World Spectacle

Famous Bananarians in the News March 25, 2004

Drawing on Bananas (Portrait) by Tonico Lemo Auad.

Banananarian Brazilian sculptor Tonico Lemo Auad, a resident of London, has made the short list for
Beck’s Futures modern art prize.

Auad�s faces, “painted” with pins on banana�s skins, only emerge as the fruit begins to rot.

Protests on the menu today. March 20, 2004

From Textamerica.

“Banana bomb” inquiry set to open March 6, 2004

“The signs are already printed up”.

An official inquiry into circumstances surrounding the bombing on 8 January of an unused airfield in Yorkshire by the United States Air Force (USAF) begins with a preliminary hearing Thursday.

The USAF continues to insist that a bomb, dropped from an F-15 fighter jet on an airfield owned by Allied Grains six miles south west of Market Weighton, was inert and caused only an 18-inch crater in the airfield’s landing strip and no injuries.

Witnesses claim to have seen an enormous “Banana Bomb” hit the airfield, causing several craters and spreading squashed fruit over a large area.

The Ministry of Defence has been accused by some of “covering up” a link between the bombing and the growing Banananarian movement.

The government has denied any wrongdoing.

Frederick Gletton will open proceedings at 9:00 a.m. at the Government Office for Yorkshire and the Humber in Leeds.

He will set out his approach to the inquiry.

The government has been criticised for delegating the inquiry to Gletton, an obscure junior minister of the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs who normally is assigned to control exotic and invasive species.

Gletton defended his role in the inquiry: “I don�t see anything wrong with me being in charge. I�ve got lots of experience with bananas and monkeys. Both of them non-natives, see? Besides, it�s too late to change anything now. The signs are already printed up.”