WEF moots Cthulhu-led recovery

The World Economic Forum in Davos is discussing a Cthulhu-led financial recovery.

Bring Me The Head Of Iggle-Piggle“Britain is uniquely placed to lead this effort,” said Gordon Brown, “with the horrifying necessities being explained to the public by such televisual works as In The Night Garden. Adults will be driven to spend more time at work to get away from the mind-twisting horrors and their children will be properly indoctrinated in the cult of the Great Old Ones.

“Yes, my name is Great Cthulhu
Ia! Ia! Fhtagn gruh R’Lyeh!
Come to eat your mind and dreams too
Ia! Ia! Fhtagn’nagl gruh!”

sang Mr Brown.

“As their souls are consumed,” he said, “the workers’ semi-animate bodies can continue to go through the motions necessary to keeping the economic machinery fed. The surplus unemployed will make fine appetisers. You cannot kill that which has no life.”

Peter Mandelson then started a video showing strange multicoloured puppet creatures assembling and dancing frenetically, their incomprehensible eldritch chanting in an unknown tongue to a chorus of unearthly tritone-filled music growing faster and more anguished for three full hours until ending in a long, terrible chorus of howls, while brightly coloured lights flash on a gazebo and a toy train and farting blimp circle about. “Ipsy, upsy, Daisy Doo!” he added.

Nicolas Sarkozy objected, stressing French post-modernist philosophy’s powers to exterminate all rational thought. Angela Merkel offered up German porn. The Japanese merely smiled quietly.

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Luckless cipher named as new Met commissioner

MENEZES, Stockwell, Wednesday (NNN) — Luckless cipher Sir Paul Stephenson has been named as Commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police.

Police toiletSir Paul, 55, who was deputy to previous chief Sir Ian Blair, said he was “enormously proud” and was looking forward to bringing “a complete change, only somehow more of exactly the same.”

Leading a staff of more than 50,000 and overseeing a £3.5bn budget, he will be expected to continue the fight against terrorism, young people wherever they may be and falling house prices. He said his priorities would include cutting crime, catching criminals and “all that police-y stuff. The job of the Met is to deal with crime and make the streets of London safer. And state the bleeding obvious in press conferences.”

Sir Paul’s first priorities include the Olympics, the arrests of MPs, youth knife murders, organised crime, child protection, the recession and anything at all that doesn’t bring to mind electricians being shot through the head in tube trains by armed police. He will be meeting with the National Black Police Association to offer them an entirely new series of platitudes and empty gestures.

Wikipedia and Britannica swap operating models

WIKIALITY, San Francisco, Monday (NNN) — The online user-generated social networking site Wikipedia and the venerable Encyclopædia Britannica are both considering radical changes in how they are run.

Bouncy Wikipedia logoWikipedia is proposing a software change that would see revisions on some articles being approved before they went live on the site. “Our featured articles on subjects such as 4chan cannot be sullied with false reports and vandalism BUSH IS GAY LOLOLOLOL,” said Jimmy Wales.

The change has proven controversial. “It’s a slippery slope,” said administrator “WikiFiddler451” (real name WikiViolin451). “I don’t see how we can reasonably keep the Pokémon and Naruto entries sufficiently up-to-date and welcoming of new contributors. I understand the queue for edits to go live could be up to an hour. The occasional accusation of paedophilia against minor public figures in the page that’s top Google hit on their name is a small price to pay for the most up-to-date neutrality.”

Meanwhile, the Encyclopædia Britannica has considered adopting “wiki”-like methods (from the Hawaiian word “wikiwiki,” meaning “your proposed edit is stalled on a six-month discussion by obsessive nerds who failed a Turing test and speak entirely in WP:INITIALISMS”), particularly when it comes to their publicity. Under the plan, readers and contributing experts from Encyclopædia Dramatica will help expand and maintain press releases about those deemed “suppressive” by the editorial board, comparing them to public toilets and assorted unflattering Internet memes, and darkly insinuating that Google only pushes Wikipedia because they’re in it for the money.

However, Britannica said it would not follow in letting a wide range of people make contributions to its press slander. “We will require UnNews accreditation at the very least,” said Britannica president Andrew Keen. “Citation is needed.”

Tories head downmarket

T’MILL, Westminster, Friday (NNN) — David Cameron has announced a shadow cabinet reshuffle to enhance the Tories’ working class credibility.

Soviet Tory propaganda“Everything old is old again,” said Mr Cameron. William Hague has been reinstalled as the reserve Dave, Ken Clarke has been brought back to be snide at Gordon Brown and John Major will reprise his role as the nerdy little goit who got his head flushed every lunchtime. George Osborne has been sent off for de-elocution lessons. “’Appen,” said Mr Osborne.

“Labour’s a bunch of middle-class wankers tryin’ to administer everyone,” said David ‘Nosher’ Davis. “The Tories respect the povs’ intelligence and intrinsic street-smarts, and know how to go up to them and say, ‘yo, blud, I’m an avaricious self-centred materialist like you, bro’.’ Some of our best Tory leaders ’ave come from the estates. Er, don’t tell Dave I said that, okay.”

