14 posts tagged “comedy”

Trade figures published by the Government today revealed that trade in attention moved into surplus for the first time, despite speculation that the so-called Credit Crunch might result in a flood of cheap imported attention.

Analysts have explained that the unique attention surplus was caused by two combined factors. First, that there was a significant and rapid increase in output of home-grown attention as manufacturers diversified away from traditional sectors such as trains, planes and automobiles.  Second, there was a fall in demand for imported attention because of the value of Sterling and a perception on the part of consumers that foreign attention was of a lower quality.  The recent scandal over high levels of lead content in imported Chinese attention was partly to blame for this, according to analysts who were not the same analysts mentioned earlier.

These combined factors meant that for the first time since records began - believed to be the flat disc record created by Emile Berliner in 1888 - the UK economy was a net exporter of attention.  Until the last quarter of 2008, the UK had always been in an Attention Deficit Disorder scenario.

The continued strength of US demand for attention in the last quarter of 2008 buoyed UK exporters, whilst Russian and Chinese demand for attention dropped significantly over the same period.

Referring to the unusual conditions, a Government spokesman noted that "the surplus does mean that we may need to re-think our terms of reference and terminology, perhaps instead referring to a generic Attention Status to allow for both deficits and surpluses of attention."

When it was put to the spokesman that this would actually result in an acronym of ASS for the current attention surplus situation, he clearly pretended not to hear.

The Department of Transport today warned road users to expect significant delays across the UK as the Google Street View service launched and gained excessive publicity in the country. 

The DoT reacted with concern to reports that motorists in numbers might attempt to locate and then follow in convoy one of Google's camera-equipped Street View cars or vans.

"We are highly worried that this will lead to almost complete gridlock on several key routes", said a spokesman.

Rumours have circulated on the internet over the past several days concerning the possibility of catching a blurred but recognisable image of someone falling off a bicycle, or a smudged image of a "lady" collecting a milk bottles delivery off their doorstep in their nightclothes, or perhaps the sight of someone just wearing a short skirt walking alongside the road. 

In addition, there is the mere curiosity factor which will swell the numbers of potential vehicles on the roads, warned the DoT.

One Google-Van-seeking motorist, travelling salesman Derek Bennett, 34 and single, from Solihull West Midlands, told us:

"I have my BlackBerry and my Sat Nav so I'm primed and ready to go. I do about 18,000 miles a year around the UK with my job, but I'm really looking forward to catching a glimpse of something I wouldn't ordinarily see on my travels."

"I'm ready to see the world in a totally different way than I did before."

Motoring organisations, such as the AA and RAC, have warned motorists who are not keen to follow the convoy of would-be sightseers, that they should avoid well-known Google Street View hotspots or "stay at home until the fuss dies down in a couple of days".

Details of the hotspots can be found on any web site aimed at prepubescent teens. 

In line with current thinking on exercise and public health, the UK Government is considering radical new plans to enforce a minimum pedestrian speed limit, according to leaked reports obtained by someone we know but funnily enough can't remember the name of.

Health experts have recently sought to measure "moderate exercise" and pinpointed the figure to be "one hundred steps per minute".  According to the leaked Government papers, it is this precise figure which will form the backbone of the new minimum pedestrian speed limit legislation.

Security analysts believe that the Police are in favour of the proposed law, despite the additional burden it would place on officers, because they see it as forming part of the necessary arsenal of judicial powers at their disposal to prevent terrorism, anti-social loitering and littering.  

Countryside campaigners have sought assurances from the Government that the minimum steps per minute rate would only apply in built-up areas, and that the casual walker or weekend rambler would be unaffected by the proposed laws.

It is thought that Police Officers would be empowered to show discretion when administering on-the-spot fines for law-breakers and would be equipped with new handheld radar devices to identify suspected offenders.  Discretionary powers would apply on a case-by-case basis where the elderly and infirm, injured or disabled might otherwise technically flout the law. 

Tourists, prostitutes, those pushing prams, and people pulling shopping baskets, are not believed to be amongst the exempt groups.  Special zones set up around schools with a higher steps per minute minimum will target paedophiles, slovenly students, and teachers who should have retired years ago.

