News of the News

DAS BUNKER, The Culture Wars, Saturday (NNN) — The Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham, has emphasised the necessity of new standards of decency need to be applied to the World Wide Web.

“We plan to apply film-style age ratings to all websites. There are only 186 million at the moment, so that shouldn’t be hard.” He points to the success of the 9pm television watershed at protecting children. “Children have become Victorian ideals one and all since its introduction. They never learn to swear, either.”

Protection of children is paramount. “The Internet is quite a dangerous place,” he says. “I was on Bebo just the other day and a gang of virtual cyber-hoodies mugged me for my mobile.” Internet service providers must offer parents “child-safe” web services. “There has been no market demand for them, but we know what’s good for you. I’m concerned as a parent myself! I need to be able to leave my child in front of the Internet unattended for eight hours a day, and it’s the rest of the Internet’s job to keep an eye on my kid for me.”

He dismissed the concerns of troublemaking digital activists, anarchist defenders of paedophiles one and all. “If you look back at the people who created the internet — the military researchers for ARPA who were building a network that would survive a nuclear war — they talked very deliberately about creating a space that Governments couldn’t reach. Obviously implausible as that sounds. So it’s our job to take it over.”

Mr Burnham also plans to negotiate with Barack Obama’s administration to draw up new international rules for English language websites. “It’s not like they have laws requiring freedom of offensive speech.”

Mr Burnham also plans to give BBC licence fee money to Channel Four, and also give the record industry a massive free copyright extension, three-strikes network cutoff laws and a pony.

“The Internet has been empowering and democratising in many ways, but it can be a very, very complex and quite dangerous world, particularly for politicians. I’ve had people claiming I don’t have the first clue about what I’m regulating, but we have our donors to help us there.”

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Self-rest ye merry atheists
Let nothing you dismay
There is no evidence that Christ
Was born on Christmas day
So save us all from unreason
When we were gone astray
O tidings of reason and fact
Reason and fact
O tidings of reason and fact

In Bethlehem, in Israel,
They’re shooting it out still
Over who the imagined friend
Likes best and always will
Imaginary friends are always
Good reason to kill
O tidings of reason and fact
Reason and fact
O tidings of reason and fact

From centuries of learning
A rational person came
And unto those there listening
Brought tidings of the same:
How that in our great universe
There is no magic name.
O tidings of reason and fact
Reason and fact
O tidings of reason and fact

“Fear not then,” said the person,
“Let nothing you affright,
This day is good as any
For a pure virgin Bright,
To free all those who think in fog
From muddled thinking’s blight.”
O tidings of reason and fact
Reason and fact
O tidings of reason and fact

The thinkers at those tidings
Rejoiced much in mind,
And told their flocks a-feeding
In tempest, storm and wind:
And went to writing straight away
The ounce of sense to find.
O tidings of reason and fact
Reason and fact
O tidings of reason and fact

Now to good sense sing praises,
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace;
This tide of true humanity
All other doth deface.
O tidings of reason and fact
Reason and fact
O tidings of reason and fact

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MEDICAL MEGASTORE, Oxford Street, Monday (NNN) — Sir Richard Branson has accused politicians of “tinkering” with infection control in hospitals.

“If our airlines had that kind of track record we’d be grounded. So we need to apply the Virgin Atlantic and VirginBlue model to the NHS. We’ve also our experience with Virgin Trains and bringing NTL up to quality to bring to the table.”

The new Virgin Medical PFI corporation will operate a new line of cheap, cheerful and financially efficient assembly-line medical operations. “We can buy thirty-year-old equipment cheap, like with VirginBlue, and polish it up and put new logos on it.”

Appointment scheduling will be farmed out to Virgin Trains’ Midland Mainline operations. NHS Direct and 999 will be taken on by the Virgin Media customer support department. “We think a ‘quintuple play’ of phone, internet, television, mobile and having an ambulance show up before you die will be a major marketing winner. If you haven’t been trying to read Wikipedia or anything, of course.” Non-subscribers will be taken to hospital by a Virgin Balloons flight.

