Like you, I had thought that this blog had long ago died of natural causes. But a recent Tonight Show with Jay Leno has kicked it back to life.

Censorship is thrivng in Malaysia. One department is concerned with protecting the tourist industry. For example, Malaysian films are not allowed to show Kuala Lumpur under haze. Since the Indonesian rainforests are being systematically burned down and the wind often blows this way, that's a lot of haze to ignore. Also, it wouldn't be useful to show snatch thieves, or tourists being cheated by taxi drivers. You can report these things in the press, provided you don't suggest that it's a problem. These are isolated incidents. Like any country, Malaysia has isolated incidents; what it doesn't have are problems.

Then there is the Islamic propriety department. On buses and trains, along with the pictures warning against smoking, eating and littering, there is an image of two people with their lips together and a line through it. This is something that foreigners apparently do, called "kissing". (Can I say that?) Of course you can't show this on TV, even between married couples, which shortens most movies and causes some awkward cuts.

The naughty-word sub-branch of this department must be a pretty busy place. All the naughty words are muted out. By far the most common objectionable word is the one referring to the buttocks. You know, the old-testament-donkey word. Three letters. Two of them are the same.   Come on, people: we're talking about "ass". Oops, I mean:  "   ".

Until you hear all the dead air, you'd probably be surprised at how often this word occurs on TV. In fact, there are so many of them that sometimes one of them slips through, giving viewers a kind of mild thrill unavailable to you overseas unfortunates. "Hey, he just said '   ' ! "

Anyhow, a recent Jay Leno show ended with an old number which in typical blues style consisted of little more than one line repeated at least a dozen times: "Hold on, hold on, keep your eyes on the prize, hold on ... Hold ohn, hold oh-un, keep your ahz on the prahz, hold ohn." 

And every single time, what we heard was: "Hold ohn, hold oh-un, keep your [mute] on the prahz, hold ohn."

And this week's contest, for a free video of all the excised bits of last week's broadcasts, is to submit a picture, in any medium of your choice, of exactly what the censor thought that song was about.