Shazia’s week

Britain must be on the verge of sharia law: last night I was introduced on stage as Sharia Mirza.

On Friday morning I bumped into 19 other comedians at Heathrow Airport and boarded a plane to Miami. Twenty comedians shoehorned into a 747 for nine hours – the airline staff didn’t see the funny side. The last thing they want is to be met by a barrage of one-liners as they serve dinner. The first half-hour of the flight was vaguely amusing, but it soon became a mid-air remake of Carry on Camping.

I breezed through customs, which is a novelty for me. I felt sorry for the hundreds of Mexican people trying to convince stern officials that they were in Miami to holiday and not clean floors. The more time I spend in the US, the less I seem to understand what they’re saying. More and more frequently the conversations are identical and consist of, “Hi there, are you like? I’m like? Erh, ooh, ar, eh, like? Whatever? Hello!” That’s our language they’ve shredded. It doesn’t help my paranoia because I’m always expecting to be compared to something. What am I like? A Vegas showgirl? A suicide bomber? Madonna? What?

In America, the volume of everything goes up by ten decibels. I walk around shell-shocked as people shout at me. The beach resembles Hampstead Heath on a Saturday night. The men are all perfect but constantly on the prowl, the women are all perfect but artificial. Walking down South Beach, I wondered if it really should be renamed Silicone Beach. I’m used to England where we have Cellulite Beach.

There I was, living it up, rollerblading across Miami Beach in a bikini, basking in the freedom of America. Then no sooner had I touched down at Heathrow than I discovered that Britain was on the verge of sharia law. This is obviously having a profound impact on everyone, as last night I was introduced on stage as “Sharia Mirza”.

At last Islamic law is catching on; it’s been in full swing in the backstreets of Oldham for years. But I am deeply concerned about the story of the man with learning difficulties who got married over the phone to a girl in Bangladesh. This is deemed satisfactory under sharia. I may be the product of two strangers getting married, but this man wasn’t even at his own wedding! He listened to it on a speakerphone. Can you imagine?

“If you take this caller to be your lawful wedded wife, please press the hash key now.

“Please hold.”

Cue Elton John hold music.

“Congratulations, caller, you are now married.”

What happens if you get the wrong number and you end up being married to Lisa at the British Gas call centre?

Sharia has advantages – you get a wedding for just the price of a phone call. At non-peak hours it’s even cheaper. You don’t get any wedding presents but you do get unlimited texts.

Poor Rowan Williams – he’s in a no-win situation. If he’d condemned sharia he’d have been accused of causing racial tension, and now he’s mentioned it he’s still accused of causing racial tension. All he suggested was that some aspects of sharia could be good. But then there is good in everything. Some aspects of Hitler were good – he loved his Alsatian dogs.

If there was sharia in Britain, there would be no G-strings, no binge drinking, no Jordan, and we couldn’t stumble drunkenly along a railway carriage at midnight singing “I Will Survive”.

Who says sharia is a bad thing? Arch Bish rules OK.