That's All Folks!

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First of the apologies.

Click to enlarge

In case you missed the ten second long article buried deep in the early morning news so that nobody would notice it, the US government has decided that the tobacco companies must apologise for lying to the public about the harmful effects of smoking, but has fallen short of making them pay for rehabilitation of nicotine addicts or funding any sort of after care for lung patients.

Slow News Day

Thanks to the speedy efforts of the Home Office and the Police, we have all been saved again. Hurrah!

We now have police from every single force in the country involved in tracking down the bombing conspirators. And many of these brave individuals are quite experienced in hunting criminals.

The break through came today when an anonymous tip off from Mrs Windershins, of 23 Sudbury Terrace, High Wycombe called the police to tell them she had found a suspicious hide-out in the local woods.

Police encircled the woodland area and arrested every non-white within twenty five miles of the Al Quayeda base, so as to eliminate them from their enquiries. Under Home Office regulations the terrorists will now be held for up to twenty eight days before having their documents lost.

The Local Police chief told our reporter “There are terrorists here somewhere. I can smell them. I can feel it in my bones…” Before reaching in his pocket for a selection of lollipops.

Soon after, the law enforcement agencies held a press conference to announce the scale of their find. “We did indeed find a very significant find.” The spokesman said. “It seems that there is a hole in the woods that might conceivably be used to store detonators in. It is round, smooth sides, and has small currant shaped objects littering the its opening.”

“Further to this, we have also found traces of very small footprints and a slight amount of brown fur hairs on nearby thorny hedges, so there’s no telling just how long this has been a major AL Quayeda stronghold..”

Later in the day, the police also announced that they had found a “significant number” of dried leaves and twigs, all of which were combustible and could easily have been used to burn false passports.

Plane Diverted

In related news, a plane was diverted to Italy when a misunderstanding caused a panic. Mrs Theresa Bombenborde, a citizen of the Netherlands explained the matter to our reporter. “I have great worries about personal hygene, and did not want to think that anyone else might have used my sick bag. I took the precaution of writing my name on the bag, but I’m afraid my pen wasn’t working very well.”

Iraq Objects

Meanwhile, dispirited after the death of their leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, CAMRI, the Campaign for Real Insurgency, has announced that they will be auditioning for another leader to take his place as the organization’s front man. So far both Jeffrey Archer and Robert Kilroy Silk have indicated that they might be interested if the money was right, but it is increasingly likely that CAMRI officials will be seeking to maximise their publicity by enlisting the help of Simon Cowell and Sharon Osbourne to run an X-factor style leadership contest. “We think there is a lot of energy in this part of the world.” Simon told our reporter, “And it’s just a matter of searching hard enough. If we can find just one homicidal fanatic capable of beheading civilians and soldiers indiscriminately then we can regard our time as well spent.”

Pardon

After the success of the Shot At Dawn campaign, posthumous pardons seem to have become rather fashionable. Thanks to inside information from my stolen MOD soft drinks dispenser, I am happy to be able to report the planned pardon of around twenty five thousand people who were wrongly executed for being German civilians on the night of February 15th, 1945.

“It seems that those killed in Dresden may not have been Filthy Nazi Huns after all, but actually a large number of men, women and children, including refugees and wounded combatants.” A Brigadier told our reporter, whilst fiddling in his pocket for small change to buy a can of Idris Ginger Beer.

“Of course, it was a more brutal time back then. But it seems that we might have been just a little hasty in deciding that they should all be incinerated in an attempt to terrorise the nation into surrender. Of course, we had been reluctant to overturn the earlier decision. We used over five hundred Lancaster bombers and dropped almost two thousand tons of bombs on the place. Obviously when you’ve committed that much material outlay into a precision operation you want to jolly well make sure that your viable targets aren’t needlessly declassified as human beings.”

However, further executions may be re-examined in the light of our new found spirit of enlightenment. According to a highly respected Jewish scholar, it is possible that the events of the Passover may need to be re-examined.

“It seems that God might have been a teensy bit hasty in slaughtering the first born son of all Egyptian families. So we’ve asked God to consider granting them a posthumous pardon. There are one or two amongst us who think it might be a tiny bit distasteful to celebrate and glorify what some lefty types are describing as a human tragedy, so we’ve asked God to mediate.

“Effectively, if God agrees that he was maybe just a little bit out of line to slaughter those children for the crime of being Egyptian, he should give us some sort of sign. Nothing drastic. A simple display of power such as the inhalation of every Arab on the planet would suffice.”

Pottery Corner 15

Nurse

I watched the nurses blame their bosses
Screaming for their losses and their closures
And maximum exposure’s going
To the tosser in plaster
Who wished he’d been faster.
Rather than traumatised
In ward three, while the MP (allegedly gay)
Lamented the day
Our health was privatised away
No money left. It’s all been used
He accused.
The money’s spent.
The system’s bent
Avoidable drama. It’s causality.
Which confused me.
I thought it was Newsnight

Sore fingers

My fingers are crossed so tightly I can't even feel them. A couple of weeks ago I attended an interview with Keoghs, a company of solicitors who specialise in business law.
The job advertisement was unusual because it asked specifically for "intelligence analysts" with either military or police backgrounds. Talk about square peg for a square hole!
So, after two hours of psychometric testing, an hour of sample casework, and an hour long interview, I left the building thinking that I wanted this job more than I'd ever wanted any other job before.
The results will be out by next Wednesday. I'm almost finding it difficult to sleep. If successful I'll be working to track down gangs involved in staging car accidents to make bogus insurance claims. As well as a big pay rise it will also be a chance at a job that actually involves thinking for a living.
I would have blogged about this sooner, but I almost feel like it's unlucky to announce it. I just keep telling myself that there's no such thing as luck. But it doesn't make me any more willing to uncross my fingers.
I had a dream a couple of nights ago that I hadn’t got it. It was a very bad feeling.
Hold your breath with me…

Breaking News from 1983.

click to enlarge and read the news as it would have been 23 years ago. If we'd had the same attitude as our "allies".

Pottery Corner 14

I swapped my Grandad for Carrots

I can see in the darkness at night
My eyes are lamps so bright,
I have to keep them screwed up tight
At night or I might blind you
With the light from my little eye,
That lets me spot the things that fly
And scurry or scrape around the dark places,
With tiny white fingers and hair on their faces.
They rustle and ratchet right under my bed,
Or sometimes they’re under the pillow instead.
But as long as I keep both my eyes shut so tight,
The bad things won’t see me and I’ll be alright.
Or at least, I might…

…It worked last night..

Serendipity at Cannon Hall

I wasn't expecting much from Cannon Hall. Last time I'd been there it was pretty quiet. Imagine how disappointed we were to find medieval archery, sword fighting, Punch and Judy, cornfield maze, falconry demonstration, dog agility show (complete with dogs that ran away - how funny?), marching bands, dancing ladies and more free activities than you could shake a stick at.






Top marks to Barnsley Council, and thanks for a great day out!