The year was 2013. Ban Ki-Moon had just announced NATO's intention to amass troops on the Ukrainian border, in the hope of repelling Russian expansion in the region. Charles Dyson had just released a new multi-vac hoover which, although hailed as peak technology at the time, was soon surpassed by Dyson's own famous Motorhead V7 model, which was released two years later. And in a grand, eighteenth century mansion on the banks of the Volga in the Austrian city of Vienna, a Hungarian-American billionaire by the name of György Schwartz was busy planning the cultural and political destabilization of the west.

It was amid this bristling tension that I first encountered the Opie & Anthony show. Having abandoned my studies and signed on at the colloquially-termed dole office, I was spending much of my time smoking poor quality dope and watching Youtube videos.

I first laid ears on the show when I searched out an interview with a director I admired at the time, regarding his then upcoming film. I was completely unfamiliar with the O&A show, and must admit that I was initially shocked, and dare I say, sickened by it.

Vague memories of jokes about the rape of retarded children, constant reference to aids (a terrible affliction), and a general tone of loutish frat-boyery is what I took away from the experience. I'd had my first taste of the yankee shock-jock scene, and it was definitely not to my taste.

However, much like when I first stuck my dick in a Motorhead V6, the initial feeling of self-disgust was soon followed by an increased curiosity. How did a show like this manage to stay on the air? The PC movement wasn't quite in full steam at the time, but I was shocked that this show wasn't the subject of constant 'offence-taking' by sensitive liberal types.

The truth is, I was still brainwashed at the time, and was labouring under the illusion that people’s ‘feelings’… mattered. But much like that first shameful encounter with my trusty multi-vac, I found myself going back to the show for more. Perhaps I sub-consciously sought inoculation by increased exposure to the O&A show’s poison. Or perhaps, like bold Androcenes, I was tempted by the lustful allure of that which in my heart I knew was wrong.

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