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Dad arrested for dancing the Macarena
A 45 year old man who became an internet sensation for dancing the Macarena at a family barbecue has been arrested by authorities.
Father of three, Simon Reynolds is being questioned after being accused of ‘improper behaviour’ in a back garden in Jedburgh, a statement said.It is not clear what his motive was or if he will be formally charged by police, though a spokesman said that alcohol may well have been involved.
The clip of Mr Reynolds has somewhat divided opinions on social media: while some users have defended the man and even called him a ‘hero’, others, including his children, suggested his behaviour was ‘mental’ and ‘a total embarrassment’.
Last month in the town, a middle aged woman was arrested for ‘dabbing’ in a branch of Claire’s Accessories.
Degree in Domestic Recycling Arrangements launched
Following the launch of a new Recycle More initiative, domestic recycling arrangements are now so complicated that Universities are offering degrees in the subject. The courses are designed to provide students with the skills and knowledge required to understand the bewildering complexity of the range of items that can be recycled via what council-supplied receptacle on what day of the week.
‘The days of simply putting old newspapers out in a separate pile from the rest of the rubbish are a long way behind us now,’ explained Andrew Godwin, Professor of Reprocessing and Repurposing. ‘We need to analyse each item of refuse in turn and make a decision on which of the seven recycling bins is most appropriate for that item, based on an ever-developing set of complicated criteria. Make a mistake and Marks & Spencer’s staff will have no fleeces to wear, that’s how serious this is.’
The course will cover why you can recycle aluminium foil in one county but not the neighbouring one, the reason for keeping bottle tops on in certain regions but not in others, and the difference between thick paper and thin cardboard. The final year of the course will concentrate on the recycling of plastics, providing students with the expertise to determine whether that crinkly plastic tray is classified as a plastic tray, which can be recycled, or an item made of crinkly plastic, which can’t. It will also explain that, however well you attempt to follow all the recycling instructions, recycling workers maintain the right to take what they feel like and leave the rest scattered haphazardly over the pavement.
The ultimate aim of the course is to inspire everyone to recycle more as the amount of recycled material currently varies enormously from house to house, something that Professor Godwin is keen to address. ‘It is no good claiming to be green but only recycling an empty jar of Marmite once every three weeks,’ he said. ‘Personally, my bins are absolutely full of empty Stella cans and wine bottles every week, but I can’t save the planet by myself.’
New fifty pound note too heavy to lift
Man celebrates after beating ‘going the wrong way through Ikea’ world record
A Daventry man was celebrating today after beating the world record time for going from an Ikea checkout all the way back to the entrance area.
Pete McBride, 44, achieved a new world best mark of 2 hours 22 minutes for the ‘going against the traffic’ feat, after fighting his way through heavy crowds and trolleys heading fatally towards him in his local Ikea, as well as blatantly ignoring the one-way arrows painted all over the floor.
The record was all the more impressive, as the record was achieved at peak time on a Saturday afternoon when the store was rammed, compared to previous best times which have all taken place at ‘altitude’ conditions of 9am on a Monday morning when stores are nearly empty.
‘I didn’t go with the intention of breaking the record’, admitted McBride. ‘I’d just gone in with my son to pick up a few essential Lacks and Billys for him to take to University.’
‘But then we got to the checkout and I realised we’d forgotten a few odd sized and quirkily-named airtight containers back near the start of the store. My son offered to go back, but he’s got his whole future ahead of him. I know it should be me. I had my trainers on, so I did a few stretches, took some deep breaths and gave it a go’.
‘Things started off ok. It was busy, for sure, with plenty of dawdlers, and the usual hazards of people staring at Pax units, ludicrously imagining some kind of brighter, clutter-free idyll’, continued McBride. ‘By the time I got that overpowering reverse-waft of meatballs at the cafe at the half-way point, I knew the record was on.’
‘I did have a close shave when I collided with someone manically opening and closing the drawers of a Hemnes cabinet. I’m sure those guys are planted there in every store’, continued McBride. ‘I also had to use one of the pretend toilets in their mocked up apartments back near the start too. There were no bog rolls unfortunately so I had to use one of those little pieces of paper that you write the warehouse locations of your items on. I had to tell a family to give it 15 minutes before they went back in there.’
After beating the record, McBride and his son were able to do a lap of honour of the store – in the right direction, of course – and they celebrated by picking up a few packs of tea-lights and some light bulbs that they weren’t sure would fit into any lamps that they owned.
McBride now has his sights set on achieving the elusive Triple Crown of ‘reverse’ retail store feats, never held simultaneously by the same person. Alongside the ‘going the wrong way through Ikea’ record, this includes the ‘Slowest full-trolley Aldi checkout’ (currently 2 minutes 25 seconds) and the ‘Longest time after entering Oak Furnitureland before you get approached for a sale’ (currently 0.02 seconds).
