Make a joke about your bowels and they order in the troops

I went to Borders today to buy the next series of The Sopranos. They didn't sell it so the guy suggested I try HMV instead. So off I pottered, only to discover that HMV didn't sell it either. I thought this was odd seeing as it's rather more popular than much of the tripe they do sell. So I asked the lady behind the counter and she helpfully informed me that The Sopranos is banned in Singapore.

Hmm. This was unexpected.

In fact it turns out that several shows are banned here. Examples apparently include South Park (fair enough), Queer as Folk (morally disappointing but not altogether surprising), Jerry Springer (their loss) and Sex and the City (hooray!). Slightly more puzzling are the inclusions of Monty Python and - wait for it - Stargate SG 1. Yes, the gimpy inoffensive sci-fi show intended for boys aged 7-10 but also watched by some of my really mature friends who will doubtless protest at this description (you know who you are).

What on earth have these two done to offend anyone? Was the Release Roderick scene in Life of Brian deemed potentially insulting to the indigenous lisping Roman community of Singapore? Or was it just that no one got any of the jokes? Was Stargate banned because it's offensive or just because it's sh*te? I don't have the answers. I would write to the Media Development Authority and ask them but I just can't be arsed. Plus I don't want to flag myself as a subversive revolutionary after just six weeks in the country.

Anyway I'm not going to harp on about it but this did come as a surprise. So if anyone is thinking of moving to Singapore any time soon I would strongly advise you to indulge in a marathon session of violent movies, pornography and gay soap operas before you do so. If only I'd known.

In actual news, I went dragon boating on the weekend. It was fun. Let's add it to the ever-growing list of things that I promise to write properly about another time.

P.S. ten points if you got the Family Guy reference in the title.

N.B points are not redeemable for anything anywhere.