Sir Richard also called for more information for patients on infection rates, and a tougher policy on managers at failing trusts. “We’re calling MRSA the ‘Virgin Killer.’”

BUPA shares were up 5% in early trading.

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IN WITH THE CHAPS, Yah-Boo Club, Monday (NNN) — Otis Ferry, 26, pro-hunting campaigner and arrogant over-monied twat who wastes oxygen like there aren’t decay bacteria who could make good use of it, will spend Christmas in jail after bail was denied today.

The son of Roxy Music singer Bryan is charged with assault, robbery, two counts of perverting the course of justice and being an arrogant over-monied twat. He will stand trial in March for truly mind-bogglingly arrogant twattery.

Mr Ferry has made numerous applications for bail, despite repeated claims that life in prison was easy. “Oh, come on — I boarded at a public school. Though I do work to get along with the other inmates, however, regaling them with tales from the hunt and the party circuit.”

“Honest, Guv,” said multiple murderer Bob “Pound You To Mincemeat” Fister, “he opened his mouth and it woz like my brain woz bein’ sucked out my ears. Lord love a duck, get me away from the twat in case I catch a terminal case of twat or something.”

Mr Ferry is likely to remain on remand at HMP Gloucester until his trial on March 9, despite legal action by other prisoners under European human rights legislation.

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A344, Gateway To The West, Sunday (NNN) — Hundreds of druids, pagans, witches and tourists flocked to Stonehenge in Wiltshire to celebrate the Winter Solstice early this morning. The pagan tradition, celebrating the shortest day of the year, has gone back hundreds of years since being reconstructed in 1954 by Gerald Gardner.

About 1,900 people, some dressed in cloaks and robes, saw the sunrise at the prehistoric site, before grabbing a previously-captured Christian virgin male and burning him in a giant wickerman on the site.

Pagan priestess Hypatia Eldritch-Wyldeblood (name legally changed from Tracey Clegg), 19, explained the long tradition of Paganism in the UK. “A lot of people say it’s just kids being trendy. But I’m from a family tradition of witchcraft and paganism going back at least a generation. Not like those Christians, they just make it all up as they go along. Jesus was a pagan, you know — frankincense was actually a shamanistic drug back then, which let the Three Mystical Seers visualise a star of pure astral energy guiding them. The forty days in the desert actually happened over one night on ibogaine. ’Strue, it’s all in this pamphlet from Salisbury Tourism!”

Salisbury Tourism has been working on enhancing the site, with Saturday night wickerman barbecues (“Get your revenge for the Burning Times! Fosters and Kronenbourg mead 2 for 1 Happy Hour! Skyclad after midnight!”) and a concession stand doing a roaring trade in fluffy bunnies. A local tax has been placed on purple to fund the redevelopment.

A £20m visitor centre is to be built at the site, but English Heritage and The National Trust are arguing vociferously over where the centre should be built, trading insults and calling each other’s mother a Christian. English Heritage consultants had sacrificed £2m to the ancient god Mammon in the process.

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SHOPPINGLAND, Consumerville, Friday (NotScientist) — US researchers have repeated the famous “Milgram test,” with volunteers told to electrocute another volunteer, and discovered that normal, everyday people just like you and your neighbours would still make pretty good Nazis in a pinch.

Dr Jerry Burger found that even after the other volunteer (an actor) faked screams of pain, 70% were prepared to increase the voltage they thought was punishing the untermensch. Even when another actor entered the room and questioned what was happening, most were still prepared to continue.

“Most people just want to raise their kids and earn a buck and not be bothered. Tests prove these assholes will happily get you fired for a five-dollar discount, no matter how nice you were to them — if I promise them 5% off their weekly groceries, I dare you to find me one who’ll stop a second before they sell you to the secret police.”

Dr Abigail San ran the experiment herself and concurred. “It’s not that these are not good people — it’s that you can die in a fire if they’ll get a nicer telly for it. I wonder when the next fucker to say ‘never again’ mentions Rwanda. Oh, never?”

Boris Busybody, 77 (IQ), of East Cheam, condemned the experiments. “Everyone knew this already — these ‘scientists’ have upset their test subjects for no good reason. It’s just not right or moral. We should send the buggers back where they came from. I bet they’re all on the dole too.”

