Islamic rage sweeps Rockall (Pub-friendly) [The Rockall Times]

The Rockall Homes Affairs secretariat yesterday advised all Danes and Norwegians to leave the sacred islet as Islamic anger at cartoons of the prophet Muhammad threatened to boil over into full-scale jihad.

Enraged Muslims, some bearing banners reading "Massacre those who insult the Prophet", surrounded Rockall's 24/7 MiniMart as word spread that it had just taken a delivery of Danish streaky bacon and Carlsberg lager. The consumption of bacon and alcohol is prohibited under Islamic law, and their presence under one roof proved an intolerable insult to the already-furious mob.

The situation soon deteriorated as the howling assemblage of true believers set about the infidel retail outlet with iron bars and petrol. Some young fundamentalists, shouting uncontrollably as their ire turned to apoplexy, set the building alight and later overturned a lorry containing Lego which, according to one excited participant, "could be used to create a colourful yet ultimately blasphemous plastic brick representation of the Prophet."

A Bang & Olufsen dealership was also stormed, with zealots expressing their disgust by beating top-of-the-range audio equipment with their shoes. A leading Muslim cleric was unable to clarify whether the latter assault was due to the equipment's country of manufacture, or the fact that music is, to some hardline factions including the fun-loving Taliban, prohibited under Islamic law and therefore an "intolerable insult to Muslims worldwide."

A spokesman for the demonstration, Ali Mustafa Fatwah, told The Rockall Times: "This attack upon the Prophet is intolerable. We will continue with our demonstrations until Denmark executes the people responsible for this blasphemous outrage, as Islamic law dictates." Asked as to his thoughts on the Red Sea ferry disaster, which last weekend claimed more than a thousand Muslim souls, Fatwah replied: "I don't give a shit about that. Kill the infidel! Praise be to Allah!"

The outrage in question is hilarious representations of said Muhammed printed in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and later in Norwegian, German, French and Spanish publications. Crucially, though, they appeared in last Friday's Rockall Post and Advertiser and — despite the fact that the France Soir group which controls the free-circulation weekly immediately sacked the editor and issued an apology attached to an editorial which considered the right to free speech versus the inadvisibility of offending anyone who has oil — the fuse was already lit.

Although the authorities had by midnight last night been able to restore a certain degree of calm, with just an isolated attack on an all-night chemist which had inadvisedly not removed its window display of Neutrogena hand cream, the atmosphere remained tense. Women were advised to don a burqa if venturing outside "because the sight of a bare-faced woman might prove an intolerable provocation to Rockall's Muslim community", while wives known to have been playing away from home were issued with a "adultery cease and desist" order which warned they faced death by stoning or beheading. Errant husbands, meanwhile, were likewise counselled by police that they would, if caught dipping their wicks extramaritally, face the traditional five dinar (Ł0.10) fine.

Inside Rockall's Fighting Dog and Pikey, where the serving of alcohol continues 24 hours a day — despite the fact that pubs are an intolerable affront to Islam — opinion on the sorry affair was divided.

"Did you just ask for a tonic water?" gasped a visibly-amazed landlord Vince as snug regular Arthur "Chalky" Black declined the offer of his usual pint of mild and Olde Wifebeater.

"Yes," replied Chalky. "I'm abstaining from alcohol until after Friday prayers in solidarity with the islet's Muslim community. This whole cartoon business is a shameful insult to the entire Islamic world."

"You don't think they're overreacting then?" enquired Vince, opening a bottle of Happy Puffin tonic water with ill-disguised contempt.

"No, this is an attack on their fundamental beliefs — a basic tenet of their culture," asserted Chalky.

"So," chipped in chicken farmer Davy Leveret, defiantly supping a flagon of foaming ale while eyeing an enormous whisky chaser, "if a basic tenet of someone's culture is to throw women alive onto their husband's funeral pyre, does the fact that it forms part of their fundamental beliefs prevent others from questioning the practice or acting as their own fundamental beliefs dicate?"

"The Muslims don't throw women onto funeral pyres," interjected a spotty youth throwing nuggets into the "Satanic Verses" fruitie. "That's the Hindu practice of Sati."

"I know that, you mouthy whippersnapper," bellowed Leveret. "The point is, chucking people's wives onto funeral pyres is fuc*king obnoxious, whatever way you look at it."

"So the British were right to ban it?" asked our fruitie-worrying young friend, advancing nudge-by-nudge up the "Laughing Ayatollah Khomeni Fatwah Ladder" towards a "Roomful of Virgins in Paradise" bonus.

"Too bloody right," thundered Leveret. "What kind of stupid question is that?"

"Well," interjected Vince while staring distractedly out of the pub's window. "I think what our university-educated young man is trying to say is that the practice of Sati has a religious basis and therefore beyond censure."

"You must be joking," choked Leveret. "If that were generally accepted then any religion would have pretty well carte blanche to behave as it saw fit — providing it could supply some religious justification for it. But what happens when two opposing religious ideologies meet head-on? Who decides which is in fact the true will of God?"

"The side with the most angry people, I reckon," shrugged Vince. "For example, you remember that parrot we used to have in the public bar..."

"Gordon," reminded Chalky.

"Yeah, Gordon. Well, some twat trained him to say 'The Pope is a Cun*t' every time Father O'Donnell came in for his traditional livener after Mass. O'Donnell didn't give a shit, but we eventually had to offload the bloody animal to a passing Russian haddock trawler after the Women's Institute complained about him shouting 'Give us a blowjob' to any woman trying to order a drink."

"What's your point?" sighed Leveret, waving his empty flagon over the bar.

"The point is," expounded the young man at the fruitie, "that O'Donnell accepted the parrot's insult as a joke. Likewise, O'Donnell accepted that other people did not necessarily share his own personal beliefs. He could, of course, have demanded death by burning for the parrot and excommunication for his owner."

"Yeah..." mused Leveret, "but the world has moved on, hasn't it?"

The discussion was at this point brought to an untimely conclusion as Vince rushed into the pub's carpark where a group of local youths dressed as suicide bombers had set fire to a Danish flag and were happy-slapping a man caught eating a bacon sandwich while recording the whole scene on a mobile phone for later rebroadcast on Syrian and Saudi Arabian TV.

Islamic rage sweeps Rockall

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