Eric Pickles, the cartoonish fat working-class businessman parachuted in as Party chair, concurred. “It’s necessary to turning the misdirected energy of the youth to good account. We need a real commitment to tackling the causes of crime, and to teach young people how to commit only decent businessman-like corner-cutting of greater plausible deniability.”

“I’d like to state my firm support for this initiative,” said London mayor Boris Johnson. “What ho, gosh darn those wack Nu-Labour sucka MCs, chaps. My Brompton weighs a ton.”

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Microsoft UK launches MSN MusicTurd™ service

BOLGIAS 8 AND 9, Pit of Despair, Friday (NNGadget) — In a bid to win back profits after huge layoffs worldwide, Microsoft UK has launched MSN MusicTurd™ for mobile phones.

Microsoft Zune “Anus” logoThe highly competitive music store offers tracks at twice the price, DRM-locked to a chosen individual ear of the purchaser. If they can get it to work with their phone. Microsoft were careful to point out to the financial press that charging your account, however, works perfectly and that the helpline number has been connected to a fax machine.

Microsoft is confident the MusicTurd™ service will attract millions of people who will buy tracks from them to play on one mobile ever, not transferable to any other device including the same phone’s replacement, in preference to stores offering cheaper unlocked MP3s, and won’t just drive people to filesharing networks, MP3 blogs or copying 500 gigabyte USB disks full of music from their friends in sheer disgust at these corporate tools.

“We understand that lots of people use telephones they carry around with them these days,” said Hugh Griffiths, Microsoft UK head of Mobile, “and you can even play music on them. A bit like a transistor radio. Whatever will they think of next! So if we get the consumer interest, we’ll offer an enhanced version, MusicTurd™ Polished™. Like we’re doing with Windows 7. You can’t expect it to be any good until the third version, of course. So buy the first two and it’ll be fantastic. Trust us on this. We have hundreds of loyal suck, er, customers on the MSN website, I’m sure we can squeeze them until the pips rattle.

“What do you mean, I’m lacking enthusiasm for our product? You’d think I was trying to get redundancy in the next round of layoffs or something. Ha! Ha! What a ridiculous notion.”

New weight loss pill for MPs’ expenses

THE LITTLE MPs’ ROOM, Palace of Westminster, hour thirteen and counting (NNN) — The Government has swallowed a bitter new weight loss pill in attempts to stop the release of details of MPs’ expense reports.

Gordon Brown after Nicola McLean after OrlistatThe drug, FOIlistat, will produce a massive outflow in the event of an MP even thinking about expense padding, revealing full details of tapeworms and other parasites, a telltale Brown stain and a pungent stench. Any fat in the expense report will be passed through the National Audit Office undigested, leading to the customary flatulence and informational incontinence.

Shadow Commons leader Alan Duncan suggested caution. “We don’t just want, by making our expenses available, to allow ourselves to be subject to open season of malicious and vexatious attacks, such as people actually reading them and commenting on them publicly. With friends like this, who needs enemas?” He then issued a truly resounding wet fart and quickly shuffled off sideways.

Much like the drug, the prospect of releasing their expenses has made MPs shit themselves copiously. “Not only will the direct Pavlovian approach work,” said Owen Blacker of mySociety, “it’ll keep us in Channel 5 comedy for decades.”

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The Gordon Brown inauguration

BOLGIAS 8 AND 9, Westminster, Tuesday (NNN) — Tens of people have gathered in the British capital to see Gordon Hussein Brown (name changed last week by deed poll) sworn at in as Britain’s second president.

The Audacity of HopelessCrowds inexplicably failed to pack into the Parliamentary gallery from dawn in a cold and wintry London to witness the opening of Parliament. The President arrived in his official Robin Reliant to deliver his inaugural address, a twenty-minute speech focusing on the theme of everything having gone to shit and Mr Brown being the one to get us out of it, having gotten us into it.

Unprecedented security is in place, with two or three security personnel, all called Reg, on stand-by in Westminster. Security officials said they were monitoring a “potential threat” of “uncertain credibility” on inauguration day.

Across the UK, there is a sense of history being made. Gloomy Monday; house prices dropping; terrible weather; a new Doctor Who; Celebrity Big Brother; the X Factor Christmas number one. Anticipation has been building across the country ahead of the ceremony.

But Mr Brown faces serious challenges. The UK is gripped by uncertainty as it faces its worst crisis in decades. And as well as Peter Mandelson being back, the economy’s in the toilet and everyone’s broke.

But hope rises still. In a gesture of good cheer, the Chancellor has announced the introduction to the market of special duty-free Labour Party fundraising refreshments of rebranded White Lightning and Tennants Super.

George W. Bush has also been in touch with Number 10, letting them know he’s currently free to join Mr Brown’s Government of All the Talents. Lord Mandelson said he would definitely process Mr Bush’s application within the next several years.

