Everyone’s a critic

I find my faith in natural justice momentarily restored as Sacha Baron Cohen is punched repeatedly in the face on a New York sidewalk.

Side-splitting funny-man Sacha decided on the spur of the moment to reprise his notorious Borat character on a passer-by, requesting to have sex with his clothes, whereupon the object of his attentions promptly beat him unconscious.

Seeing as mere eye-contact has been known to provoke pre-emptive stabbings from neurotic New Yorkers, many would argue that Borat got away lightly. Fortunately our very own Hugh Laurie, star of “House”, was there to salvage Sacha from the wreckage - a fake doctor rescuing a fake Kazakh from a very genuinely offended citizen. I’m sure there’s a clever metaphor on the ephemera of fame in there somewhere, but I’m just sorry that I wasn’t there myself to help out– by, say, holding Borat by the arms, or fetching a baseball bat.

The humblest copper in the land cannot pummel a dusky suspect without getting plastered all over YouTube nowadays, and yet no-one thought to capture this priceless piece of cinema verité on film. Where are the paparazzi when you need them?


Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat, yesterday. Now with authentically Kazakh-style missing teeth…