Category Archives: United Kingdom

The Gordon Brown inauguration

January 20, 2009 David Gerard 4 Comments

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.

Crowds 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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Health, Media, United Kingdom

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

January 19, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

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.

The 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:

— 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.

United Kingdom

Fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth runways approved

January 16, 2009 David Gerard 1 Comment

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.”

The 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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Education, United Kingdom

Minister rubbishes dyslexia to get headlines

January 14, 2009 David Gerard 4 Comments

BACKBENCH RUFFIANS, Madchester, Wednesday (NNN) — MP Graham Stringer has claimed that dyslexia “does not exist” and is merely a “cruel fiction” to cover up poor teaching.

“I am not, for one minute, implying that all functionally illiterate people take drugs and engage in illegal activities,” he said, “but the value of stringing ’em all up would be remarkable. To this end, I am moving to have dyslexia declared a criminal offence under anti-terror legislation.

“Also, we’re going to do something about those laggards taking up hospital beds and the evil scum criminally claiming disability, not to mention the layabouts and parasites claiming they should get a State pension just because they’ve ‘retired.’

“Synthetic Phonics™ will cure everything! It will simultaneously let the children pass tests and yet be so bored silly by deciphering words as if they’re coded messages that they’ll stick to The Sun and cause us much less trouble in the future.”

Synthetic Phonics was famously tested in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland on a small selected group of bright students of the sort who would learn to read off cereal packets and road signs given half a chance. “That it failed when tested on thickos is obviously due to PFI. That’s my backbench ‘rebel’ cred, by the way.”

He says the dyslexia industry should be “abolished. Next they’ll be advocating ‘genes’ and the ‘germ theory’ and ‘evolution.’ They should be convicted of war crimes in The Hague and sentenced to death, with the psychiatrists. I also have this excellent selection of reading comprehension texts by the noted educationalist and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard. Have you heard of him?”

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United Kingdom

BTP to tackle gangs with rubber gloves

January 13, 2009 David Gerard 2 Comments

MENEZES, Stockwell, Tuesday (NNN) — The British Transport Police has proposed that passengers buying a London train or tube ticket will be deemed to have consented to a public cavity search while their friends point and laugh.

The BTP wants to change the railways’ “conditions of carriage” to close a loophole that means officers at stations have no legal power to search someone for being brown or black in public. “Apparently it’s no longer legally considered ‘reasonable suspicion,'” said Jacqui Smith.

Consent to what would be extreme sadomasochistic practices if we weren’t talking about TSA personnel is already a condition of travel in the United States. Some searchers, such as Big Bertha at Seattle Airport, become tourist attractions.

Additional plans involve requiring all commuters to vote Labour in June’s council elections and consenting to being shot through the head by police marksmen.

The home secretary also wants to introduce orders banning individuals from visiting particular areas or wearing insignia or clothes that signal their allegiances. “We’re particularly worried about this ‘Nike’ gang we’re seeing across London, with its ‘swoosh’ logo depicting a large knife wound. This ‘er-and-bee’ music is also to be restricted.”

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Politics, Technology, United Kingdom

Labour takes back the “Web”

January 12, 2009 David Gerard 2 Comments

CYBERMANDY, The Information Super-Motorway, Monday (NNN) — Peter Mandelson has launched LabourListing.com, a completely independent Labour Party website not affiliated or controlled by the party in any way whatsoever.

“Spin is dead,” said Lord Mandelson today. “We’ve issued a press release to this effect to our favoured journalistic contacts.”

The site features an avatar of Lord Mandelson, a small “Handy Mandy” figure, to guide the reader through a very special Labour experience. Handy Mandy will offer the reader a completely free choice of several places to go to next, all leading to the same following page.

To compete with the highly successful ConservativeHome site, LabourLurching will feature:

A “take to this ‘Web’ thing” initiative involving the MPs most in tune with the culture and technologies of the Internet, such as Andy Burnham, with lots of help from his friends from the record companies. Labour supporters will be able to help vote on British Board for Web Classification ratings. “We should get through all two hundred million websites in no time.”
An Obama-style “virtual phone bank” for Labour campaigners in the run-up to this year’s council elections. The site will include coaching lessons in sounding like a robocall recording.
Breaking into “social networking,” on trendy and popular sites such as Friendster.
Expanding the use of “virals” and web humour. “We’re feeding pictures of Dave Cameron to 4chan, and we’re pretty sure we’re close to having one get popular instead of being followed up with a string of cartoons of Japanese schoolgirls with inflated breasts. Those nice fellows from b3ta also offered to help, and we can’t wait to see what they can do for us.”
Teaching Gordon Brown to use emoticons. “We’ve nearly managed to get him past putting frowny faces on everything.”

“The project will only work if we can end top-down politics,” said Lord Mandelson. “I am, of course, the first person anyone would think of for such a task.”

Technology, United Kingdom, United States

Google are evil bastards who will kill us all

January 11, 2009 David Gerard 3 Comments

YOUR LAPTOP, Your Bed, When You Think No-One’s Looking (NNGadget) — A new study shows that using Google will destroy the planet. A typical Google search on a completely random topic such as “charlot chirch sex tape” produces enough carbon for 98 pencils or seventeen boiled kettles and brutally murders an average of two point four cute fluffy things.

“A Google search has a definite environmental impact,” said Alex Wissner-Gross of Harvard University. “Instead, you should use Windows Live Search — to be renamed Windows Love Search — which produces butterflies and baby seals. That’s instead of whatever you were looking for, but hey — it’s for the planet.”

