News Biscuit
‘Is the BBC too obsessed with itself?’, BBC TV news anchor asks BBC’s BBC reporter
The BBC is not obsessed with itself, according to a report by the BBC’s BBC correspondent, Tim Ledger. The report contradicts another BBC internal investigation commissioned by the BBC, entitled ‘Whither the BBC? Â A BBC inquiry on BBC attitudes to the BBC’.
However, tonight on Panorama the  British Broadcasting Corporation will broadcast a thorough investigation into charges that the BBC is too obsessed with examining whether it is too obsessed with itself. The report finds no evidence whatsoever of what experts have dubbed ‘John Simpson Syndrome’.
Attempts by the BBC to make a fly-on-the-wall documentary about itself have lead to a massive feedback loop and an eternal philosophical paradox.
Categories: Fake News
AI can diagnose dementia just by asking for your email’s ‘memorable word’
Scientists have created an artificial intelligence system that can detect brain deterioration by asking you to remember a vague detail you once used to set up your Hotmail account twenty years ago. In fact, your password itself has been auto inputted for so long you have probably forgotten that as well.
A trial at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, asking 500 respondents, when was the last time they did a Windows update? Only 10% could recall the date, and 5% of them were confused Apple Mac owners.
Explained one clinician: ‘Originally we used a crude metric, by asking people what day the bins go out. But we found the password recovery process bamboozles anyone over 30. Remember that memorable holiday? No, neither do we. What about your geography teacher’s pet name, or can you recall your partner’s favourite book? Who the hell knows or cares?’
If further proof was needed, the second stage of the password recovery involves receiving a six-digit number to a phone you no longer own. ‘It’s almost as if the brain struggles to remember the street where your third cousin grew up on’.
Categories: Fake News
Journalism in crisis as interviewed journalist fails to follow convention
The world of journalism was in crisis today as a journalist forgot the most important aspect of good professional behaviour during a radio interview. During a spot on Radio 4, when being interviewed as a substitute for someone on the grounds that he knew something, he completely failed to support his interviewer and fellow journalist by saying that what was being asked was “a very good question”.
He went on to omit the second most important elaboration, namely that an extra nugget of information he was about to convey was “particularly interesting”. Nor did the accepted variant of “really fascinating” crop up at any point.
The final disgrace was the absence of any comment to the effect that “everyone wants to know” the answer to the unheralded Very Good Question.
According to a spokesman for Radio 4, ‘A journalist refusing to deny that he hadn’t confirmed that he had omitted not to describe a question as very good, was of great concern to our listeners.’
HATTIP: Sir Lupus
Categories: Fake News
Progressive Daily Telegraph to showcase brunettes’ brains
The Daily Telegraph’s main photo on A level results day is to be a group of attractive posh brunette 18-year-old girls in short skirts, hugging each other. This is a marked change from attractive posh blonde 18-year-old girls in short skirts hugging each other, demonstrating just how progressive the newspaper is.
‘It’s Metoo feminism gone mad,’ said photographer and noted pervert Warren Wright.
‘We know what those retired colonels like. The girls are all 18, so it’s all technically legal. I hope so because I’m already on the register. I was worried that Covid regulations would prevent these group shots – yeah, just like that, darling. Maybe another shirt button. Yeah, now, kiss.’
A nearby celebrating student Francesca Fraser adjusted her glasses before saying:
‘I’ve just got into Cambridge to study Astrophysics. Those two lezzing it up for the camera don’t even study here; they work at the shop next door.’
Categories: Fake News
Jedis disappointed with new ‘energy-saving’ lightsabers
Jedi knights have expressed anger at plans to phase out traditional lightsabers in favour of new, more environmentally-friendly models.
‘These new lightsabers are rubbish,’ complained Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. ‘They take ages to light up and when they do you can barely see anything with them.’
The energy saving directive has been issued by so-called ‘Galactic bureaucrats’ and is seen by Jedis as particularly galling since many of their enemies on the dark side have so far refused to sign up.
‘What’s the use in having an environmentally friendly lightsaber,’ asked Kenobi, ‘when Sith Lord Darth Maul can still prance about with his energy guzzling double headed model? And don’t get me started on his carbon footprint. Have you seen his airmiles?’
‘I refuse to switch to these new low energy sabers,’ said a typically petulant Luke Skywalker. ‘By the time they’ve reached full brightness you may have already had your hand chopped off by a man you didn’t even realise was your own father.’
