"Shocking”, “disgusting”, ‘perverted”, “do they take Euro coins?”…that was the reaction of some top Hot Press journalists this week as word filtered through that unscrupulous Japanese businessmen have stocked 90 vending machines in Tokyo with “used underwear guaranteed to have been worn by a schoolgirl.”
Far from being an urban myth, that font of reliable journalism, The Economist, reports: “Each garment sells for about $29. After searching the rulebooks, the police have finally charged the three entrepreneurs with violating the Antique Dealings Law, which stipulates that dealers need a license. Used panties as antiques? The police say that some of the underwear was bought from second hand dealers. The trio may also be charged with swindling, if it can be shown that the panties on sale had not really been worn by female students.”

As if that wasn’t enough to have respectable Japanese people committing hara-kiri in shame, www.harmful.org/homedespot/Askits.htm lists over 100 super-pervy fetishes that are practiced there. These range from ganmen koogeki (“nose torture”) and yagai (“trying not to pee”) to shokku-she kei (“tentacle porn”) to kitanai kutzushita fetchi (“dirty under the shoes”).

From there it’s but a mere mouse-click to www.ubersite.com/m/29438 which has been carrying out an important online experiment. “I was downloading music yesterday evening – Led Zeppelin, Flock Of Seagulls, Pink Floyd, stuff like that,” explains the anonymous webmaster. “Then I realized (he’s American, spelling Nazis) it’d be a funny joke to play on people if I were to change REO Speedwagon’s ‘Keep On Rollin’’ to ‘Hot Lesbian Sex’. I watched as within a minute this file got 50 downloads.”

The number of hits doubled as Led Zep’s ‘Dazed & Confused’ became ‘Enraged Baboon Fucking A Nipple Factory’ and quadrupled as Billy Idol’s ‘White Wedding’ morphed into the altogether more intriguing ‘Elephant Cock Horse’.

It’s not often that Caught In The Net gets to scoop our Music News colleagues but one web site reveals that Van Morrison is retiring on June 30...

Which just leaves time for quick visits to www.ape-o-naut.org (famous monkeys through history); www.86theonions.com (fucked if we know); and www.angryalien.com/0204/-exorcistbunnies.html (The Exorcist in 30 seconds. With bunnies).