All posts by David Gerard

Media, United Kingdom

Phew! What a scorcher

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PHONING IT IN, The Beach, mid-afternoon (NNN) — An ambulance service has praised a five-year-old boy after he successfully called 999 to report that his mother had collapsed and was unconscious in their home.

Mosaik in der Villa del Casale in Piazza Armerina, SizilienIn other news, a pet wears a seatbelt, alleged scientists have yet again discovered a formula for the perfect attractive woman (it apparently involves being short with long legs and large breasts), there’s a piece on ancient Roman bikinis, how to make the perfect cup of tea and lots of pictures of sunburnt, drug-addled women in bikini tops at a summer rock festival, including ones that aren’t Amy Winehouse. And it’s hot.

Crop circles have fallen out of favour in recent years. How the A-levels these days aren’t as good as proper A-levels were back in my day, you mark my words, remains a perennial favourite. With pictures of students in bikini tops.

“We’re holding out hope of the first skateboarding duck of the season,” said one of the few reporters still left in the office. “In the meantime, I’m researching a story about a long, short-breasted, large-legged sunburnt woman in a Roman bikini top making me the perfect cup of tea.”

A Metro writer was nonplussed at this line of questioning and asked precisely what was supposed to be different to their usual content.

Politics, United States

McCain picks George Bush as running mate

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CONSERVAPEDIALITY, Minnesota, Friday (NNN) — John McCain, 72, has announced his Vice-Presidential candidate: George W. Bush.

Sarah W. Bush“We think George represents … I’m sorry, it’s not George. It’s Sarah. And he’s black! I’m sorry, he’s female. Same thing.”

Bush, the governor of Alaska, is a former Miss Alaska, Vogue model and mayor of a suburb of Anchorage, and a firm believer in creationism, the global warming conspiracy, compulsory heterosexual marriage and the right to life only up to birth. “I firmly believe Sarah W. Bush is the most qualified person to be a heart attack away from the presidency,” said Mr McCain. “What is it exactly that the V.P. does all day?” giggled Sarah.

“It’s clear you should vote Republican, especially all you little ladies, because my vice-president shoots moose, rassles b’ars and has great legs and really cute tits. And doesn’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you … I’m sorry, he does plaster on the makeup like a trollop. Tits, though. All the evangelical Hilary fans should vote for tits. Black ones. I’m John McCain.”

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Technology, United States

Zombie Steve Jobs has system upgrade

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THE TECH GRAVEYARD, Cupertino, Thursday (NNGadget) — Steve Jobs, visionary leader of Apple Computer, has died — and come back, better and stronger.

Robosteve vs BillzillaThe news was carried in an obituary run by Bloomberg late last night, which was pulled when news of his resurrection came through.

“They don’t call it the Jesus Phone for nothing,” Jobs laughed with reporters, before eating their tasty, tasty brains.

Jobs’ new cyborg arsenal includes wifi, 3G, laser cannons, a flame thrower and a can opener, all running on Mac OS X Robosteve. Bundled applications include an enhanced hypnotic force field based on the one he uses at MacWorld keynotes. “I can’t wait to try it on Bill,” he said.

Disney, in which Jobs is the single largest shareholder, remained unaffected. “Steve’s just working with the way we do things here,” said the disembodied computer-hosted soul of Walt Disney, who was decanted to a computer in 1966 to avoid being declared legally dead, so that copyright in his works would never, ever run out.

Ireland, United Kingdom

Ryanair passengers fail to pay oxygen surcharge

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NICKELANDIME, Stansted, Tuesday — Terrified passengers believed they were about to die as their Ryanair flight to Barcelona suffered a loss of cabin pressure and dropped thousands of feet in seconds.

Ryanair Antoinette“We are a budget airline,” said chief executive Michael O’Leary. “We deliver what the customer wants to pay for. The Intact Fuselage Surcharge is optional.”

Several oxygen masks also failed to deploy or work. “I reached for my mask, but I didn’t have 50p for my son’s mask, so he died, which is a pity,” said Brenda Burberry, 34, of Essex. “I couldn’t get a hostess to come over and give me change for a pound. Slag.”