However, intergalactic environmentalist George Monbiot disagrees. ‘The old lightsabers may look impressive but they are very energy inefficient. Jedis need to appreciate that The Force is a finite resource and that we need to conserve it – at least until we develop environmentally sustainable solar wind farms.’
To avoid the ban many Jedis are already stocking up on the old style sabers. ‘Sales have gone through the roof,’ said saber merchant Jabba the Hutt, ‘as have many of the Jedis when they refuse to pay my exorbitant asking price.’
The directive is the latest in a long line of new rules and regulations emanating from The Galactic Republic. ‘Only last month they ordered us to fit all our equipment with silencers,’ whined Kenobi. ‘It doesn’t make saving the universe any easier when you also have to run around humming your own lightsaber noise. And while we’re on the subject, I absolutely refuse to move over to Imperial.’
‘Political correctness gone mad, it is,’ added Jedi Grand Master Yoda. ‘Environmentally friendly we must be, but green I am already.’
Categories: Fake News
Simon Cowell to be fired to the edge of space using his big trousers
Pop entrepreneur and TV personality Simon Cowell is set to join the likes of Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos and Virgin Media boss Richard Branson, who have both recently embarked on multi-million-pound space trips by being fired to the very edge of space using a specially-designed wooden catapult. When attached to the braces on his massive, high-waistband trousers, it will hurl him skywards at speeds in excess of two thousand miles per hour.
Speaking to newsmen last night, Cowell (87), said, “Ever since I was a kid, listening to David Bowie’s Space Oddity on my transistor radio, I’ve been fascinated by space travel. So this opportunity to be catapulted to the very edge of the Earth’s atmosphere using my huge trousers as a rudimentary slingshot really is a boyhood dream come true.”
Cowell is scheduled to be launched from his back garden on October 10 this year, wearing a specially designed helmet linked to an oxygen tank on his back and lead-lined wellington boots. These will counterbalance the lack of gravitational pull and bring him back down to Earth, where he will splash down in the Limehouse Basin in East London a day or two later.
The daring mogul will also be coated with a high factor sunscreen in case he ventures too close to the sun, although he has told friends he hopes to avoid that pitfall by going at night.
Categories: Fake News
UK leading way to reduce fossil fuels by making more people poorer – Johnson
Following his observation that Margaret Thatcher was a climate change visionary, closing the pits to save the planet, Prime Minister Johnson has added that his government’s attempts to make all but a select few poorer is intended to make it impossible for ‘ordinary people’ to afford heating or light. ‘That way, there will be a net reduction in the need to generate electricity, saving the planet again,’ he said today.
‘By increasing poverty, this government is likely to save the planet many times over,’ the Prime Minister said. He declined to comment on the effect of population growth on the environment.
Categories: Fake News
Quirky gesture to camera to be compulsory for 2024 Olympians, organisers confirm
All competitors in the 2024 Olympics in Paris will need to perform some kind of wacky gesture to the camera as they are introduced to spectators just before they start their event, Olympic officials confirmed today.
The news comes after some of those competing at Tokyo 2020 opted for a generic smile to the camera and a slightly self-conscious wave as their name was announced to a global audience of billions.
‘They’ve had five years to prepare their ‘to-camera shot”, said an Olympic spokesperson. ‘So, it was disappointing to see some athletes insisting on a slightly scary fixed look of intense concentration, staring towards an imaginary point in the distance’.
‘The Olympics has a long tradition of confident gestures to camera,’ noted the spokesperson wistfully. ‘We need to see more of those ‘index finger pointing forward like a gun whilst nodding your head and winking’ set pieces that were universal in the mens’ 100m back in Los Angeles 1984, but which have sadly faded away. Or some of those ironic ‘Rodin’s thinker’ type poses that some of the boxers do as they come in the ring’.
‘Every single participant in the female gymnastics managed to make that heart gesture with their thumb and index fingers every time they were on camera, so I don’t see why the track cyclists can’t do it as they’re lined up on a 45% banking’, continued the spokesperson. ‘The table tennis guys could do a little routine with their bat and ball, the sailors some kind of hornpipe pastiche. The dressage… we’ll come back to you on that, but there must be something, maybe a little pretend gallop followed by someone getting quite angry and then throwing a punch’.
In separate news, it has been announced that ‘medal biting’ in post-podium photographs will also return to being a compulsory routine for winners in Paris 2024, after becoming just an optional gesture at Tokyo 2020 due to COVID.
Categories: Fake News
Water companies apologise for not announcing water shortages during recent fine weather
National water suppliers have apologised for not automatically announcing a water shortage this year. Companies have cited a software glitch as the cause for the delay in the usual round of water shortage scaremongering.
‘The new system, linked directly to the Meteorological Office, is supposed to automatically release a press release announcing water shortages at the merest hint of sunshine – it’s a much cheaper way of saving water than mending leaking pipes,’ said a spokesperson. ‘Unfortunately, the threshold settings were set incorrectly this year, so the system didn’t work.’
The companies have embarked on a joint million-pound project to fix this problem, to be paid for by a rise in domestic water rates. ‘A hike in your monthly water bill will ensure that future drought warnings will be bang on time. In fact we might even forecast one in time for Christmas, just to make up for this years failure.’
rikernumber1
Categories: Fake News
We’ll give up everything to save Earth – except cars, planes, meat, etc
In light of the UN’s damning climate change report, politicians have demanded that we all look concerned and nod in a sage-like way. Everyone agreed it was really important to do something, provided it was not now and not them.
The public was encouraged to change their lifestyle but only if it is not too inconvenient. Foreign holidays would be cancelled unless they were going anywhere nice. Cars would be replaced by public transport, except when it involved buses or trains. Meals would be vegetarian only, with a side order of steak.
As one concerned citizen said: ‘David Attenborough got me to give up plastic cocktail sticks, which was a toughy, as I normally drink pints. We should definitely do so something about the environment, and when I say we, I mean our grandchildren. Provided, of course, they’re not already 10ft under the sea.’
Categories: Fake News
Syrian villagers send sympathy message to Brits unable to go on holiday
A remote village in war-torn Syria has sent a message of support to the people of Great Britain who find themselves unable to enjoy a fortnight’s holiday on a sunny beach this year due to the covid-19 health emergency.
Asawi al Hab, a small village on the border with Lebanon, has been shelled and attacked by government forces, killing or injuring more than half of the population.
A doctor in a local hospital said: “It’s been pretty grim here for a number of years. When we heard that British people wouldn’t be able to jet off to Benidorm due to uncertainty over the traffic light system, we couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. So we’re offering cheap accommodation for any Brits who want to spend a week or two in our country.
“Of course, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll be shelled on a daily basis by Assad’s forces or strafed by Russian fighter jets, but at least the weather’s good at this time of year, and they’ll go home with a healthy tan.’
A spokesman for The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said, “We don’t recommend a holiday in Syria at this time, unless you’re pretty elderly or have an underlying health condition, in which case, your body could conceivably end up like those piled high in our own streets during the third wave, although the prime minister has assured the country that this may or may not be the case if we all use our British common sense.”
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Categories: Fake News
Can’t-be-arsed UK government asks public to stick forks in their own eyeballs
Boris Johnson’s governance by tossing off has reached a pinnacle of efficiency.
A half-hearted spokesmumbler sighed and murmured, “Rather than making bold claims like ‘world-beating’ and then doing the opposite, it makes much more sense to bring the do nothing bit forward.”
“From this point onwards, the government isn’t even going to bother saying anything at all about stuff it clearly isn’t going to do anyway.”
“But that does leave us with the difficult problem of how we continue causing as much pain and suffering to the UK public as possible.”
“To that end, the public is encouraged to throw themselves down stairs, stick their faces in fans, and thrust forks into their own testicles. If you don’t have testicles, then grow a pair.”
Categories: Fake News
Cool kids ‘were right’ to mock future Olympic loser
It was the arbiters of teenage cool at Alderman Bagnall Comprehensive in Mansfield that drove 21-year-old Kevin Burgess on. As early as 2005, the skinny misfit decided to silence their cruel taunts by seeking glory at the London Olympics. Now that his dream has fizzled out anonymously, he has been forced to concede that they were quite right to label him a saddo gayer.
‘I was determined to prove them all wrong. I followed my dream, gave it 100% and travelled two hours each way to train in the freezing cold every day at Don Valley for three years, just to be nearly last in the qualifying heat, viewed by a few hundred people on the red button,’ said Burgess. ‘And to think I could have spent that time drinking cider down the rec and pretending to have fingered girls. What a fool I’ve been.’
By a mixture of sheer hard work and the lack of anyone else in competing at such a lame event, Burgess rose to be Britain’s number six 3,000 metre steeplechaser. Fate then smiled when two of those who finished ahead of him in qualifying were injured and another was disqualified for taking cough mixture. He lined up in the heats last Friday but limped home 18th of 20, far behind the Kenyans and Ethiopians.
Opininon is now divided among Burgess’s local contemporaries. Some have reluctantly conceded that sixth best in Britain is not that bad, while others insist that he is still a gangly retard streak of piss who needs a good kicking. School social king Thomas ‘Tommo’ Godfrey, meanwhile, remarked that Burgess might be able to outrun him but not the BMW he has bought on the proceeds of dominating the local drug trade.
‘I suppose it’s as well I lost. I could hardly thank my supportive family, as they all think I’m a loser and missed my appearance to go shopping,’ Burgess concluded. ‘On the positive side, I did get a text off Hayley Brown, who I fancied something rotten at school. It said ‘u did quite well. can u send me usan bolts number, id well shag him lol’. You never know, this could be the start of something.’
Categories: Fake News
Gold medal-winning UK athlete forgets to cry during BBC interview
Gold medal-winning UK athlete, Gary Stephenson, has angered many TV spectators after forgetting to cry during his post-event interview.
Gary, 28, of Melton Mowbray, ranked world number one in the Omnomnomnom, broke the UK, Commonwealth, Olympic and World Records, scoring 38461.8 points from the judges and in the public telephone vote. He achieved this in only six hours and eight minutes without spilling any of it, beating his nearest rival by a full four furlongs.
Interviewed by chirpy cockney commentator Alec Welsh, he was goaded into talking about his hard life, the loss of his childhood budgie, his fungal nail infection, the perils of lockdown, his ginger hair, and how he funded his own trip to Tokyo by washing cars and acting as a hitman for a wealthy Russian oligarch in the King’s Road.
“I was so excited and happy to have won. I just forgot to cry,” he told our reporter. “I’d been practising, too, but when the moment came, I just dried up. I even had a tissue soaked in Olbas Oil in my pocket just in case.”
“I remembered at the last minute, but it was too late, and they had already cut to the weather forecast,” he continued, “I’ve really let the team down. I don’t deserve to have won.”
His trainer, Derek Buchanan, told Gary that it was not such a big deal, but he secretly knows that public opinion is much more important than ability and success where funding and the Olympics are concerned.
Categories: Fake News
Odysseus slams today’s travel whingers
“Blimey! A few hours waiting for test results. Maybe having to self isolate for a week when you get home. It took me ten years to get back. And that’s after ten years fighting the Trojan War for flip’s sake!
“Red or amber. Huh. Try sneaking back to your boat under the belly of a sheep. Weather a bit rough? What rowing between the six-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis. Nambies.
“Then you get home and find there’s a load of freeloaders trying to get off with you wife, and you have to slaughter them all. Puts a pile of junk mail into perspective, doesn’t it?
“Mind you, I’ve not flown with Ryanair. I understand that can have its challenges.â€
Categories: Fake News
Just for 5 minutes you can dream that Messi will join your club
With the news that Lionel Messi is parting ways with Barcelona, every football fan can briefly indulge his fantasy that Messi will want to join a wind swept, dour English team. For a fleeting moment you can imagine that he will want to trade sunny Spain for getting kicked up and down your local pitch.
Remarked one fan: ‘He could go to PSG or Chelsea but I suspect he’ll plump for Gosport. We’ve got one wooden stand, a spare ball and all the pies he can eat’.
Another said: ‘Our pub team can always use someone a bit nippy’. Said one Akela: ‘There will always be a place for young Lionel, in our under-9s cub team. But he will have to supply his own woggle’.
Categories: Fake News
Rioters to phase out petrol bombs by 2040
The Royal Society Of Low Emission Street damage (RSOLES) has announced plans to end the use of petrol bombs in the next 23 years.
Barry Neanderthal of Bermondsey explained. ‘We encourage all responsible rioters to consider their carbon footprints, if you look back to the 2012 riots when we felt we did some of our finest work, it becomes concerning that some of the people who set fire to cars might have created some pollution.’
RSOLES’ research into alternatives started last week, as they urge trouble makers to consider the use of equivalent fuels.
‘The thing with diesel bombs is as well as being bad for the environment, they’re slow to ignite and cause prolonged chaos as people slip on the spilled fuel that never evaporates,’ said Barry. ‘For those thinking of starting a riot this weekend, as it stands our official recommendation is a magnifying glass and a lot of patience.’
apepper with  hat tip to Titus
Categories: Fake News