If the initial law proves successful, experts predict that the technology will advance so that the rate of meandering of the person could be measured and taken into account as an additional consideration for a prosecution. 

A spokesman from Age Concern, when asked about the new law and its effect on the older citizen, expressed concern.
 

An unnamed reigning British and European boxing champion is reportedly to be charged with "bringing the sport into disrepute" by the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC).

Photographs of the boxer, believed to be aged 27, which were posted on FaceBook came to the attention of the BBBC earlier this month.  

It is alleged that the the fighter, believed to be a light middleweight, was photographed without the customary pose of clenched fists in the familiar and highly-regulated stance of the boxer fraternity.

An inside source at the BBBC, speaking under condition of anonymity told us:  "I was appalled when I first saw them - to be honest, it was like a video nasty.  To see a well-respected, well-known and successful boxer recklessly flouting the established laws of boxing in this way - well, it made my stomach churn."

The boxer told "our man" that on one occasion a photographer had caught him off-guard at a children's party and, on another, he had been doing his weekly supermarket shop.

An ex-world champion who was able to comment had no sympathy.

"Frankly, he's a disgrace to the noble profession of boxing. He really should know better. Look at Calzaghe - even wearing a suit and in the midst of a journo scrum outside a courtroom he's able to follow the rules. Now there's a model pro."

If the case of disrepute is proved, the BBBC has the power to enforce an 18-month ban from the sport and the immediate loss of all current titles.

The body responsible for the running of Formula One, the FIA, has dismissed claims from several unnamed sources that it is "quite literally making the rules up as it goes along."

Reports have circled widely in recent days as to whether Grands Prix in the upcoming Formula One Championship would be decided on a first-past-the-post basis or by Proportional Representation (PR).  The FIA has not confirmed or denied these reports, but we understand that intense meetings have been taking place this week.

Friend of the media, Max Mosley, was unavailable for direct comment, but a source told us that there were "a number of things on the table and that beating them into shape was a priority."

Around the teams - currently testing for the forthcoming season - several rumours have emerged which were causing significant unrest amongst the millionaire playboys:

- a new "best dressed driver" category will replace the previously floated "rear of the year" award
- a "best of breed" system will be used for the first time, although critics claim that such ethnic profiling would break a number of national and international laws.
- a new points system based on the numbered position of grid qualification to the power of final race position divided by the number of law suits against the FIA entered into by that team in the previous 48 months.
- new points weightings based on "technical merit" and "artistic impression" parameters, yet to be divulged.
- that the F.I.A has not yet decided and in fact has no clue at all, and will probably decide who has won the championship "after the fact" and probably in court.

A FIA spokesperson was unable to provide confirmation of these rumours but did ask us if we knew anything about cars and had any ideas.

Scientists and space boffins in the UK will not be dropping their ambitious plans to map gravity despite the successful launch of the European Space Agency's own Goce satellite system this week, according to an insider.

It is believed that significant amounts of the funding secured in 2002 for the UK scheme has already been "committed" to the project. Which means, according to experts, that it has been spent.

Our insider told us. "Of course, it's a blow to the programme and we wish the ESA people had spoken to us first because it's clearly duplication of efforts.  But, we've now got all these 100 kilogramme paint bombs, so we might as well use them."

The UK team is keen to complete the project which consists of an aircraft flying just below the outer reaches of the Earth's atmosphere. Many thousands of "paint bombs" will then be dropped. The resultant "landfalls" will be used to map gravity.

"We're still confident that our own method of mapping gravity has scientific merit. The team is sure that our paint bomb approach will surely cause some surprises", said our insider.

An ESA spokesman was unable to comment due to extended and uncontrollable laughter.

Scientists from the University of Kortnapping in Finland today unveiled ground-breaking research on social networking which reveals the crushing impacts that such internet sites as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook might have on pub culture.  An early sufferer of so-called "pub performance anxiety" (PPA) Trevor B, 46, from Gloucestershire spoke to us candidly about the problem.  We have protected his identity for his and his family's safety and his words below were typed by an actor.

