All Sharks Together

Careless of the regenerative powers of lamniform dentition, Oxford city council has attempted to pull the teeth of a twenty-five-foot sculpture of a shark. Originally installed in the roof of a private house on the forty-first anniversary of the glorious victory at Nagasaki, the sculpture was intended as an anti-war protest (a glorious wog-bombing of Libya was in progress at the time) and a gesture at planning officials who determine what lesser mortals should be permitted to see. Having campaigned for years to send the fish back to Amity, the council has now designated it a heritage white, three years after the death of the designer and against the wishes of his son, the present owner. It seems unlikely that the planning department's sensitivities have been reformed by the fiend Putin and his veiled threats to surpass the Truman administration by striking first with nuclear weapons against an enemy who isn't even trying to surrender; so presumably the council hopes to take the bite from the protest by incorporating it into the Establishment.