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CHAP CENTRAL, Southwark, Friday (NNN) — London mayor Boris Johnson’s competition to design a new Routemaster bus to replace the unpopular bendy buses has been won by a design from Aston Martin.

The new bus, the Routemaster Double-O-Boris, features an aerodynamic profile, solar panels, side-mounted cannons and a fridge to keep one’s martini ingredients instantly ready. It is also able to travel up to fifty miles underwater, maintaining encrypted radio contact with “M” back at the depot, “which will be useful when we extend the number 86 to continue past Romford to Paris,” said Mr Johnson.

The accessibility problems of the old Routemaster are solved with the grab-pole at the back door, which a wheelchair can easily be tied to. A robo-conductor will take fares and shoot evaders with a taser gun. First-class will be at the front of the lower deck, with a concierge and a separate door.

The Health and Safety Executive said that all hop-on-hop-off usage would be monitored by HSE inspectors and restricted to those carrying a certificate of competency and who had a signed disclaimer on file with Transport for London.

The actual bus that will eventually be put into service is unlikely to be identical to the submitted designs, more likely being identical to the present suburban double-deckers but two feet lower and more cramped in all directions. With updated paintwork. “But it will be inspired by the winning design,” said Mr Johnson. “Pow! Bang bang bang! Cripes, Mr Bond!”

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Sir, We are a group of UK film and TV producers, directors and writers. We are concerned that the successes of the creative industries in the UK are being undermined by the illegal online file-sharing of film and TV.

We are asking the Government to show its support by ensuring that internet service providers play their part in tackling this huge problem by giving us money. Lots of money. Just keep piling it in, we’ll tell you when it’s enough.

In 2007, up to (well, it could be) 25 per cent of all online TV piracy took place in the UK. Popular shows are downloaded illegally hundreds of thousands of times per episode, and some of them might even be ours rather than something American made with an actual budget.

It is true that in 2008, UK commercial TV broadcasters enjoyed the highest viewing figures in five years, that total TV viewing was up 10% year-on-year, and the valuable yet hard-to-reach 16 to 24-year-old demographic (the typical file-sharer) watched 4.9% more commercial TV and saw 12% more ads. But it’s the principle of the thing: someone is getting money from something that touches something one of us once touched, therefore the money belongs to us. This is the style of corporate thinking, after all, that brought Britain its great economic gains from 1997 to 2007. At a time when so many jobs are being lost in the wider economy, it is especially important that our gravy train be maintained.

Internet service providers have the ability to change the behaviour of those customers who illegally distribute content online. They have the power to make significant change and to prevent their infrastructure from being used on a wholesale scale for illegal activity. They have the power to stop people looking at the cover of Virgin Killer. They have a secret magic wand that will fix everything wrong with the media industry’s income streams and they are refusing, with malice aforethought, to use it. If they are not prepared to give us all the free money we ask for and a bit more besides, they should be compelled to do so.

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DOWN T’ PIT, London EC1, Wednesday (NNN) — Business leaders were unanimous in their protest against the European Parliament vote to scrap the UK’s opt-out from the Working Time Directive.

“Workers should be free to work any seventy hours they choose. There is of course no element of coercion whatsoever in any workplace we could find, and we actually asked the proprietors of as many as two or three.”

They also noted the terrible effects such a ban would have on the hospitality industry, with the normal British worker no longer needing to down six pints in their three spare hours a week in order to regain the power of speech.

Alejandro Cercas, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party MEP who brought the vote, said the parliament’s 421-273 vote to end the opt-out would help create “a social Europe,” where all workers, jobs and pay packets would be interchangeable and indistinguishable and everyone could live in clean and spacious grey concrete blocks just as good as everyone else’s.

The NHS cautioned against the possibility of junior doctors no longer working 72-hour shifts, as having enough time off shift to be aware of their surroundings might lead to them realising what a hellhole they had signed up for.