Trevor recalls fondly how he felt about going to the pub before the "rampaging" effects of social networking.

"I was quite the larrikin, a bit of a jester, and the centre of attention in my local.  You know, always had an opinion, always ready with a joke or quip and I could do quite a few tricks with beermats," he told us.  "I wouldn't necessarily say I was the life and soul of the party, but I was certainly the pancreas or, perhaps, a gland of some sort."

Disgruntled Mutterings

"But then one night - it was a night like any other, really - after I had flipped and successfully caught five, I think it was five but it might actually have been six beer mats, I heard some disgruntled mutterings around the table."

"Foolishly, I didn't think anything of it. But then over the next few weeks mobile phones started to appear in the pub and it didn't seem like I was really connecting with my friends anymore. Then, I started to hear words I'd not heard before... retweet, delicious, mash-up...stuff like that.  And it all went downhill from then on."

The realisation that his drinking buddies were no longer impressed by him was made all the worse for Trevor when he uncovered the reasons why.

Fall flat

"Overnight it seemed, they were starting to gain their opinions from these web sites.  They were looking factually at both sides of an argument in order to gain an insight before they'd come to their own conclusions.  They were watching monkeys juggling chainsaws whilst riding unicycles on YouTube.  They were enjoying humorous postcards and witticisms on their Facebook Walls, and they were even following Stephen Fry on Twitter."

"I couldn't compete, " a visibly upset Trevor told us.  

"Of course, there were times before all this happened when I would forget a punchline or a story would kind of meander.  Or a joke would fall flat.  Sometimes, I wouldn't be able to catch the beermats - I was never quite consistent with the beermat tricks but I really was working on it."

"It never really seemed to matter before, but all this social networking has changed that.  Everything on the internet is much funnier, much cleverer - AND they can do it right every time without fail.  It's just not fair."

Form went right off

Before long, Trevor found himself struggling to come to terms with his affliction.

"I would lie awake at night worrying about whether my jokes were current and funny.  I became anxious and panicky about whether my opinions were strongly-formed, based on sound reasoning and backed up by the facts.  And, most crushingly of all, I increasingly suffered with the jitters when it came to beer mat flipping.  My form went right off."

"It ruined my nights at the pub," bemoans Trevor, through tears.  "So much so that I can't go there any more.  My wife and children have really felt the pressure and stress of this too.  But, unlike me, they seem to have found a way of coping.  They go out at night a lot more these days."

Incredibly small fish

Professor Ulfrick Ulrickson of Kortnapping University explained that Trevor's experience was common and not at all uncommon.  

"Our studies of the early victims of PPA reveal an alarming consistency in their symptoms.  When once they were big fish in small ponds, the ease of access to genuinely talented, interesting, and funny people via FaceBook, YouTube, Twitter and the like, has revealed the victims to be merely incredibly small fish in gargantuan oceans."

"And quite ugly, incapable and untalented fish at that."

[also published on www.newsarse.com - treating ALL news as A Remarkable Special Event]

--continued from the fourth part. 

As police reinforcements arrived at the front of the house, around the back of it a construction worker, a fake police officer and an indian chief were wrestling and tussling with each other on the gravel.  It was a scene that would have almost passed for the Village People settling significant "musical differences".  As the first of the reinforcements entered the garden, the "Village People" split and careered off in separate directions.  Simultaneously, a spiderman was attempting, rather foolishly, to emulate his namesake by scaling the garden wall by the side of the kitchen in an effort to gain an exit.  .Unfortunately, he had chosen a wall which several climbing roses had already successfully scaled and colonised.  He was caught in their web.  Several police officers extricated him rather unceremoniously from his plight, leaving his lycra suit resembling something that had been attacked by a mob of very sadistic kittens.  Or Jeremy's girlfriend.  

