When Tokyo subway officials decided to censor a giant poster of Britney Spears looking all naked and pregnant recently, they can't have imagined what a big pickle it was going to get them into.
The Tokyo Britney Spears bump-censoring issue immediately became the single-most important piece of news around the globe yesterday; bigger than the Israel-Lebanon conflict, bigger than the ever-increasing threat to global security, bigger even than that bloke from Jackass apparently touching a couple of kids. But now the Tokyo subway officials have relented, and allowed the entire city to see Britney Spears' manky naked pregnant body in all its horrific, abnormally enlarged glory.
Britney Spears is a young woman who seems to be in love with controversy. Any time that her popularity drops a little bit, you can always rely on Britney Spears to do something supremely odd, like write a loopy poem that might be about her marriage on her website or call her new baby an accident or take her old baby to the fractured skull clinic. So Britney Spears really has to work at being controversial, but sometimes it just falls straight into her lap like a golden gift from the heavens.
For instance, when Britney Spears married Kevin Federline she can't have known that he'd end up being the single most appalling rapper ever to grace the face of the earth, and when Britney Spears dropped her clothes for Harper's Bazaar magazine a few months ago to publicise the interview where she admitted that she wasn't very sexy, she can't have known that a few months later it would cause a gigantic stir in Tokyo.
Yesterday we revealed that a big poster of naked pregnant Britney Spears was being censored in Tokyo after subway officials thought that in would over-stimulate commuters into a frenzy of muggings, public dry-humping and other assorted acts of silliness. Instead of the full Harper's Bazaar image of Britney Spears grinning like a muppet with no clothes on and her gut sticking out, Tokyo covered up everything from Britney's elbow down, with an apology to anyone hoping to catch a glimpse of a huge Britney Spears belly button.
But now – good news! The Tokyo Metro Company's obscenity screening team have finally noticed that the whole world was basically taking the piss out of them and allowed the image of Britney Spears to be displayed in all its grisly nakedness, explaining:
"Our earlier request to cover the waist down was because of nudity, not because we had anything against pregnant women."
It's good to see this issue resolved so quickly and simply, isn't it? Although, for future reference, if Lisa Riley of You've Been Framed and Emmerdale fame ever gets pregnant, feel free to censor as much as you like. You're welcome.
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[story by Stuart Heritage]