Seriously. Get a load of this.

Received the following tweet from Chris Spyrou, who I know from Twitter as being even more obsessed by the hacking scandal than I am.

No need to click the link, it leads to the following exchange.

“ Where is the Daily Show Global Edition? Didn’t record on More 4, and it’s advertised, but not on More 4 +1. @C4Insider chrisspyrou July 25, 2011

I was curious as to why an episode of The Daily Show that would have been of particular interest to the UK public–covering, as it did, the News of The World scandal–would not be shown in this country. I tweeted @C4insider.

Well. You’ll never guess.

“ Asked Channel 4 why the latest Daily Show isn’t being shown on 4+1 (HT: @chrisspyrou) and got the following reply… Glinner July 26, 2011

“ @Glinner We are prevented by parliamentary rules from broadcasting parliamentary proceedings in a comedic or satrical context. C4Insider July 26, 2011

Oh, OK. Wait, what?

Holy shit! So politicians in the UK…

….so politicians in the UK and Ireland are protected from satirical TV programs by the law? But only if they’re for national consumption? REALLY? This means that the The Daily Show writers can make fun of the UK using Parliamentary footage, but satirists in the UK can’t. This means that Have I got News for You can use the following clip…

…but IRISH SATIRISTS CAN’T! insane? Doesn’t anyone else find this situation

“ @C4Insider @Glinner OK well those rules need changing. Doesn’t sound right that America can take the piss out of us but we can’t tomhare July 26, 2011

Well, QUITE. Here’s one bit that would have been in the Global Edition.

It’s region-locked, but there are several ways to see it. I use Overplay VPN but there are many free alternatives (the vast majority of which I find impossibly fiddly…and I was never a big Torrenter). The only free service that ever worked for me was using Firefox with the Modify Headers extension, so give that a go before doing anything else. Here’s how it works…

Anyway. I digress. Around the same time that all this was happening, I discovered that Ai Weiwei is on Google+. His ‘about’ page reads “Suspected of being involved in: distributing pornography, tax evasion, inciting subversion, shortchanging someone in a transaction on the black market, keeping a mistress, plagiarism, and reselling cultural artifacts for profit (seven deadly sins).” Poor guy. They’ll probably take him in again for that. Can you imagine living in a country whose rulers were so scared of satire that they… Never mind.

Thanks to everyone who sent this link , which has just now started working for me.