Meanwhile, those protagonists that were still standing and able to fight, proved it by delivering assorted forms of random violence.  Those that were unable to stand and deliver, didn't.  Tom and Ian were two of the key players who were still en route to determining the ultimate victor.  Hammer and tong had long since been jettisoned and it was now simply dog against gladiator in a fight for supremacy.  Until, that is, both were rugby-tackled to the ground by the first descending wave of police.  Ian was pinned to the ground face down and immobilised.  Tom was laying prone and face up - looking for all the world like he was about to have his tummy tickled.    

Whilst the police began their mopping up operation, attention was given to the many and varied casualties.  I counted several carefully disengaging themselves from hedges, emerging from within shrubbery or simply lifting themselves from the horizontal to the vertical on the lawn.  At some point the ladder which had been propped against the tree had been rammed through the window of the garden shed and was now pointing artistically and rather poignantly into the clear night sky.  On another day it would have been a strong contender for the Turner Prize.  

It would be fair to say that the attitude of the incoming members of the constabulary was of the "take no prisoners" mould, except that they were clearly intending to take as many prisoners as they could lay their hands on.  And after a few moments of taking no prisoners but then doing so, the garden no longer appeared to be a surreal battlefield and began to resemble something approaching normality.  Assuming that your idea of normal is the aftermath of a pitched battle between a carnival parade, a recruitment fair, a police conference, and a children's pantomime.

I made my way through the house, dodging the remaining pockets of violent activity in the kitchen and hallway.   Inside, the police were beginning to remove party goers.  Some were more than willing to leave and just needed escorting away peacefully.  Others, presumably unaware of what had transpired at the rear of the house or simply having a good time, were a more than a little resistant to any attempts to call time on the party.  On the coffee table, a thief - dressed in striped shirt and holding a sack with the word "swag" written on it in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other - was protesting his innocence and pleading with the police to leave him be because this was, in his words, "the best ... efffin'... partah... evah!".  There had also apparently been a tip off as to other criminal activities in the house, because "Robbie Williams" had been separated from his microphone and was now being led away.  Perhaps it was not to be his lucky night after all.

As I reached the front step I found my hosts engaged in a lively discussion with a police officer.   Behind them, several traffic wardens were being restrained and bundled into the back of a police van.   A scuffle was breaking out in the driveway between the two firemen and several constables which triggered a response from the traffic wardens to break free from their grips and set about their freedom.  My hostess' face bore the tears of a clown.  Literally.  Quite how one hopes to maintain an air of responsibility and upstandingness, whilst dressed up as Bozo The Clown and trying to explain a mini riot to a senior member of the local police force, I don't know.  But she was clearly trying anyway.  My host had his hand placed on her shoulder.  It was the kind of supportive public gesture usually reserved for a corrupt or cheating politician facing the assembled Press.  Judging by the look on the officer's face, they would not easily secure his convinction of their innocence.  Judging by my host's face, he was might easily be facing a conviction and would need a legal defence better than his physical defence.

After a few moments of listenening to their account of the night , I made my way to my car, tearing a bogus parking ticket off the windscreen before I got inside.  I retrieved my mobile phone from the glove compartment - I never carried it with me.  A few seconds and digits later a tired voice groaned out.  "This had better be good, Jon...  it's - what - half past two."  I assured the voice that it was indeed good and that it was that time of night.  

I suggested it should get down here with a photographer.  "Okay, so what's it about?" came the slightly more animated response.   I told the voice it was worth a half-page leader under the headline:  "Dog Chases Cat Up Tree".  "You woke me for that?  Stop taking the-- what was--".  The first interruption was the sound of a police siren wailing as it went past and then, subsequently, my own interjection. "Believe me, it's not quite your ordinary cat up a tree story... get yourself down here." 

"And by the way?"
"What?"
"Don't wear anything fancy".

-- continued from part three (but, of course.)

Almost as if responding to a signal or a starter's pistol, a woman from the sub-set launched herself forward, and headlong, towards the female inquisitor who was kneeling next to the heap of sheepskin rugs, now apparently also known as "Jeremy".  Her intents were malevolent - that much could be ascertained from the blood-curdling scream she emitted en route, and the hair pulling and scything fingernails she exhibited upon arrival.  As to what followed on from this I can only do my best to describe.  Please forgive me any patchy details or any inconsistences.  There are some things that I, although standing there and witnessing these events with my own eyes, find it difficult to comprehend fully in the cold light of day.  