Alan Duncan, the Shadow Business Secretary, attacked Gordon Brown for failing to control Labour’s MEPs. “The only way out of the recession is to allow workers an unimpeachable excuse to get the hell away from their families. British business will be unable to compete if individuals do not have the free and untrammeled choice to choose to slurp heartily at the anus of their undoubtedly charming and personable line manager for seventy hours in a week while being paid for forty.”

When it was pointed out that business leaders had said this about the five-day week, every health and safety rule ever written, the abolition of child labour and the abolition of slavery, he said “British business will be unable to compete if it has to spend time thinking up new excuses.”

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DAS BUNKER, RedMonk, Tuesday (NNGadget) — Microsoft is reeling from the vicious and unwarranted slanders of security companies and the US government’s Computer Emergency Response Team that its Internet Explorer web browser has alleged “security holes” or is in any way less than the finest software known to mankind and excellent value for your money.

The festering paedophiles of CERT have gone so outrageously far as to make the ludicrous claim that just viewing a malicious webpage in IE could leave your computer open to being hacked and turned into a Russian Mafia spam server. “We don’t know what could have triggered such vindictiveness,” sobbed Microsoft marketing marketer’s marketer Steve Ballmer. “Do they hate free enterprise that much?”

There are things you can do to make your computing experience even more secure. Microsoft’s official suggestion — make sure your anti-virus software is up to date and using an entire CPU doing nothing much, click through five screens to run IE in “protected mode,” click through four screens to set zone security to “high,” click “JUST BLOODY DO IT WILL YOU” when the User Access Control asks if you really want to do this, enable automatic updates with the minor side-effect of installing Microsoft DRM on your system or Windows Genuine Advantage randomly turning your computer into a paperweight, and sacrifice a goat to Microsoft at midnight on a moonless night — is simple and straightforward. “It’s the quality you’re paying for.”

On no account should you consider that there might be other web browsers out there, as researchers have demonstrated that all of them automatically download the cover of Virgin Killer. “I saw a report,” said marketing marketer John Curran of Microsoft Completely Enderlependent Analysts, Inc., “that another browser had more vulnerabilities than ours! People would be very foolish indeed to move from the latest IE to Netscape 4.01.”

“These CERT wankers are Mactards and trolls,” said Guardian marketing marketer Jack Schofield. “They just want to take IE users out, brutally sodomise them, gas them in concentration camps and” [This comment has been removed by a Guardian moderator. Replies may also be deleted.]

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RADIOPHONEY WORKSOP, Television Outskirts, Monday (N! News) — A new form of psychotherapy could be used to treat the majority of adults with Strictly Come Dancing disorders.

Based on a form of Skinner-box aversion therapy involving electrodes and sofas, it has the potential to treat more than 80% of cases of eating disorders in adults and help them keep their dinners down on Saturday nights. Around two-thirds of those who completed treatment made a “complete and lasting” response, with many of the remaining third showing substantial improvement in their television taste.

Michael Lyons, head of the BBC Trust, promised to review its Strictly Come Dancing scoring system after receiving nearly 200 complaints from viewers who had paid good money to watch at least one of the couples being taken out and publicly hung, drawn and quartered. “The producers are going to look at ways in which they can avoid this situation in the future — how to keep complaints down while continuing to extract 1-900 number fees. Perhaps two hundred and forty volts to the arse could do the job there too. But we don’t want to imply in any way whatsoever that we don’t simply love getting idiot complaints from whinging fools. It’s the centre of our existence. Letters, emails, faxes, why don’t you buy skywriting as well. ‘STRKLY FONE RIPOFF YAR BOO SUXXX,’ that’s the ticket. I’ll just be over here in my bath, slashing my wrists.”

Arlene Phillips dismissed allegations of a judges’ conspiracy — “Personally, I’d have had Tom Chambers castrated” — adding that the viewers were a pack of whiny fuckwits who should just “fuck off” and stop spoiling her lovely show. “They’d vote for Ian fucking Curtis if they could.”

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O2 ARENA CARPARK, Millennium Doom, Sunday (N! News) — Star Wars fans are to feel the force of the seminal sci-fi films and their iconic soundtracks on stage, screen, television, Game Boy, comic book and Internet in major new releases, which will launch next year.