Google is “secretive” about its energy consumption and carbon footprint. “Or at least, they told us to fuck off when we asked how many endangered species they’d killed off today. This proves their inherent malice. If you search using Google you may as well be strangling kittens. You should go to a trustworthy company of demonstrated moral fibre, like Microsoft.”

A recent Gartner report said the global IT industry generates as much greenhouse gas as the airlines industry. “Primary in this is the large quantities of hot air produced by completely independent analysts to support the views of the highest bidder.”

The Home Office welcomed the findings. “This proves that Internet users might as well be terrorists,” said Jacqui Smith, “and so we’ll treat them like they are. All Internet access in the UK will be run through Cleanfeed filters and your electronic ration book ticked off per web page used. Reading Wikipedia or the Guido Fawkes blog will, of course, be declared capital offences.”

Microsoft has demonstrated its environmental credentials by recycling Vista, its huge and lumbering Hummer of an operating system, as Windows 7. “All new and yet … old,” said marketing marketer Steve Ballmer. “Save the planet with Windows 7! Requires 4 core processor 2 gigabytes memory 500 gigabyte hard disk and basement nuclear power plant. Power plant sold separately.”

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Politics, United Kingdom

Young Tory expelled for dressing up as Tory

January 10, 2009 David Gerard 1 Comment

THE CHAPS, Hooray Club, Friday (NNN) — A member of the Young Conservatives has been expelled after going to a “bad taste” party dressed as a Young Conservative.

Young Conservative Matthew Lewis not only dressed up as a Tory, but bragged about it on his Arsebook page, saying he only needed “stockings and suspenders, a bin bag on my head and a tangerine in my mouth” to complete his outfit.

“There was a brief moment when I thought I might have gone too far with the costume, but it was OK — someone else went as Maggie Thatcher.”

Tory leader David Cameron had only a week before laid down new rules to avoid embarrassing gaffes by party activists.

“I fully understand the pain my actions have brought,” said Mr Lewis. “Dave says we have to act like fluffy greenie Lib Dems or something in public, at least where people can see us.”

“This offensive behaviour is not only shocking but intolerable and completely unacceptable,” said party chair Caroline Spelman. “There is no place for this sort of person in the party. He should look to his betters as an example, such as Prince Har— … I’ll start again, shall I.”

“The public will think long and hard before trusting anyone who acts like a Tory with their votes,” said ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair, to sniggers.

Health, Science, United Kingdom

Baby born without “journalism” gene

January 9, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

KALLIKAK, Gattaca, Friday (NotScientist) — The first British baby designed to be free of the “journalism” gene has been born.

The breakthrough gives hope to other parents afflicted by the condition, often running in families. “It will be mere seconds before blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan clones genetically engineered with hyperintelligence are frog-marching into the White House, the Kremlin and the United Nations to take over the world and condemn the rest of us inferiors to perpetual slavery,” said one rejected embryo before the autoclave kicked in.

Pro-life campaigners claim it is morally wrong to weed out imperfect babies. “Today it’s journalism, tomorrow it’s cancer, next year it’ll be Young Conservativism,” said Ann Widdecombe. “They’re already screening for all manner of cosmetic reasons in parts of Europe that I can’t specifically name right now. This is a tool to search and kill! We must shun and despise the children resulting from this genetic Frankensteinism.

“Instead, we should deliberately bring children into the world to suffer and then cut their disability benefits. To prove the strength of our feeling on this matter, we’re implanting unwanted eggs carrying breast cancer genes into ourselves personally, so the children can grow up living in fear their whole short lives of their own breasts killing them. It’s right and natural. We’re also looking to reintroduce bubonic plague and smallpox, on conservation grounds.”

“I don’t think you can equate eight cells in a dish to a human being,” said the parents’ doctor, “although it could probably edit the Daily Mail.”

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Technology, United Kingdom

Thieves of liberty to take away your freedoms and lightbulbs

January 7, 2009 David Gerard 1 Comment

AN INCONVENIENT TROUT, Gulf Stream, Tuesday (NNN) — Controversy has erupted over incandescent light bulbs being phased out in Britain to be replaced with horrible expensive yellow things that look like robot marital aids.

The switch to compact fluorescent lamps is expected to save households two-thirds of their monthly income, singlehandedly save Britain from climate change and bring about world peace, harmony and a top 10 chart not filled with rubbish.

However, many people find the low-energy bulbs ugly, slow to warm up and much more expensive, and the harsher light they give off akin to that of a police cell or McDonald’s. Their rapid flicker contains coded messages designed to hypnotise independent-minded Britons and turn them into gibberish-spouting Eurocrat cultists. The bulbs are made entirely of mercury, polonium and ebola. Scientists have proven that Hitler used low-energy bulbs for illumination when writing Mein Kampf, and paedophiles prefer internet images of dear innocent children taken under their unforgiving glare.

The Daily Mail has come out strongly against the compact fluorescents. “British cowed by tin pot marxists maddest flights from reality political class bizarre gesture Bliar take away liberty march on Westminster revolt against Europe IF YOU LIKE IT SO MUCH WHY DON’T YOU LIVE THERE.” To this end, the paper is giving away five thousand incandescent bulbs free when you spend a pound calling an 0900 number.

“We can’t be having this com-pack fluoro Euro rubbish,” said Brenda Busybody, 77 (IQ) of East Cheam. “They just don’t have the same warm glow to them. It’s so cold this week! We need more gas lamps and burning torches, they go well with the pitchforks.”

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a smashed keyboard full of hope and wonder