I think it would be fair to say that what developed might colloquially be called a scrum.  To continue the sporting analogy, things kicked off, anyway.  The principal protagonists were, as I later learned: Ian, a friend of Jeremy's, and Tom, the boyfriend of the woman who had launched herself at Jeremy's girlfiriend.  To help you gain a mental picture,  Jeremy's friend Ian was dressed as a roman gladiator, although he didn't fight like one and the woman's boyfriend, Tom, ironically was dressed as a dog.  Probably a spaniel-collie cross-breed.  It should also be stated that the hostess of the party was also involved in a separate but nonetheless significantly violent fracas.  As Ian and Tom tussled around the lawn and dragged other willing and unwilling participants into their fight, she was already laying hands on the nurse from the kitchen.  But these weren't caring or healing hands.  They were hands around the neck in a gripping fashion kind of hands.   And as she did so she was roaring something resembling:  "You're not a freaking nurse, Tina... get the hell away from Jeremy!".  Tina, as it happened, did not say much in response, although it was clear from the gurgling sound from her throat that at least she was trying to provide some form of reply.  A monk was desperately trying to pull the hostess away.  What passed from his lips was not terribly befitting of a man of vows.

As mentioned, Tom and Ian's quarrel drew in further combatants.  Each new addition seemed to choose a side to fight on depending on either existing loyalties to one or the other, or alternatively, on whichever of Tom and Ian had bumped into them, their girlfriend, their boyfriend or their friend.  Within a few moments a full-scale battle had commenced and was gaining the kind of momentum that is usually reserved for locomotives.  One of the new participants was a burly traffic warden - he had cornered one of the "opposition" - a soldier - near the greenhouse and proceeded to throw him into it, sending cuttings, plastic trays and a myriad of other horticulture-related materials to the floor, whereupon they were joined uncermoniously by the soldier.  Out of the greenhouse, and in a less-than-fully-dressed and somewhat shaken state, came a nun.  She was closely followed by a vicar looking distinctly miffed by the interruption - and red-faced.  He expressed his lack of satisfaction by throwing an upper cut into the chin of the traffic warden, a punch which sent the latter reeling backwards into one of the firemen who proceeded to finish the job off with a pirouette and a glancing blow to the head using the lid from the composting unit.   The rotter.

By the time the genuine police arrived a few minutes later, I had counted at least three policemen and one WPC already engaged in the heat of battle.  The policeman I had already "met" was not one of them - he and his bimbo had sneaked off.  She was no doubt helping him with his enquiries and he was no doubt taking down some particulars somewhere.  The confusion caused by the official long arm of the law's arrival did not help matters.  In fact, for a time it made things much worse.  The combination of a bus conductor, a prison officer, several traffic wardens, an SS Officer, the real police and the several imposters of the constabulary meant that cases of mistaken identity were frequent and uniformly violent.

This also presented a significant challenge for the paramedics when they reached the garden.   Doing their best to attend to the victim of the tree fall, they were cutting away the fur of his cat costume to survey his injuries whilst dodging flailing bodies at the fringes of the battle.  They were unable to call upon uniformed backup because the melee made it impossible to do so with any certainty.  Tina had left the professionals to their job.  She was otherwise occupied - fending off one of the girls who had been displaying moves of an altogether different nature earlier on in the evening.  Credit where credit is due, it was clear that the girl was equally adept at common assault as she was at sexual assault.   As for "Robbie Williams", he was still inside the house manfully deconstructing another melody with all the finesse of a sledgehammer against a breeze block.

In the inner core of the fight, Tom and Ian were going at it, hammer and tongs.  Ian had grabbed the latter from the barbecue.  Where Tom had picked up the hammer from was unknown, but it certainly was the better option for committing acts of brutality.  Fighting alongside Tom was a vicar, displaying none of the solemnity of a Man of The Cloth and all of the brawling skills of a drunken docker in a pub car park.  He was doing unto another what they would have done unto him.  His straight right hand was particularly effective. As I've always said:  beware the religious right.