In Star Wars: Journey To The Bottom Of The Barrel, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra will play a live score as recreations of scenes from the six films with amusingly-captioned kittens are shown on a cinema screen.

It will not be a traditional musical with actors playing characters from the films, but will feature live narrators, speaking authentic lolcat dialect, as painstakingly reconstructed by linguists.

As well as the destruction of the Death Star (an exploding Wikipedia puzzle globe) and various love scenes between Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala (rendered with the relevant LEGO® figures), there will be several of the epic battle scenes for which Star Wars is famous, featuring Airfix model spacecraft taking on miniature cardboard battleships, as held in the jaws of cute kittens.

“Star Wars holds memories for practically everyone,” said George Lucas. “I can’t think of anyone who won’t be simply thrilled to have those memories lovingly caressed by these reconstructions. They’ll be particularly pleased to know that JarJar Binks is back, warning Han that Greedo is about to shoot first.”

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GOLDACRE, Slimmer’s World, Saturday (NNN) — Atkins-style low-carbohydrate diets can cause memory problems after only one week, researchers have found.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Cheryl Cole, a devotee of the diet. “That’d make yer stupid, ennit.”

Weight loss is a perennial issue in a society of abundance. One in four children are overweight when they start primary school and one in three are too fat by the time they leave. But fad diets, popularised by celebrities, where the subject does a single thing in the hope of effects without significant effort, rather than general reduction of energy intake and increase of energy use, are potentially dangerous.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Cheryl Cole. “That’d make yer stupid, ennit.”

Amy Winehouse is writing up her own celebrity diet tips book, helped by her imprisoned husband Blake Fielder-Civil. “Going out for munchies at 3am is vital, and you gotta have vodka, not beer or wine. Also cigs, they make you thin and sexy, like me. My brain’s in PERFECT ORDER and tell those fucking pixies and giant lobsters behind you I said so. Fuckers.” Ms Winehouse also announced her own designer celebrity perfume, available in powdered form.

Gillian McKeith has offered a new crystal-based dieting method that involves chakra harmony, cosmic reflexology and coordinating one’s qi field to wipe out one’s IQ field. “This method helps strip off the pounds in no time,” said Dr Ms McKeith, “and send them to my bank account, where they belong.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Cheryl Cole. “That’d make yer stupid, ennit.”

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MENEZES, London EC1, Friday (NNN) — The jury has returned an open verdict at the inquest into the death of Woolworths, which people mistook for a viable company. It rejected the administrator Deloitte’s account that Woolworths was killed lawfully by two auditors who shot it seven times in the High Street.

Neville Kahn, a partner at Deloitte, said they had only been seeking to get the best value out of the stock and assets, and certainly hadn’t just been looking for a whacking bonus on selling the patient’s organs off, no no, with deep discounts on the last of the insufficiently cheap though quite nasty plastic crap, Irish pork, Haringey social workers, lesser Geldof daughters, copies of Virgin Killer and behind-the-counter cigarettes. And bloody pick and bloody mix.

THE JURY’S KEY ANSWERS

Did receivers shout ‘armed accountants’? NO
Did difficulty in identifying the point of the company under surveillance lead to its death? NO
The pressure on auditors after the financial suicide attacks of late 2008? CANNOT DECIDE

Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the Commons the death had been a “most terrible mistake, which we deeply regret … Oh, we’re not talking about banks or financial services? Right-o, carry on then, blow the buggers’ brains out. I’m busy saving the world over here.”

The bullet-riddled corpse of the company will be sold off for parts. The stores have attracted the interest of Asda, Morrisons, Lidl, Poundland and Dixy Authhentiic Fired Cihcken. The name will, with economic deflation, become Wlths.

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WOT’S ALL THIS THEN, ’Ello ’Ello ’Ello.co.uk, Thursday (NNGadget) — UK police are asking for a “breathalyser”-style tool for computers that could instantly flag up illegal activity on any PC it is attached to.

Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie, who is what passes for a computer expert in the police force, said such a tool could run on suspects’ machines, instantly read and analyse their email, web browsing and chat logs, identify credit card fraud or selling stolen goods online, reliably detect and assess images containing children on the five-level child porn scale and create a handy log of relevant evidence. And a pony.