Many passengers suffered nosebleeds and damaged eardrums, though Ryanair was happy to defer the Nosebleed Surcharge and Eardrum Surcharge until after the flight rather than demand cash on the spot.

Mr O’Leary stressed that all safety procedures had been followed correctly. “All passengers extended their arms and said in unison, ‘I do believe in aerodynamics! I do!’ We also had MP3 players for hire to play the comforting phrase into the ears of those passengers who wanted to avail themselves of that extra service, if they were too busy screaming in terror to say it themselves.”

The emergency landing at Limoges International Airport was a “safety precaution” and all 168 passengers disembarked safely, after paying their Optional Emergency Landing Surcharge.

Politics, Technology, United Kingdom

Home Office in Internet propaganda war

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TEH INTARWEB, Lolcat, Tuesday (NNGadget) — Home Office counter-terrorism experts intend to exploit nu meeja websites to “channel messages through volunteers in Internet forums” as part of a campaign to “taint the al-Qaeda™ brand,” according to a document accidentally posted to Wikipedia this morning.

al-Failda“We understand that people on Internet forums have no experience whatsoever of participants paid to advocate a position or product,” says the report. “A single image macro exchange of ‘U R TERRIST’ ‘NO U’ ‘O RLY?’ ‘SRSLY’ could save countless lost souls.”

The unit is also targeting the BBC and other online news outlets. The main obstacle appears to lie in writing messages stupid enough to pass for genuine reader comments. “Some of our top fake news writers have burnt out their brains on the task and now sit shaking and gibbering about real life being worse than any parody. And house prices.”

Other work includes faked reports of al-Quaeda branded Zunes on Gizmodo, suitably on-message mouseover popups on XKCD and photomanipulations of Osama bin Laden as Pedobear on 4chan.

The initiative was spearheaded by a Home Office civil servant asked to account for the number of work hours he seemed to be spending on Internet message boards. His latest proposal is to fight al-Qaeda on MP3, BitTorrent and pornographic websites. “I’ve bought a new 500 gigabyte USB portable disk drive on expenses to store this important confidential data,” he said.

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Europe, Ireland, Politics

Ireland floats second EU treaty vote

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DUBLIN, Sicily, Monday (NNN) — Ireland may go to the polls again for a referendum on the new European Union constitution treaty gentleperson’s agreement. “I stress that this is very much only a personal view at this stage,” said European Affairs Minister Dick Roche, penciling the referendum in for next June at the very latest.

European Union diplomatic mission to IrelandIrish voters plunged the EU into a diplomatic crisis when they had the bare-faced cheek to reject the Lisbon treaty in June. The second referendum will have the options “YES” or “NEXT YEAR.”

“Minister Roche is not calling for a second referendum to be put,” a government spokesman said. “That would not be a fair reflection of his words. Of course, we’re utterly buggered if we don’t.”

EU President Nicolas Sarkozy concurred. “The people of Ireland have to understand: Europe is like a family. This is an offer you would be very unwise to refuse.”

MEP Mary Lou McDonald demanded concessions for Ireland before the treaty could be taken to the voters again. The EU quietly reminded her of their extensive offensive arsenal of “thousands” of truckloads of dangerously tedious documents, carrying toxic payloads of long-winded obfuscation and misdirection in several major and minor languages.

Politics, United Kingdom

UK Government loses all data on everyone

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THE MEMORY HOLE, Whitehall, Sunday (NNN) — Annual reports from Whitehall departments show that the government has lost all data it ever held on anyone.

Out of data errorLosses have occurred through couriered unencrypted disks, misplaced memory sticks, lost laptops, briefcases left on trains and files falling down the side of the tea machine. “The real scandal is that a train was running for them to lose a case on,” said a source whose name has been lost.

Treasury minister Jane Kennedy said the HM Revenue and Customs breaches did not necessarily result in data losses, or at least any that they have records of. HMRC said it takes data losses and security breaches “very seriously” and thoroughly investigates any breach that it does not lose track of.