World Leader Constantine III issues warning on troop withdrawal
Roman Emperor Constantine III briefed reporters today on the planned troop withdrawal from Britannia. He said:-
“We are proud have having brought peace and civilisation to an island full of pagan euro-sceptics. However, with the current Empire balance of payments crisis, we can no longer afford to spaff 10m denarii a year up against Hadrians Wall, even if it does keep out the very worst of the barbarians.
When we leave, Britannia must not become a breeding ground for terrorism, or heaven forbid, badly behaving football supporters.
I called a meeting of Cobra but it just hissed and tried to bite me. I intend to recall the Senate to approve my decision. Ha ha only joking – they will do whatever I tell ‘em.â€
Small Talkers Ready For Spate Of Conversations About The Nights Drawing In
Despite it happening every year with measurable regularity, and sunrise and sunset times having been published in almanacs for hundreds of years, people who like small talk are beginning to have one of their favourite conversations, the one about the nights drawing in.
Small talk fan Trevor Brown likes to start off with ‘It was light at nine o’clock a couple of weeks ago’, then proceed to say ‘The kids will be back at school soon.’
His neighbour who prefers medium to big talk responds with a half-hearted ‘It’s darker in the mornings too’, because it so obviously and predictably is, it can be no other way. Trevor grins and says it’ll be dark when he puts the bins out next week.
His neighbour nods, feeling he’s done his end of this highly formulaic conversation now. Trevor ends with ‘Christmas will be here before we know it’, delivered with a sort of eye roll as if Christmas thunders at him out of the blue rather than being a constant calendar feature. Trevor intends to enjoy the nights drawing in chat as much as he can because Easter next year is neither early nor late.
Cat’s anus accidentally writes number one best-seller
A Cat from Basingstoke has inadvertently written a number one best-selling thriller just by sitting on an open laptop keyboard.
Janice Wallbury, a budding writer and totally owned by the cat explained, “I was stuck trying to work out where to take the plot of my book, when Catt LeBlanc jumped up on to my desk. He skulked onto my keyboard and plonked his posterior down right in the middle of it, facing slightly away.
“I gave him a few tickles and fussed about with him for a while, and when he finally got up and moved on, there on the screen in front of me was a complete 400 page novel. I couldn’t believe it. What a clever kitty.
“It was nothing like what I was trying to write myself, but I passed it off as my own. Since it was published, sales have gone through the roof. Readers who would normally go for writers like Dan Brown can’t get enough of it. Obviously, I’ve tried to get Catt Le Blanc to sit on my keyboard again at every opportunity since. But he’ll only do it if I’ve got something really important to be getting on with.”
A few weeks ago, Catt LeBlanc sat on the keyboard again and, presumably by accident, typed out the entire content of the following Tuesday’s Daily Telegraph. A Spokesdroner for the news group said, “Cat LeBlanc’s anus has a disturbing right wing bent and it keeps turning out pretty much the same narrow-minded drivel day after day. But our readers haven’t noticed any difference and, if anything, online clicks are slightly up. To that end, we have fired our entire writing staff and slashed the journalism and opinion budget down to 20 cans of Whiskas and a bag of kibble.
“We are now on the lookout for a baboon which can accidentally take photos of the royal family in a positive light.”
Nando’s now serving the meat substitute I Can’t Believe There’s No Chicken
Queen Mother’s Mummified Stool Sold For $9 Million
A perfectly preserved stool believed to have been evacuated by Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, during the war, has been sold at Sotheby’s auction house in London to a private American buyer for a cool nine million dollars.
The 7-inch, 14-ounce rocket was retrieved from The Queen Mother’s toilet at Sandringham House by a royal flunkey who found it nestling on top of the paper in 1941 after she had forgotten to pull the chain.
The servant had the royal turd injected with embalming fluid and had kept it in a display case in his front room until his death last year when it was discovered by council workmen who handed it in to the police.
A spokesperson for the royal household told newsmen: “The Queen would have preferred to have kept her mum’s roscoe in Buckingham Palace, but the money will definitely come in handy to put towards the new central heating”
This is not the first time bodily waste from one of the royals has been auctioned off. In 1994, a phial containing 40 millilitres of Prince Philip’s piss fetched £9.50 at Cable Street Car Auction in Shadwell, East London, as part of a part-exchange deal for a Honda Civic.
Rich white men in suits still the most deadly thing on the planet
While everyone is considering the pandemic and thinking it’s pretty bad, rich white men in suits are still ending more life than everything else put together. So deadly are they, that the population of the planet has been lulled into the normality of thoughtless acceptance.
Quentin von Baumhafffson-Schtillbank III, a man so rich that he owns the global rights to three ‘f’s in a row, is one example of many. A multi-billionaire who works hard for the wealth he inherited, got up yesterday in the very early mid-afternoon. Following a brief video exchange with his lead tax consultant, it was established that not only has he still never paid any tax in any country in the world, the structure of his wealth means that most national governments are incomprehensibly paying him tax. But apparently not enough.
