HOME Disharmony In Soaptown

It is becoming increasing difficult to separate politics from anything these days, as was evidenced at the conclusion of last night's Soaptown Song Contest when one of the loosing songs "Analects Of Disaster" (twenty-fifth out of twenty-five), claimed that the contest was judged on aesthetic rather than innovative grounds. In the storming of the stage, while the winner "Another Thing About Love", was being presented with the Soaptown Perpetual Soup Bowl, AOD was accompained by its composers, Wild Finnigan(words) and Mad Murphy (music), both members of low-life group, The Idiots.   They claimed that their song was being discriminated against by the judges, because of their stance on everything. (They stand for Nothing and have campaigned for it to be taught at local schools.)   Wild Finnegan shouted "Nothing is everything!", while Mad Murphy disemboweled the orchestra's big drum with a trombone.   "Analects of Disaster" and "Another Thing About Love" traded insults across the stage while officials attempted to restore order. AOD described ATAL as "banalities piled upon banalities", while ATAL accused AOD of "wallowing in misfortune, and cheapening misery."   As words and musical notations flew about the stage, the musical director was hit full on the nose with a semibreve, and Chairman Caligula of the Urban Council was stabbed with a quaver, which necessitated his removal to hospital, where the wound was, however, described as "not serious". Mad Murphy and "Analects Of Disaster" were later arrested for reckless use of crochets and minims, and taken to the local Garda Station, where noise polution was added to the list of charges read out to them.   Councillor Huff, standing in for the injured Chairman Caligula, in finally presenting the silver soup tureen to "Another Thing About Love", said that "Analects Of Disaster" had lowered the tone of proceedings, and turned what should have been a joyous occasion into a sad one. He praised "Another Thing About Love" and its composers, Liam O'Limp and Doreen Scratchstring, for maintaining such a mediocre level of music and keeping down musical upstarts like The Idiots. In future, he thought, the selection committee should be more vigilant in weeding out musical anarchists like "Analects Of Disaster", before they reached the performance stage and undermined the stability of the country and the indifference of the people.   Manager of The Idiots, Ogor Dropsky, defended the actions of his group members. He said that "Analects of Disaster" was understandably dissapointed by its placing and had merely reacted to taunting about its pedigree by "Another Thing About Love". It had been, he said, a brave attempt to introduce the general public to living music, but since they preferred the dead stuff, he would leave them to their Come-All-Ye's, and find people more worthy of it.