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas has served enforcement notices on various departments for their data losses, but the departments in question could not find their office addresses to accept the notices. They noted, however, that Mr Thomas’ call was very important to them, and that he had been placed in a queue.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith reassured citizens that plans for an all-encompassing ID card linked to biometric passports and a universal medical record with the NHS would not change because of these losses. “We won’t even be thinking about them.”

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Health, Media, United Kingdom

New breast cancer hope for journalism

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PAGE 3, Wapping, Saturday (Norks News Network) — A new breast cancer treatment has led to new hope for newspaper proprietors being able to run more pictures of topless women with one hand over their breasts.

The story follows mere days after earlier stories concerning red meat, carbohydrates, drinking, high levels of daily stress and deodorant causing breast cancer, stories concerning bone cancer drugs, prostate cancer drugs, a “happy outlook” and high levels of daily stress preventing breast cancer and, of course, several close-ups of Kylie Minogue’s bottom.

Lucy Pinder

“It’s been a bumper season,” said Grub Street mogul Desmond Murdoch, “so to speak. We’ve actually had to find a third and fourth file photo of a topless woman with a hand over her breasts. Though we ran a fabulous two-page spread of a self-examination conducted by Luscious Lucy, 19, of Sheppey, who wants to grow up to work with cute puppies and children and be in Nuts next month.”

Additional opportunities were provided by the Portsmouth University breast biomechanics team, who actually managed to get paid money to find out that “breasts move up to 21cm during exercise and they move up and down, in and out and from side to side,” although further funding and DVD duplication equipment is apparently required before final results can be produced.

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Science, Technology, United States

Intel demonstrates wireless power for the home

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INTEL CASTLE, Transylvania, Friday (NNGadget) — A future without batteries — no need to charge phones or MP3 players, or even electric cars. No lost phone chargers, no running out of power sockets. Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner demonstrated a Wireless Energy Resonant Link as he spoke at the annual Intel developers forum in San Francisco yesterday.

FrankensteinRattner demonstrated this by causing his ears to light up at 60 watts of power a yard from a power transmitter operated by his assistant Igor. Only four journalists were incinerated when the power earthed through them from his fingertips.

Rattner reassured us that pumping kilowatts of power around the home through magnetic induction power is absolutely harmless. “The human body is not affected by magnetic fields,” he said as one journalist with a pacemaker collapsed and another with a knee replacement watched his leg catch fire. “There’s no danger whatsoever from it, any more than there is from mobile phones cooking your brain, microwave leakage blinding you, chemical waste unraveling all the DNA in your balls or statistical clusters of kids with cancer wherever high-tension power lines run overhead. Asbestos and thalidomide were horribly slandered in their day too.”

“Of course, Nikola Tesla did it first in 1899,” said enthusiast Albert Tedious-Anorak, 54, of Little Boring. “I detailed this at length on Wikipedia, but they refused to believe the value of my revelations on this matter due to a conspiracy of Edison fans amongst the site administrators.”

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Politics, United Kingdom

UK economy comes to a complete halt; everyone gives up and goes home

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CANTBEARSED, East Cheam, Friday (NNN) — UK economic growth ground to a halt between April and June, according to official statistics.

Big Ben closed for businessEconomic activity has ceased, with nothing being bought or sold. No-one has shown up to work in the last two weeks. Tube stations have been buried under uncollected copies of Metro. The populace have given up eating, choosing instead to sit humming and staring into space.

House prices have dropped 99.998%, the last recorded offer being five quid and a bottle top. “I didn’t take it because I couldn’t be bothered,” said Boris Busybody, 77 (IQ), of East Cheam. “Not that anyone else will be asking.”

Fears of Mad Max-style gangs roaming the country with guns and flamethrowers have failed to come to pass, owing to a shortage of paraffin and general apathy. “What’s the point?” said tribal gang warlord Ravencrush Hornbastard. “There’s no telly on anyway and the shops are all shut. What would we spend it on?”

“It could be worse,” said treasurer Alistair Darling. “We could be trying to use the US dollar as currency.”