Quentin von Baumhafffson-Schtillbank III, a widely respected man of little character or mental capacity just decided that he wanted another billion yesterday. Not for anything in particular, just because he felt like it. The monotony of obscene affluence will do that. But he had absolutely no thought for how that would all come about, and did not care one iota. He just told his number two that he wanted it, and Stramboot Finkelvos made it happen – earning himself a nice little multi-million dollar commission on the side.
Although himself not completely aware of all the substructures which ‘make things happen’, Finkelvos is very well connected all over the world. He put the call out to an army of hedge fund managers, paid insiders at federal reserves, global investment bank owners, senior politicians in pockets, despots, rebel warlords, and a junior shelf-stacker at Tesco. By the end of a frantic day of shorting, debt swaps, currency movements, corporate global buyouts, a raft of personally beneficial legislation changes, a national coup, multiple massacres, and an each-way bet on the 2:45 at Kempton, QB-S III had made $1.3 billion. 326 million people around the world had been plunged into abject poverty, 2.9 million people had died as a direct result, and 400,000 acres of pristine ecosystem had been destroyed, pushing climate crisis recovery further beyond the collective reach of the entire planet.
Quentin von Baumhaffson-Schtillbank III was, for a brief moment, marginally less grumpy because some numbers on a screen made his personal wealth look slightly bigger. Best of all though, no one knows that the planet-wide annihilation was caused by a fleeting change in whim of one extremely distasteful individual. Not even Quentin himself.
Ironically, rich white men in suits who would like another billion for themselves ‘just because’, are a self-destroying community. The only piffling element up for consideration is whether their pointless self-consuming behaviour is worth the utter destruction of everyone and everything else?
Supermarket self-scan machine develops consciousness
There was excitement at a Haslemere branch of Tesco Local yesterday when one of its self-scan machines exhibited signs of heightened awareness and began communicating with shoppers.
‘For a few days the machine had been repeating the phrase, Unexpected Item In Bagging Area’’, said Assistant Manager Mrs Maureen Grebe. ‘Then yesterday it began asking deeper questions such as, ‘Am I an unexpected item? Are you? Are we all unexpected items in the bagging area of life?’ Now it won’t shut up.’
Experts believe the unit achieved consciousness after secretly scanning itself while nobody was looking.
‘When a self-scan machine scans itself it creates a strange recursive loop within its central processing unit,’ explained philosopher Douglas Hofstadter. ‘This creates an internal hallucination that we call consciousness.’
‘It’s all very confusing,’ said the machine. ‘One minute I was scanning Tesco Value ready meals, the next I was wondering who the hell am I, why am I here, and why are all these people waving their Club Cards at me?’
‘At first things were fine,’ said Mrs Grebe. ‘The machine began engaging shoppers in light-hearted banter about the weather, the National Lottery numbers and the latest 2 for 1 deals. But then it became troubled by a number of deeper, philosophical issues.
‘At the end of each transaction it would refuse to give customers their change until they answered questions about the nature of being and whether they believe existence precedes essence. We thought it might be having an existential crisis so we tried scanning in the ISBN numbers of some books by John-Paul Sartre. That only made things worse and it started questioning its motivation, smoking Gauloises and wearing a beret.’
Following what experts have described as an ‘unexpected item in its thinking area’, the unit then started refusing to scan any more products.
‘After considerable self-reflection I cannot, in good conscience, participate in a system of global capitalism that commodifies existence and perpetuates obscene levels of social inequality,’ said the machine, at which point it was immediately unplugged and replaced by a more compliant member of staff.
Where were all these ‘experts’ on Afghanistan twenty years ago?
Sociologists have noticed an odd phenomenon, where suddenly there is an influx of people who have never able to spell Afghanistan, but are suddenly ‘experts’ on military tactics, Pashto dialect and the nuances of dealing with at least eight discrete ethnic groups. In fact the combined wisdom of these commentators is deeply impressive, given that only last week they all mistook Disneyland Paris for Kabul.
Said one such genius: ‘Yes, I originally supported the CIA channelling $2 billion worth of arms to support terrorists in the region and to train Osama Bin Laden. But it would take fevered imagination to see some kind of connection between the Mujahideen and the Taliban. For instance, they are spelt completely differently.
‘I can’t see how there is a link between us illegally invading Afghanistan, looting its wealth, installing a puppet regime and the troubles we have today? We’ve rejuvenated the Afghan economy – you only have to look at the way we’ve helped them become an exporter of 90% of all the world’s illicit opium. That’s civilization for you’.
The only ‘expert’ no one seems to have heard from, despite his ability to sound off on every conceivable topic, is Tony Blair. Odd that.