Monday 1st November 2004
Bin Laden video fails to wow critics
Mixed reviews for new-look al-Qaeda frontman
by Alvin Jazeera
Osama bin Laden's latest effort to revitalise his moribund terrorist career and fight off the challenge mounted by flamboyant decapitator Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has received a mixed reception from western commentators and public alike. The straight-to-video release, entitled Further Musing by the Greatest Arab Thinker in the World — Ever!, is the international statesman's first release since September 2003 when he was seen wanding the Afghan foothills singing Blowin' in the Wind backed by his roving band of guitar-strumming Pakistani militants.
Some press reaction to the message was swift and damning. The Times said it "lacked intellectual rigour", the Telegraph slammed bin Laden's performance as "lacklustre" while the Mail on Sunday used stills from the performance to illustrate the dangers of predatory, swan-roasting Albanian paedophiles.
The Independent was a little kinder, describing the al-Qaeda head's delivery as "restrained and thoughful". For its part, the Guardian took time from its campaign of writing letters to US voters to instruct them as to the best presidential candidate to offer "coruscatingly frank". Other positives included a wow review from Better Interiors for the Chattering Classes which enthused for seven pages over the "ethnic Afghan rag-rolled ambience of the set", bin Laden's "rugged Arabic good looks" and how he had "effortlessly managed to combine a simple white cotton shift with what appears to be a lemon yellow Adidas tracksuit top".
Style guru Laurence Llewellyn Bowen was less complimentary about the decor, lamenting bin Laden's decision to ditch the must-have insurgent style icon — the AK-47 assault rifle. Generously-entrousered pop pundit Simon Cowell agreed, calling the omission a "career-killing move" which would disappoint millions of wide-eyed raghead wannabe suicide bombers.
Western intelligence agencies, meanwhile, have also been scrutinising the tape closely for clues as to bin Laden's whereabouts. "He may have screwed up this time, make no mistake," chuckled a chain-smoking CIA operative known only as "Deep Sleep". "We've identified the piece of furniture in the video as a desk, and when we find that desk, assuming bin Laden's still sitting at it or has just popped outside for a cigarette, then we're going to roast his goddam goose, make no mistake."
Back in pre-election Britain, voters have been sticking their two bits' worth into the debate. "It won't make any difference to the way I vote," confirmed one punter in staunchly republican Hertfordshire, while a group of Kerry supporters in the swing state of Devon said they would not be intimidated from scrawling an X next to their preferred candidate. "I haven't spent the last three months glued to wall-to-wall BBC election coverage and weighing up all the pros and cons to be influenced at the last minute by half-hearted threats of apocalypse," asserted one.
It appears, then, that bin Laden's intervention will not affect the outcome of tomorrow's poll to decide the next president of the United Kingom of Britain. And — if sales of his video fail to secure it a place in the all-important Xmas top ten — then there is the real possibility that the man they call the "Saudi Cat Stevens" will be making his next appearence before the cameras as co-host of Suicide Bombing's Funniest Blunders on a low-rent cable TV channel with only a topless and giggling Abi Titmuss for company. Time will tell.