World Health Organisation Warning Issued

The World Health Organisation today issued a warning about the possibility of a world pandemic of Media Flu. A spokeswoman said ‘At first a few local newspaper and TV channels in Mexico began to report flu cases in La Gloria. This was spread through media contact to the national Mexican media, and before anyone had the chance to put in place measures to contain it, it spread through the nearby US media and then out into the rest of the world’s media. It now seems that the media is most countries is infected with a very virulent strain of Media Flu.

She went on to outline the symptoms of Media Flu Hysteria (to give it it’s full medical name). ‘It starts,’ she said, ‘with highly contagious panic fuelled by high-temperature hysteria which then leads to uncontrollable speculation by the media with a constant need to issue updates, usually with a wild disregard of evidence and fact. Unfortunately, this can sometimes lead to the media coming to sometimes fatal conclusions.’

[This morning’s newspaper front pages]

A research scientist, Labrat Methodology, who has studied these outbreaks of Media Flu for many years, said

the media seems inherently prone to these outbreaks of hysteria, look at what happened with Asian Bird Flu, SARS, the Credit Crunch, Javanese Housemaid's Knee, to name just a few. Also, don’t forget the media’s recent collective Obamagasm over the election of the new American president. It was almost as if the Media expected him to begin walking on water as soon as the inauguration was over. However, when he turned out to be just another politician they did eventually get over it. We can only hope that this latest media obsession is just as short lived.

The WHO issued a warning to the general public to avoid all non-essential contact with the media, especially those parts of it known to be infected with Media Flu, until the highly-contagious period of panic naturally subsides. The warning said that members of the public should try to avoid any media that may be infected with Media Flue Hysteria. The symptoms to look out for, it says, are where the media constantly issues stories and updates about the flu, mainly through articles about what the symptoms are, how many will die, how there is no cure and so on, with recycles endless panicky articles and pieces about not panicking.

The spokeswoman added: ‘the media’s constant unthinking sensationalism and its seeming need to constantly exaggerate the significance of everything it reports upon, creates an hysteria that the media itself feeds upon and amplifies again, creating a feedback loop of mounting never-ending sensationalism, unless something happens to break that loop.’

However, most experts do say that Media Flu will die down of its own accord after a few days, or weeks, at the most, when the media discovers some new bright shiny thing to occupy its attention.

Labrat Methodology concurs :

Luckily the media’s self-obsession and self-absorption mean that it believes that events only occur in the world if the media reports on them. Consequently, there are many scientists around the world; including at my own laboratory, who are busy working on a vaccine that we hope will inject several celebrity sex stories and high political scandals directly into the media’s attention. We hope this will divert the media’s attention away from hyping up its pandemic hysteria any further, and this will cause the fuss to all die down sooner rather than later.

Full-Frontal Teenage Lesbian Sex Orgy

Full-Frontal Teenage Lesbian Sex Orgy is the latest film by the renowned documentary filmmaker Spasmodic Weaselinversion. Famed amongst documentary film cognoscenti, Weaselinversion is the man behind such classics of the documentary genre as Grimsby Lamppost his searing indictment of modern urban living where he filmed an ordinary lamppost in Grimsby for six hours without a single break or edit. 'At times the monotony of modern existence is almost palpable as you watch this film' a Guardian reviewer gushed. Of course, Weaselinversion is most famous for The Collectors his 12-part BBC2 series about a multi-racial gang of streetwise inner-city stamp collectors, which won the coveted Middle-Class Liberal Guilt award in 2007.

However, many critics have seen his latest film, Full-Frontal Teenage Lesbian Sex Orgy as quite a departure from his previous work, featuring as it does a four-hour non-stop fully-explicit teenage lesbian sex orgy, sometimes in pin-sharp extreme close-up.

I asked him - in an interview conducted recently - about his - to some - startling change of direction.

"Oh, I may win awards from the liberal establishment, the Guardian, Channel 4, the BBC and all that" he said. "But do you know what size audience I was getting for those 'worthy' documentaries?"

"No," I said.

"For the BBC series, The Collectors despite it winning the Most Pretentious Documentary Award in the Earnest Expose category at the Guardian Awards, and all the other awards it won, it had a maximum of 17 viewers. According to audience research, seven of those switched channels part way through. In fact, though, it was those very audience research figures that I discovered the answer to my audience problem."

"Why was that?"

"Apparently they all turned over to watch some soft-focus 'Victorian lesbian romp' on channel 4. In fact, that programme had the highest rating for the whole month on ALL channels. That gave me the inspiration to start work on my latest film."

"But a porn film?"