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“Gloomy Monday” mathematically proven the most depressing day for journalists

THE TUBE, The Bloody Commute, seven bloody AM (NNN) — Phil Space, an expert in depression at the University of Metro, has discovered a mathematical formula to pinpoint today as Blue Monday, the day when six factors come together to leave journalists at their most miserable.

Mondays hate Amy Winehouse tooThe factors are: the dank and gloomy weather; the lack of articles to fill the spaces between the ads; a feeling of monotony writing the seventh “the economy’s utterly sodomised” story; broken New Year’s resolutions to get a more socially worthwhile job, like picking maggots out of a corpse’s arse with your teeth; low levels of motivation; and it’s bloody Monday. Also, that you ran this story last year but that was on January 21st.

The mathematical formula for misery is:

Garrett Lisi’s E8 Equation of Everything

— where P is the weather, O is Barack Obama’s inauguration while we’ve still got Gordon Brown, T is the probability of Abi Titmuss playing Doctor Who’s next companion, B is the lack of stories about students in bikinis in this weather, W is Amy Winehouse flashing her tits around in a smacked-out stupor, R is recycling stories on ever-shorter time scales and H is going past horror at the idea of your boss noticing to losing hope that he ever will.

Phil offers tips for overcoming gloom: “Focus on the good things you do have in your life. If being one of the lucky people who still has a job gives you not even a slight sneer of superiority over the unemployed masses, and instead you have this overwhelming urge to get out a machine gun and kill every fucker on the tube in the morning … well, it’s worth a try. Also, good cheer comes in pints and makes for a bloody happy Friday and Saturday.”

Alistair Darling has been asked to stop visiting investment firm offices in the City talking up optimism and a more positive outlook by City of London street cleaners, who are running low on body bags.

Yet another Windows virus devastates millions of complacent idiots

CONTINUE TO SHOP, Avoid Panic Buying, Friday (NNGadget) — A computer worm that spreads through low security networks, memory sticks, and PCs without the latest security updates is posing a growing threat to users blitheringly stupid enough to still think Windows is not ridiculously and unfixably insecure by design.

BTI Explosive Breaching Free-Standing DoorDespite many years’ warnings that Microsoft regards security as a marketing problem and has only ever done the absolute minimum it can get away with, millions of users who click on any rubbish they see in the hope of pictures of female tennis stars having wardrobe malfunctions still fail to believe that taking Windows out on the Internet is like standing bent over in the street in downtown Gomorrah, naked, arse greased up and carrying a flashing neon sign saying “COME AND GET IT.”

Microsoft cannot believe people have not applied the patch for the problem, just because they keep trying to use Windows Genuine Advantage to break legally-bought systems. “Don’t they trust us?” asked marketing marketer Steve Ballmer.

Millions of smug Mac users and the four hundred smug Linux users pointed and laughed, having long given up trying to convince their Windows-using friends to see sense. “There’s a reason the Unix system on Mac OS X is called Darwin,” said appallingly smug Mac user Arty Phagge.

“It can’t be stupid if everyone else runs it,” said Windows user Joe Beleaguered, who had lost all his email, business files, MP3s and porn again. “Macs cost more than Windows PCs.”

“Yes,” said Phagge. “Yes, they do.”

Ubuntu Linux developer Hiram Nerdboy frantically tried to get our attention about something or other, but we can’t say we care.

Fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth runways approved

THE SPRAWL, Gernsback Continuum, Thursday (NNN) — The Government has approved plans to build another six runways and three terminals at the renamed Mega-Heathrow air city.

The new runways will be built as part of the process of paving the entire area inside the M25, with designated urban planning “grey belts.”

London after the Heathrow-induced climate changeThe plans are considered essential to maintaining London’s economic well-being. The city will be enclosed in a series of large perspex bubbles, with people travelling over the flooded streets in advanced scientific hoverchairs. Official Thames crash zones for Airbus A320s will be built around the Embankment. “We are taking care to preserve our architectural heritage,” said Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon. “Rest assured, the Gherkin will be there forever.”

“The new runways are environmentally unacceptable,” said Ravenwoo Granola of the Fluffy Nice People Smashing Things Alliance. “People should learn to walk to New York instead.”

The village of Little Boring will be demolished. “I’ve lived my entire life here,” said Brenda Busybody, 77 (IQ). “It’s the destruction of a community. We might have to marry people we’re not related to!” After demolition the site will be salted by a volunteer workgroup of people who left the village as teenagers after being ostracised for having been born with ten fingers.

“I hope it’ll help global warming,” said Luscious Lucy, 19, of Sheppey, in her editorial column on page 3 of The Sun. “I can wear a bikini all year round. Or not. Fnarr!” The fashion page shows pinstripe bikinis and Speedos for office workers.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson is firmly against the plan. “Paving areas where the nice middle-class people who voted for me live is unacceptable. Instead, we should build Boris’s Super Whizzo Thunderbirds Airport Fortress in the Thames estuary. And pave Sheppey.” Luscious Lucy concurred this was probably for the best.

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