“It’s surely just a simple matter of programming,” said McMurdie. “We’re seizing so many computers from people with a copy of Virgin Killer that frontline police need a digital forensic tool as easy to use as the breathalyser, to magically flash up ‘HONEST UPSTANDING CITIZEN’ or ‘’E'S A NONCE, GUV’. Do we need to seize five computers, all their mobile phones, their CD and DVD collection and basically everything that runs on electricity, or could we use a magical police gadget with impressive flashy lights and stuff? I thought computers were supposed to make life easier!”

The eventual development of such a tool could help ease a backlog of digital forensic work that has officers waiting up to a year for evidence to be recovered from seized machines, though threatening to destroy people’s livelihoods has proven very efficient in extracting confessions.

EDS Capita Goatse have promised they can “absolutely, definitely, certainly, probably” produce such a tool with only an ironclad £100m five year contract, and also reliably determine whether a computer program halts or not. The Internet Watch Foundation also demanded to be involved, and were told their details would be kept on file.

“It was so much simpler in the old days,” sighed McMurdie. “People asking you what time it was, burglars with domino masks and striped jumpers and bags marked ‘SWAG,’ chirpy Cockney sparrow second-hand car dealers wiv a heart of gold … you just can’t get the wood, you know.”

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PAGE 3, Channel 5, Wednesday (NNN) — The makers of a documentary on assisted suicide have defended their decision to film a reality TV show revolving around the concept.

In I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here Permanently, Z-list celebrities are locked inside a house festooned with knives, guns, poison, copies of Virgin Killer and each other. “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley is played twenty-four hours a day at 100 decibels. As housemates are slowly and exquisitely killed off by public vote, the contestant list gets down to two deserving finalists who, in a surprise upset, are both fed into a woodchipper feet first in a cheering finale for all the family.

“As a broadcaster,” said Barbara Gibbon of Sky Real Lives, “we believe that there is a role for television to inform public debate about even the most challenging subjects. We particularly enjoyed challenging Nicola McLean to count to ten without using her fingers, before suffocating her on her own breasts in the Lolo Ferrari Trial.’”

Dr Peter Saunders, director of the campaign group Care Not Killing, earlier accused programme makers of a “cynical attempt to boost television ratings.” He changed his mind when he heard the contestant list. “On reviewing the matter, we realised that seeing David van Day forced to actually eat his own arsehole live on television would create an increase in happiness and good cheer that would save at least five hundred suicides of worthwhile humans and was therefore a moral imperative. I’m leaving Virgin and going to Sky tomorrow.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the Commons he was personally opposed to assisted suicide, but urged George Galloway to add this show to his television CV.

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WIKIALITY, Little Boring, Tuesday (NNN) — The Internet Watch Foundation’s “Crapland” child-friendly Internet theme park has gone bust after only three days.

An information board at the entrance depicts the classical painting Smell The Glove by Scorpionaggio (courtesy National Portrait Gallery) and welcomes the visitor on a “flight of the imagination, travelling down the magical pathways that teenagers have used to get their porn for centuries,” and which have been specially opened up for the lucky children invited to come. “Just like Michael Jackson’s Neverland.”

Advertisements promised a “Clean Kiddie-Friendly World … Hollywood Special FXs, Blind Faith plane ride, Nevermind swimming baths, Houses of the Holy rock climbing … & much more!”

The reality when it opened on Saturday evening was somewhat less impressive. Spurious 404s, lying customer service staff (“for the authentic Internet experience!”), HTML 2.0 and web searches through AltaVista. “It looked like a website from 1995 or a paper chart of what it should look like,” said customer Jimmy Wales. “It was like they’d stacked dial-up modems on both sides of a path together, stuck some printouts on a TV and stuck a keyboard in front. We were waiting two hours and they charged us £10 for a photo with Mary Whitehouse.”

Two curtain-twitchers and a Whitehouse were attacked by irate Internet users. A posting on 4chan showed a busybody having a fag behind the grotto.

Then, on Tuesday evening, Crapland closed. A statement by the management said this was due to “intentional organised crowd manipulation and event sabotage and unscrupulous and inaccurate negative bias media that quoted our words accurately in full.” A woman dressed as a particularly hefty Pepperpot stood outside shrieking: “The IWF’s dead. Go home.”

Cable internet users who unwittingly signed up for the Crapland experience are giving up and getting DSL broadband instead. “It’s been a complete Virgin killer.”

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PARIS, Redmond, Monday (NNN) — In an effort to break out of the stifling monopoly of being a rather tedious office supplies company and get “hep” with the “kids,” Microsoft has branched out into clothing.

The Zunewear® catalog will feature a fabulous array of brown polyester, purchasable for only $29 in the Home Basic edition and guaranteed not to unravel as long as your annual subscription is up to date. Other garments include a brown button-up leather jacket with a Microsoft logo on the back and a three-piece bri-nylon suit with a Bill Gates “mugshot” tie.

“This line taps the nostalgia of when the PC began to affect Bill’s bank account,” said marketing marketer’s marketer Steve Ballmer. “Who wouldn’t show up to work advertising their love of Office 97, of Windows ME, of Microsoft Bob? The Vista® shoes with ten-pound weights on each ankle that need to be flexed to fit. Be a winner! Get with the popular crowd! I’M A PC!”

Apple has responded with a line of hundreds of identical black polonecks, while Google offers a multicoloured garment free!!! that melds itself into your skin and body and enhances your life in all sorts of ways while transmitting detailed information on your cellular structure back to Google’s marketing department.

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WIKIFIDDLE, Brass Eye, Sunday (NNN) — The Internet Watch Foundation, protectors of the British citizenry against uncceptable material on teh intarweb, have declared Wikipedia illegal in the UK.

Several police forces had advised the IWF concerning the site, swearing their actions had nothing to do with anything in the site about senior policemen or their behaviour.

“The fourth most popular website in the world is an encyclopedia,” said IWF Oberstürmgrüppenwhitehouse Myra Hindley. “What sort of message does that send about the youth of today? They should be using mobile phones, dealing drugs, smoking cracks to ‘jazz’ music in discos and knifing each other in the streets. God help us if they see record covers!”

Police across the country used sophisticated hammer-detecting equipment to swoop on the homes of rumoured Wikipedophiles. All computers, mobile phones, televisions and any technology more sophisticated than scissors will be confiscated for investigation, and will be returned in due process in twelve to eighteen months when the filthy fucking nonces have been brought to trial, assuming they survive multiple beatings in jail.

“Fuck these filthy fucking fuckers,” said Zoe fucking Hilton of the NSPCC. “And give us money, or you’re a filthy fucking kiddie fucker yourself. Turd.”

“We absolutely won’t be adapting the system to discussion of ID cards,” said Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. “Nor will MPs raising the issue have their offices or homes raided. Probably.”

Virgin Media users had failed to notice any difference, assuming the connection problems were service as normal, and went back to watching the football except for the last ten minutes of the game.

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HARARE, Whitehall, Saturday (NNN) — New laws will allow the Electoral Commission to undertake searches of MPs’ offices without a warrant.

Commons Speaker Michael Martin had vowed to prevent “unauthorised” raids on MPs’ Westminster offices, but noted this was a very handy get-out for him. “The Tories have been up to some evil, evil stuff with money lately. Labour of course remained uncharged a coupla years ago. But to maintain confidence, we will outsource the job to real experts on sensitive intervention in difficult circumstances: Haringey Council Social Services.”

He said that Sharon Shoesmith had shown her expertise in dealing with power with diplomacy and tact, and had stunned and delighted all in New Labour with her bureaucratic acrobatics mathematically proving step by step that nothing whatsoever done by any individual at Haringey Council was in fact incorrect in the Baby P case, and that the brutal murder of the child in question could, therefore, not possibly have occurred.

The social workers will not, however, be permitted to take samples of the MPs’ DNA. “Though David Blunkett and John Prescott kept offering theirs.”

Jacqui Smith says the new measures will fit in with plans to search the homes of staff working on ID cards to prevent leaks, the plans in question having leaked.

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