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Gary Barlow, and the other celebrities I'd love to punch in the face for money by Tyson Fury

AFTER a controversial win over an MMA fighter last weekend, The Gypsy King has turned his thoughts to the next non-boxer he’d happily take on in the ring for £50 million: 

Gary Barlow

I love Rule The World as much as the next man, and Back For Good? Bloody tune mate. But Gary Barlow’s face? Even you people call it punchable, and you don’t punch for a living. I do and you are absolutely correct. It’s a target that speaks to me across distance, across generations, and my only regret is one blow would do it.

Grant and Phil Mitchell

Ask any punter on the street who the hardest blokes in Britain are, and they’ll say the Mitchell brothers. They’ve fought each other, but I’ll take both of those bollock-headed bastards on simultaneously. An old-fashioned three-way heavyweight clash in front of a sell-out crowd at East London’s Olympic stadium. Bosh.

Daddy Pig

At last count, I have just over half-a-dozen kids; all the boys called Prince, obviously, and the girls called Venezuela and the like. Which means I’ve watched more than a decade of Peppa fucking Pig so I am calling her out. She can’t fight, I won’t beat a child bloody, so her father’s going to need to step up. I’ll pummel him like Rocky on a side of beef.

Prince George

Yes, George is at a considerable height, weight and reach disadvantage. But just imagine the numbers we’d bring in as a pay-per-view. Genuine royalty, facing off against those German pricks who call themselves a monarchy? Taking a left and right to the face? Spitting out bloodied baby teeth and coming back for more? Respect on that.

Johannes Vermeer

He might be a Dutch artist of the Baroque period who specialised in intensely-worked interiors with a genius for capturing light, but could he take a punch? I reckon so. There’s just something about how he captures the ethereal falling away of light that gives me the impression that once he got his dander up he’d be a fucking madman. Could lose this one.

Muhammad Ali

Of course he’s dead, but what the fuck are we pissing about with AI for if not this? If not for the perfect solid light hologram of The Greatest to climb in the ring and go 15 rounds? Me, Ali, the ethically questionable country of Saudi Arabia, ringside seats $1.2 million, split decision and a rematch. Or if not him, Batman.

Ask Sir David Attenborough: Should I become a violent, masked vigilante?

Sir David Attenborough, Britain’s best-loved broadcaster, answers your queries

Dear Sir David,

I’ve always loved your shows, especially the bits where through careful editing and narration you grow to love a violent animal, and root for it to maul a zebra to death to feed its bloodthirsty young.

I’ve always yearned to be such an animal and with all the crime of late – shoplifting, misgendering, online fraud – I feel I could contribute to society by dressing as a leopard and taking criminals down as a masked vigilante.

Acting where the wheels of justice turn too slow, I’d disguise my face and assume a secret identity as a geography teacher, coincidentally my current job. I’d be a predator on the creatures of the night in Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

Anyway, what are your thoughts? For context, I don’t have a car or much capital, so for now I’d just cycle around on my pedal bike with a lead pipe or a claw hammer.

Cheers,

Roy Hobbs

Dear Roy,

Let me thank you for your letter and reassure you that you’re not alone in feeling this urge. Indeed, when faced with man-made ecological tragedy, I myself have often considered turning to vigilantism far beyond the antics of those, and forgive me for using this term, pussies Extinction Rebellion.

Were I to indulge these fantasies, I’d go by the moniker Killer Whale (based on the common name for Orcinus orca). The law so rarely punishes those ne’er-do-wells ruining our planet for future generations. I would drop them in the Sahara deset and leave them to die.

Greta Thunberg could be my sidekick, called the Poison Dart Frog and wearing an appropriate costume to slip Polonium-210 into the coffee cups of oil magnates – but forgive an old man, I’m getting carried away.

To you. I would recommend finding a tighter focus for your vigilantism. Crime, as much as an excited man with a hammer and his aunt’s mispurposed leopard-skin clothing might like, does not lurk around every corner in Leicestershire. And real leopards spend all day sleeping in trees.

Why not concentrate on littering? It’s a crime everyone abhors, you could stab the litter with a sharp spike thereby allieviating your evident anger issues, and you’re ideally placed to come across evidence of other crimes like theft, underage drinking, human trafficking and the enriching of uranium by rogue states.

Leave the claw hammer at home. Dress as whatever animal you like. I am 97 and will not see the results of your work but I trust it will usher in a juster world.

With all best wishes,

Sir David Attenborough

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