Oh Morrissey, you sly, irreverent old coot. Again with the press tickling subversiveness to stoke up the word counts in your favour and fire up the defenders of free speech and multiculturalism alike. Never one to shy from the limelight are you?Many are preoccupied with the amount of heart felt meaning Mr. Morrissey truly holds in relation to his latest comments on China, animal abuse and claims of stunted eastern evolution. Surely these people are missing the point? Whether or not Morrissey means it or not, he’s just playing the media into his latest cat and mouse game. He’s got a new (well, rereleased) album coming out and an autobiography. Why spend pounds and dollars on advertisements and PR when you can just drop a bomb out of your gob during an interview and sit back as the great and good swarm over the burning crater to ooh and ahh at the charred remains as your word-of-mouth stock once again rises like some kind of cynically orchestrated phoenix cliche.

It’s possible Morrissey is some horrible fascist with a penchant for lyricism whose old age is breaking down his already feeble walls of self censorship on what’s PC and fair in tolerant, mainstream society. Then again, it could just so much be that “Mozza” is sitting back, vegan juice drink in hand, and smirking at the hoohar his latest batch of bullshit has stirred up. Either way, assessing the word play of his work as a solo artist and as the singer in The Smiths for any traces of goose stepping or racism is a bit far off the mark. The man has always been a media whore and whether he is sincere in his latest controversial remarks, his true aims of free publicity have been achieved once again with ease.

Such a tease.