"Yes. But, of course, like everyone else I know, I thought hard-core porn was just for those desperate and sad people who don't work in the arts or the media. But apparently my new film, Full-Frontal Teenage Lesbian Sex Orgy, is so popular the DVD company has had to open a new pressing plant just to meet the demand."

Finally, I asked him if he was going to continue taking his work in this new direction.

"Yes, and not just because of the financial security it brings. My wife (the actress Essence Heartbambi), after her initial scepticism, has become very supportive of my new direction. In fact, she volunteered to research subjects for my next film exploring this fascinating area of explicit hot sex action. After several hours of in-depth research studying films, videos and DVDs, she has suggested that I next investigate the popular erotic film sub-genre of women partaking in what I believe are called 'gang-bangs' with men who possess very large penises. In fact, she is very keen to be much more involved in my work and has suggested - very strongly, ha, ha - that she would like very much to star in my next film on this particular subject matter. I think I'm going to have to agree, if only to get some peace and quiet, don't you, ha ha?"

Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On

And yet there is no sign….

And yet we still wait….

There is no sign of all the dreams we once had ever coming to fruition, especially those mainly concerning personable young ladies and/or gentlemen with a keen interest in the more exotic acts of a carnal nature who are more than eager to involve our very selves in their experiments and activities.

That urgent last-minute phone call begging us to come and play centre forward in the FA cup final, or make up the numbers in the national squad for the World Cup still hasn't happened, despite the number of times we check the answering machine.

Surprisingly enough nor has Mr Clapton made that phone call imploring us to come and help him out at his Albert Hall gigs, despite us only ever managing to never get more than 12 Pages into Bert Weedon's Play With Yourself Every Day course. Nor have we had that imploring letter from Berlin saying that Sir Simon is down with a cold and could we nip over there a bit pronto (bring your own baton).

No matter how many times we consider getting ourselves on the books of a theatrical agent - just in case - we still haven't heard from the film star of all our fantasies and late-night hand-assisted musings, informing us about their desire to have us star alongside them in their next blockbuster film. A film, apparently, featuring the most explicit sex scenes ever witnessed in a mainstream motion picture release.

The long silence from the Booker prize judges is also ominous. As is the lack of contact from the Nobel committee and those responsible for formulating the Queen's Birthday and New Year lists of those deserving honour and recognition.

Perhaps, though, it is all about to happen.

After all, the postman still hasn't been today.

Even then, there will always be a tomorrow… at least right up to the day when there isn't.

Equality, Or Else

Today, the Government Minister For Making Everyone The Same. Hetty Madwoman published a bill that will make it illegal for anyone to be different from everyone else. ‘For too long now,’ she spat ‘people have been allowed to be different to each other, and – in this modern world – that will just not do. For example, due to the breakdown of ‘Evil World Capitalism’ even Britain’s wholly fair, just and enlightened government will have to make some economies, at least until our genius of a Prime Minister saves the world again. Therefore the fewer categories we have in our essential databases which track what every person in the UK is doing every moment of the day, except when they are engaged in official government business, of course, will mean a vast saving for the government – I think.’

She then went on to outline how Britain would change under the new legislation. From now on every child will be born in a hospital that has been graded free of hospital born infections, delivered by staff which have all been certified error-free, by the highest grade of self-certifying managers. They will go to nurseries and schools, all rated as excellent by Ofsted, where they will learn that everyone is equal in every possible way, including the nursery teachers and their assistants who will – obviously be of equal status to the children they teach. This, Madwoman believes, will erode all outdated concepts of adults being of higher authority and status than the children. Furthermore, Madwoman has proposed that children from the moment of birth will have full and equal voting rights with adults. This includes being able to vote over their nursery’s, then their school’s, rules and curriculum, every child’s vote being equal in value to the votes of their ‘facilitators’. That is – of course – providing they vote for what the government wants. During the learning experience facilitators can only offer the ‘young citizens’ advice, which the children can either accept, or disregard if they feel it somehow disrespects their self-esteem, or demeans them in any way with respect to their learning facility peers. When the young citizens decide they have had enough schooling, then Madwoman proposes they will – of course - get A* grades in every subject, even the ones they didn’t bother taking. The young citizens will then go on to a compulsory university course where they will get a First-Class Honours degree in whatever they feel like doing.

In the world of work, everyone: man, woman, child, dog, or rabbit will be paid exactly the same wage – except those engaged on vital government business, of course) for working the same hours. Hetty Madwoman then said ‘To end the hideous discrimination where one job, e.g. a doctor, is given a higher status, than say, ice-cream salesperson, all jobs - outside of essential government service - will be allocated by random lottery. Marriage will be abolished and again replaced by a random lottery where partners, irrespective of sex or sexuality, will be shuffled every five years.’ This, Madwoman hopes, will help bring about the demise of the bane of heterosexuality in this country. Furthermore as women – according to Madwoman - are still discriminated against ‘being a man will be declared illegal, until such a time as all men can be phased out and replaced with women.’

