For Ben, who's finishing a novel

Family Guy. Occasionally they hit the spot.

For my novelist friends

Who needs creative writing classes when Stewie Griffin summarises novels in one short wind-up?

Well done, Dad

He's phoned to wish me many happy returns. On my sister's birthday.
I believe the word is gitwizard.

He looks uncannily like this individual:

The freakin' FCC

Considering their fondness for gunning each other down, polluting the world and invading everywhere, our American cousins are remarkably sensitive when it comes to naughty words onscreen. Unless, of course, you have cable television, upon which the naughtiest of words were repeatedly uttered by Ian McShane in Deadwood and James Gandolfini in The Sopranos. Perhaps poor people are thought to be more sensitive.

So anyway, the Supreme Court heard the case of the Federal Communications Commission and judgement came in today. It's fine to ban all swearing, however weak, in case Hank chokes on his burger or jerks the trigger. Except he won't be watching TV, he'll be listening or watching to Howard Stern (satellite radio isn't covered either).

So in honour of Justice Scalia's judgement and distaste for us big city types, quoted by the Huffington Post:

"We doubt that small town broadcasters run a heightened risk of liability for indecent utterances... their down-home local guests probably employ vulgarity less than big city folks, and small town stations generally cannot afford or cannot attract foul-mouthed glitterati from Hollywood."

I give you Family Guy's homage to the FCC: