulthood, my mental faculties intact, successful enough that I have to worry about the AMT, and with my only addiction being to hoppy craft beers. I do still enjoy the occasional joint, but these days after a couple of drags, the only thing it accomplishes is making me fall asleep 20 minutes later.
goblue72
What, nobody came up with a Hogwarts joke yet?
WereBear
He used to host the Adventures of Superman marathons on Channel 11, back when I lived near NYC. Seemed like a sweet guy.
WereBear
@lamh36: Congrats! May a new wardrobe be appearing for you soon.
WereBear
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Don’t be too hard on yourself. I never had success with WW, but the plan I’m on now has been my eating style for over ten years now.
While some other friends are doing great with what is basically the opposite of what I’m doing…
Sometimes it’s just not the right one for you.
Heliopause
Variation on one of the world’s oldest jokes:
A journalist went to 10 Downing Street to interview David Cameron. He was about to ask his first question but Cameron cut him off abruptly and began ranting.
“I studied philosophy in college, but do they call me philosopher David Cameron? No. I’ve been a member of Parliament since 2001, but do they call me Member of Parliament David Cameron? No. I’m the Prime Minister, but do they call me Prime Minister David Cameron? No.”
Then with a sullen face, “but fuck just one pig…”
Roger Moore
In all seriousness, though, I’m inclined to agree with the people who see something considerably more sinister, here. This isn’t just a random tell-all that happens to have embarrassed Cameron; it’s a hit piece designed to punish him for political disagreements with Lord Ashcroft.
Alex
Well, at least now we know Cameron isn’t a secret Muslim.
boatboy_srq
@Alex: Muslims can’t eat pig. Not exactly the same thing.
@Roger Moore: Cameron is good for a laugh since he’s now the porkbutt of thousands of jokes (/rimshot), but it’s far less egregious than hiking the Appalachian Tail when you’re supposed to be available for Fathers’ Day, planting fake stories about picking up male hustlers so you can hide your affair with a colleague, using your virulently anti-LGBT ministry to abuse young boys, or promoting the idea that scr3wing up three Fortune 100 companies and getting your a## handed to you in your one run for Senat qualifies you for the pResidency.
Calouste
@Roger Moore: It is pretty sinister indeed. It basically amounts to an attempted backroom coup. Ashcroft wants to get rid of Cameron, and by tying it to Cameron’s Oxford days he also takes out Cameron’s heir designate and good buddy from Oxford Boris Johnson as well.
Cameron is stuck. Libel laws are pretty strong in the UK (some say too strong), so if the story isn’t true Cameron should easily win. So not suing means implicitly admitting that the story is true, but suing means that the story is going to be in the news a lot longer, and you know that there is going to be some dirt somewhere from the time Cameron was a posh student in Oxford. (It’s know that he was a member of the Bullingdon Club, it’s just not known if he was involved in any of its excesses.)
We’ll see if this festers on for a bit (and it most likely will) if there is going to be a leadership challenge.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@WereBear:
Speaking as a former employee (so you can use a dash of salt), the Weight Watchers program is really a simplified way of calorie counting, and they don’t care that deeply what you’re counting. They’ve been de-emphasizing carbs for quite a while now and you can be vegan or all-meat and still be “doing” WW if you’re either writing down your Points or following Simply Filling (eating from a restricted list).
They just started talking about gluten-free last year — now I have to get them to wake up about FODMAPs. ;-) But when I plug my dietician-approved menus into the Points system, it matches up pretty much perfectly every time.
Anne Laurie
Testing to see if I can comment… no Lyndon Johnson jokes yet?
Betty Cracker
@Anne Laurie: Yay! You’re back!
WaterGirl
@Anne Laurie: She lives!
LanceThruster
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
They control show business!