‘As the country can no longer afford to pay the state pension and there have been several instances of people being discriminated against because of their age, the retirement age will be phased out and getting older will be abolished. Consequently, having birthdays will also be banned,’ Madwoman clarified.

‘Of course,’ Madwoman said, in her closing remarks, ‘this is only the start. There are many, many more things I am going to have to ban, and keep on banning and making illegal until you all learn to be equal… or else!’

The Hamsters of Doom

The possibility of a worldwide pandemic appears on the current affairs horizon once again. Consequently, the media has once again started to act like an over-excited child on Christmas morning, wetting itself in excitement at the prospect of what mass fatalities, untold horror, chaos and a world shortage of Lemsip will do to increase its audience figures. Therefore, we thought it would be worthwhile to look at the previous Worldwide Pandemic Death Horror media feeding frenzy and see what – if anything – could be learnt from it.*

There is a place - just over there, past the chip shop - where the very first Hamster of Doom was found, just after it matriculated. Of course, we were all very shocked, concerned and slightly itchy just above the left knee.

As we know the recent Asian Bird-Flu incident had failed to ignite any hysteria amongst the populace with its disappointingly-low casualty figures of a blue-tit with a bit of a cough, a chicken with a sore throat and two parrots who needed a lie down in a darkened room for a couple of hours.

The British tabloid newspaper editors were - of course - getting desperate for a new scare story to help reverse the inexorable decline in their sales figures. All of them were on the look out for something - anything - they could use to whip the unthinking hordes into a frenzy of ill-informed speculation, panic and instinctive newspaper purchase.

It all began when some hamsters, already infected with a new strain of deadly Javanese Housemaid's Knee, were imported into this country by a gang of naked pogo-stick fetishists who used hamsters in certain unnatural acts involving whipped cream, adjustable spanners and volume 4 of the Encyclopaedia of Rude and Naughty Things (G-M).

At the time, the hamsters exhibited no signs of the disease, but a few weeks later when the naked fetishist began to repeatedly fall from their pogo-sticks in mid-bounce due to sudden attacks of Javanese Housemaid's Knee, it took the medical establishment only three emergency conferences in exotic holiday locations to realise that maybe something could be going on.

This particular strain of Javanese Housemaid's Knee soon spread from the naked pogo-stick fetishists to their friends, and then on from both of them out into the general public. This brought the epidemic to the attention of the tabloid editors who - with their traditional instinct for hyperbole - soon dubbed the infected small furry mammals The Hamsters of Doom, thus causing waves of panic, hysteria and outbreaks of psychosomatic itchy-knee syndrome. Almost inevitably, this resulted in the mass slaughter of many thousands of perfectly innocent - and disease-free - hamsters.

Of course, Javanese Housemaid's Knee can be highly contagious, but only under some fairly strict circumstances. As we all now know, due to the more than extensive media coverage, to catch it you first have to engage in a duet of Country and Western standards with an already infected hamster. Then you must invite the hamster out to a sit-down meal at a traditional British Chinese restaurant where you feed it Special fried Rice before taking it back home for a 'cup of coffee'. All of which was, of course, a naked pogo-stick fetishist's typical evening. So, while not entirely unlikely, it is relatively hard to catch this particular strain of Javanese Housemaid's Knee from a hamster. However, an infected human only has to share a copy of their local Street A-Z Atlas with an uninfected person in order to spread the virus.

Luckily, the relatively few human deaths (7) so far, and the lack of reports of any new cases for several weeks, as most experts agree, must mean that the epidemic is now beginning to abate. This means, as the panic subsides, the tabloid editors can now publish several articles savagely reprimanding the British general public for panicking, the rest of the media for stoking the fires of hysteria (that is - of course -apart from their own moderate, prudent and sensible selves) and the politicians for attempting to exploit the situation for short-term electoral advantage.

However, there is some good that has come from all this as the whole episode has been a cause of greatly-increased sales and - therefore - profits to the tabloid media and, undoubtedly, a great cause of joy and celebration for all the shareholders in that fine and noble industry. A situation, I'm sure you will agree, that should prove satisfying to us all, knowing that our magnificent British tabloid media has once again come through great adversity with flying colours.

*It is – obviously – that, as usual, nothing will be learnt and we will carry on making the same or similar cock-ups as we always have done in such similar circumstances.

