Imagine, if you will, that you are a burglar of the utmost skill. You patiently search neighbourhood after neighbourhood looking for the perfect house to rob – and then you find one. There are at least ten newspapers on the front porch, mail is spilling out of the box and there are two cars in the driveway with at least a foot of snow covering the both of them.

You breeze on into their living room, fill a pillowcase with all their valuables – but then you can’t leave because a freaking ghost won’t let you.

Literally.

A Malaysian newspaper carried a story recently about a family that went on vacation. Well – actually it was more about what happened at their house while they were away.  There isn’t a lot available to give definitive specifics on the matter, but it’s crazy none the less.

You see, apparently a burglar picked their empty home for a looting. He went in, gathered up everything that wasn’t nailed down… then every time he tried to make it to the door he was pushed down by something only described as a ’supernatural figure.’

MSNBC has a touch more:

“A burglar who broke into a house claims he was held captive by a “supernatural figure” for three days without food and water, officials said. Police official Abdul Marlik Hakim Johar told The Star newspaper the house’s owners found the 36-year-old man fatigued and dehydrated when they returned from vacation Thursday… The man told police that every time he tried to escape, a “supernatural figure” shoved him to the ground.”

That’s a fresh story too – MSNBC’s telling of it is dated Dec 13, 2008. We’ve used all our resources to search for more info on the matter, but who really understands that dewey decimal system anyway? Seriously – what’s with all those randomly placed dots? We always get frustrated and then walk away none-the-smarter for our experience.

Still, that’s right? The rest of the web is abuzz with the supernatural aspect of the story. not us – we’re more concerned with the fact that this demon creature seems to have seriously violated the burglar’s basic human rights.

Three days without food or water? That is completely unacceptable no matter what his hostage’s chosen profession. And what’s with tall the pushing? At most the banshee should have asked his victim not to leave in a semi-stern voice.

Hopefully more detail will emerge in the next few days – like what does the resident family think of the strangeness? And if it was new to them did they still move back in? See – these are the types of questions most of Malaysia absolutely refuses to ask.

What she seemingly has never been called though, is ‘too sexy’. Until now. Ahead of an upcoming tour around Asia, the youth wing of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party have raised issue with the Canadian poplet with the dead eyes. For being too sexy.

The world can be a very odd place. Now, we understand it may be a more conservative way of life over there, but calling Avril Lavigne ‘too sexy’ is akin to calling Brooke Hogan a ‘purveyor of finely thought out political commentary’ – it just doesn’t fit. How, exactly, is looking really bored on stage considered sexy, even in a culture where sexuality is somewhat repressed, or hidden away?

Answers on a postcard.

But that is the route the complaint has taken, and it’s one that’s sure to raise some issues about the portrayal of pop stars, movie stars and those generally in the public eye as sexual icons. Either that or it’ll just get tossed under the rug with the rest of the comments that might actually raise some intelligent discussion about how artists become highly-sexualised commodities more with each passing day.

This is, as an example, the same Avril Lavigne that started out as a ‘pop punk’ girl, wearing rather modest shorts, normal t-shirts and singing about being tough in the face of her crappy little relationships, or something. Now she’s essentially a whore, dressing like a tart in order to get on TV as much as possible, singing about utter shite. It’s a clear, blatant marketing decision – as the old adage says: sex sells.

And now it’s getting her into trouble, so we can all laugh. Just as we did with the spitting.

Speaking to the Associated Press, a spokesman for the Islamic Party, Kamarulzaman Mohamed, said:

“It is considered too sexy for us. … It’s not good for viewers in Malaysia. We don’t want our people, our teenagers, influenced by their performance. We want clean artists, artists that are good role models.”

So who would the youth wing of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party want instead? Well, according to the AP:

Malaysia requires all performers to wear clothes without obscene or drug-related images and be covered from chest to knees. They must also refrain from jumping, shouting, hugging and kissing on stage.

So, someone who doesn’t like drugs or obscenity, who doesn’t move much and who won’t want to get off with anyone in their audience? From the world of music?

In other words, not many artists play Malaysia.

The Pussycat Dolls did play back in 2006 mind you, which makes hecklerspray wonder what exactly the Malaysian government thought they were getting when they were booked. Whereas other groups and artists could conceivably be covered up, asked to tone down their lyrical content and to stay still, hiring a glorified bunch of strippers to do a live stage show was never really going to fall within the realms of ‘decent’.

But hey – who are we to comment? We’re always naked at hecklerspray.