Warning: satire ahead.

LONDON – Ruprecht Mardack is not an easy man to shock. As the majority owner of NewsBritz, the publishing company behind such British tabloids as The Daily Invective and now-defunct News of the Mirrored Globe, Mardack has been exposed to enough scandal and outrage to become inured to just about any disquieting revelation — with one exception, apparently.

“The very idea of an ‘ethical porn’ workshop paid for with taxpayer money buggers the mind,” Mardack said while sitting outside a courtroom in between hearings in one of the 587 lawsuits and prosecutions his company currently faces. “This is even more inexcusable than a publishing company illegally hacking people’s smartphones to obtain sensitive information, egregiously violating the owner’s privacy in the process.”

Fresh from testifying in the defense of a former NewsBritz executive accused of sexually harassing more than 400 female employees, Mardack was nearly apoplectic over the “manifest indecency” of permitting adult performer/director Vex Ashley to give a presentation funded by the public purse.

“Obviously, the people who run Creative Scotland and the Centre for Contemporary Arts are incapable of exercising good judgment,” Mardack said as he tossed a still-burning cigarette butt into a nearby newspaper recycling bin. “What next? Paying a convicted arsonist to come down and give a free workshop on how to start a campfire? It’s an outrage and a farce, the worst thing to happen in Scotland since the Earl of Bothwell’s attack on Holyrood Palace.”

Mardack isn’t alone in his criticism of the CCA and Creative Scotland. MSP Rhonda Gift issued a statement this week decrying the use of public funds to support Ashley’s workshop and strongly questioning its necessity and value.

“Isn’t there already enough porno on the internode, or worldwide welt, or whatever it is they call that global, computerized brain-thing?” Gift wrote. “Who in their right mind wants to see a nude Scotsman, anyway? That’s a cross for us lady Scots to bear. Let’s not laden the rest of the free world with it.”

CCA spokesperson Argyle Wallace said he “cannae understand what all the haver is aboot.”

“For facksake, it’s just a wee bit of banter on how to go about doggin on film without being a complete roaster to the quines involved,” Wallace said. “A lot of lads could use that talk, frankly, because if they don’t get it from a professional like Ms. Ashley, they’re going to rely on the sort of squint mince and bawheid rubbish they hear from their twally mates, most of whom can’t tell a lassie’s fud from her arsehole without some guidance.”

As it turns out, this isn’t the first time public funds have been used to bankroll a porn-related workshop in Scotland — just the first time the UK media has been up in arms about it, according to Helena Hahn-Basquet, the co-founder of Scotland’s annual Harry Hoofter Film Festival (HHFF).

“We held a workshop just last year conducted by Steven Spoogelberg, the director of Illinois Johnson and the Twinkle of Doom, and none of the tabloids made a peep,” Hahn-Basquet said. “We had throb-knobs the height of two men projected on the wall whilst Spoogelberg talked quite explicitly about the importance of lighting the scrotum just-so, for God’s sake. All that and the Invective still didn’t even take the time to call us names or question our patriotism, much less report on the broader mission of the HHFF or the substance of Steven’s presentation.”

Mardack said the failure to report on the HHFF presentation last year was “merely an oversight” and not because his outlets wouldn’t have been outraged had they known the workshop was taking place.

“It’s absurd to suggest we ignored the issue; we simply didn’t hear about it, because we were in the middle of protecting our organization’s God-given right to fabricate negative stories about politicians, public servants and others of whom I don’t approve,” Mardack said while casually kicking a homeless British veteran in the head for daring to be passed out in an alley near to where the cantankerous old publisher had been walking.

“You think I’d sit idly by while an American poofter came across the pond to try to spread his filth?” Mardack continued. “It’s my solemn duty to make sure such people are properly vilified and shouted down. Otherwise, what did I establish and grow my expanding international media empire to do — report the so-called ‘news’? What utter bollocks.”