A Glamorous Career

Astrolabe Mamaripreponderance first shot to fame as a theoretical physicist and topless model in the late 1970s. Although, as she later confessed, in a caption accompanying a photo-shoot for page 3 of New Physics Review, her ambition was always to be a car park attendant.

Back in those days, of course, a car park attendant was not the glamorous career it later became in the heady days of the immediate post-Thatcher era when Car Park Attendant became the career for the young and thrusting. In those earlier, pre-Thatcherite (and more innocent), days car park attending was still the preserve of those rather small, wizened old men with a gammy leg, flat cap and a ¾-inch stub of semi-masticated roll-up seemingly welded to their lower lip.

However, after deregulation and privatisation, car parks became no longer just bits of derelict land with only a precarious attendant's shed; containing half a roll of cheaply-printed tickets, and a seemingly stone-age electric kettle. It was now the sensational age of the multi-storey car park. These new, glamorous, locations instantly became the fashionable place to hang out, and not as a makeshift public urinal, or for quick hand-relief around the back of the concrete support pillars. Consequently, the owners of these hip new joints wanted attendants with a glamour and presence to match their new status as the hip, happening places.

During those early years of the fashionable new multi-story car park, Houndstooth Triteweasel was the multi-story car park magnate for most of the 1980s, owning several multi-story car parks in the then trendy and happening town of Tewksbury alone.

Moreover, as a keen amateur devotee of topless theoretical physicists, Triteweasel was more than aware of Mamaripreponderance's oft-stated desire to become the UK’s leading car park attendant. However, at the time Mamaripreponderance was head of research at the Uk’s leading linear small mammal particle collider in Abersoch, where they were about to perform the world’s first accelerated collision between a hamster and a kitten in order to attempt to isolate the ‘cute’ and/or ‘fluffy’ particles that Mamaripreponderance’s theoretical work predicted.

Nevertheless, Triteweasel’s offer of a job as Head Car Park Attendant at his flagship Droitwich multi-story was an offer that Mamaripreponderance just could not refuse. Therefore, turning her back on her topless scientific career, and excellent prospect of achieving a Nobel Prize for her theoretical work on the ‘fluffy’ particle, Mamaripreponderance realised her childhood dream and became – at long last – a car park attendant.

Of course, her career-change is a great loss to gratuitous scientific semi-nudity, especially in the field of theoretical physics. However, personal happiness for Mamaripreponderance came first and we can only respect that, despite our misgivings.

Government Liberalises Law

In a surprise move - which many of its critics have decried as a step too far - the government announced this morning that it would no longer seek to regulate the so-called Ludo Dens.

From the stroke of midnight on 24th April 2009**, for the first time since the early days of WWI, the people of Great Britain will be able to play Ludo free from persecution or the threat of police harassment.

At first highly controversial, the number of Ludo clubs - especially in the glamour towns of London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Grimsby and Tipton - rose rapidly in the more liberal atmosphere on the early 20^th century, especially following the death of Queen Victoria.

Despite disapproval from the pulpit and stern articles in the newspapers: 'even women of the fair sex could be seen brazenly shaking the 'dice' and unashamedly perambulating their counters. A display of nothing less than sheer wanton lewdness' thundered one leader in The Times of 1907, the clubs grew and prospered as the popularity of Ludo spread.

The clubs were first only slightly restricted during the early years of WWI. Later, during the later years of that war, they were closed down completely. At the time, it was said that it was because of the enormous loss of productivity in the munitions factories due to the workers skiving off to play Ludo, as well as the large number of accidents said to be caused by over-tired workers who had lost sleep through playing the then popular all-night Ludo sessions.

The revival of Ludo - like most such things - happened in the heady liberated days of the Swinging Sixties, even then in was mainly confined to underground clubs where bands like Pink Floyd, Cosmic Trousers, Nigel and The Swinging Quantity Surveyors and, of course, Lulu herself provided the musical backdrop to the revived all-night Ludo sessions. Ludo from then on became a staple of the alternative culture, outraging 'square' society.

Inevitably, though, as those - once seemingly beyond the pale - Ludo players have grown older Ludo itself has seemingly done the impossible and now grown respectable. These days it is very rare for suburban middle-class dinner parties not to end, once the children are safe in bed and the plates are cleared away, without at least one game of Ludo. With rumours that even some members of the cabinet may have played a few games of Ludo themselves in younger or student days it seems that the government was - in reality - left with little or no alternative to take this bold step towards the rehabilitation of Ludo as a pastime for consenting adults. But, only time will tell whether it is a step too far down the road of liberalisation.