-- to be continued...

-- continued from part two (obv.)

Up against the trunk of the tree was a ladder.  A common or garden household or garden ladder.  The variety that is the perfect accessory for do-it-yourself accidents in and around homes across the nation.  "Lightweight, non-corrosive aluminium, with a propensity for toppling" it might have rightfully said on the product label or in the voiceover of the bizarre advertising videos that are often seen on screens around hardware establishments.  At the top of the ladder a fireman was precariously perched.  He certainly looked anything but lightweight and he himself showed alarming signs of being ready to topple.  At the foot of the ladder and holding the verticals rather casually was another fireman.   Both were looking upwards with intense expressions, although the lower of the two fireman seemed slightly more interested in the near distance rather than anything higher up in the tree.  

I moved forward a few paces so as to obtain a better view.  Admittedly, it was also to remove myself from vicinity of the person I had stepped upon just in case they suffered a sudden attack of consciousness and wanted to know why they had the painful imprint of a boot on their stomach.   It wasn't so much guilt on my part that made me move, rather it was self-preservation and cowardice, and a growing degree of curiosity as to what was occurring in the tree.

Part of my curiosity was simultaneously extinguished and then re-ignited a moment later when a dark figure fell with a rustle from the branches, taking out one of the fireman (sending his or someone else's pint of beer somersaulting across the lawn in spectacular fashion), and hitting the ground with a dreadful thump that was not pleasant to the ear and an arrangement of limbs that was not pleasing to the eye.  A woman behind me shrieked at this point, but upon my turning around, it was clear that she had not even been watching these events. Instead, it was a shriek of alcohol-fuelled hilarity directed towards the same policeman who I had seen earlier on, during my smashing entrance.  In fact, this was the same woman I had also seen previously, although she was slightly the worse for wear now and she was minus the Kojak-suited fellow and one of her stilettos.  What she was finding so hilarious was not totally clear.  However, it was apparent that a truncheon and some hand gestures were involved. To say that she had the laugh of a bimbo would be unfair.  But it would also be entirely accurate.

My attention was somewhat violently refocused on the events surrounding the tree by what can only be described as a wail for which a Siren would have been promoted up the ranks  -  and immediately gained legendary status.  Close on the heels of the wail, a female voice that I recognised shouted out  "Get a doctor!" and the crowd huddled around the dark figure which was now lying prostrate on the floor and showing no signs of either wishing to get up or being able to do so.   I craned my neck so as to gain a better view, although part of me really wanted to look in the opposite direction for fear of what I might look upon.  But then again, what I had just seen happening behind me between the bimbo and the policeman was not all that edifying either.

Over the shoulder of the man in front of me I was able to make out a heap lying on the grass.  It was not unlike the kind of heap that would be generated by someone throwing out a batch of used sheepskin rugs from a first floor window - not that I have ever seen such a thing but I would imagine it to be similar.  I tried to count the limbs in amongst the furry mass and distinguish them from the torso and the head, but it was not an easy undertaking since there seemed to be at least one too many limbs and the head was not present in the place I would have expected it to be located.  There were two audible gasps as one of the limbs moved.  The first, a pained gasp from somewhere within the heap which had managed said movement.  The second, a gasp from several spectators, which was an ingenious but slightly incredulous mixture of both horror and relief at the same time.  

"Jeremy are you OK?," came the quiet enquiry from a woman who had bent nervously over the heap of sheepskin rugs.  The heap dutifully groaned in response - although whether that meant a positive or a negative answer was open to debate.   A little voice inside my head made its own reply:  "Of course Jeremy's not OK...look at the angle of that limb... I don't think he came to the party with that... like that?!".  But, then from the woman, a less than quiet enquiry which was directed towards someone in the group that had previously formed a distinct sub-set, "YOU BASTARD!  HOW COULD YOU?!".

-- to be continued (obv.)...