Read Mike Nelson you swines

The excellent US comic and blogger Michael J Nelson, has sent a relative blizzard of comedically-advanced readers to this dusty little corner of the blogscape (specifically this post), so if you’re one of those, welcome. What you will find here will baffle, astound and somehow fail to quite satisfy.

For the rest of ToE’s small but discerning audience, Mike was the star of a long-running US television show called Mystery Science Jamboree Big Top Theatre 3000, or some such. I confess I’d never heard of it, but Youtube has allowed me to catch up and realise that British TV did us a grave disservice in not broadcasting it here (or if they did, it was so low-profile I missed it – perhaps someone like Ali, who knows most things that are worth knowing and many that aren't, can enlighten me).

The idea is brilliant in its simplicity: Mike and his mates watch terrible movies and make snarky comments throughout. This worthy enterprise is now continued in the Rifftrax project, which I heartily recommend for a good and very reasonably-priced belly laugh.

Being a dedicated and secretive Think of England reader (the best kind), Mike is a man of impeccable taste and eccentricity. He is also, however, halfway though a month of eating nothing but bacon. I don’t know how his body is faring during this ordeal – I prefer not to think about it - but psychologically he’s clearly disintegrating.

His latest post ends with the grim and terrifying declaration “I love you bacon. I love you so much.”

Now I’m no shrink, but that looks suspiciously like a sort of dietary Stockholm Syndrome to me. Mike has fallen in love with his cured pork ‘prison’. He’s going to need some serious help come March.