The small but perfectly formed controversy over Homer Simpson’s appearance in the field adjoining the Cerne Abbas giant has brought a little traffic this way already today, before I’d even got around to considering whether to run with it here. (It turns out that this post from five years ago currently makes the front page of Google with the search term, “cerne abbas condom“)

Anyways, the BBC News has the basic story, while Guardian Blogs boasts a comment section generating far more heat than light, at the time of my visit.

Now, depending on who was defining the term, I might or might not be considered a pagan; I’m fairly relaxed about the word as a description, but it isn’t a label I would make a big noise about, on my own behalf. I also happen to incline towards the theory that the Big Guy was carved during or after the Civil War to wind up Oliver Cromwell, but I don’t think it matters how long he’s been there: sacred spaces are where people make them.
Nevertheless, I find myself quite easily able to preserve an airy indifference, as regards the possible desecration of a putatively pagan joint.
The interesting bit is how all the requisite characters spring up to play their appointed part in the ritual — and by ritual I do not mean dancing around a bonfire, exactly. The media has a pretty good idea who to call when the balloon — or in this case, doughnut — goes up:

Ann Bryn-Evans, joint Wessex district manager for The Pagan Federation, said: “We were hoping for some dry weather but I think I have changed my mind.
“We’ll be doing some rain magic to bring the rain and wash it away.”
She added: “I’m amazed they got permission to do something so ridiculous. It’s an area of scientific interest.”

— and the Brethren of The Snickering Jackass get to sneer at the “humourless” pagans. Yeah, really. I mean, “rain magic”!? — humourless? I suspect probably not. As howls of protest go, this one certainly seems pretty measured and sober, written down. Perhaps it’s the way Ann Bryn-Evans tells ‘em.

What we have here is an extremely hackneyed media ritual, being given another turn around the paddock, this time in the interests of promoting a movie — which is a pretty tacky bit of anti-news, but it stirs up the populace a bit, and that sells tickets. And blogging about it doesn’t fucking help, of course.

I have very fond memories of the first decade of the Simpsons; I remain full of admiration for the show as a creation, even if most of those latter shows that I have bothered to watch were so disappointing. I have a dark foreboding, however, that this rather-too-late movie adaptation may not turn out to be half as funny as even this excellent, if rather childish and possibly nsfw animation by Happy Toast at b3ta.com. I hope I’m wrong.