News Roundup: July 2003

AND FINALLY, a look at the weather forecast forecast. BBC News 24 will be unrelentingly wrong across the board, with the exception of showers around Cleethropes between 0930 and 1025 GMT. FOXNews and CNN will predict opposite conditions. Both will be right. SkyNews will predict a range of low-calorie rice products instead of weather today. Local news will be irrelevant. Shipping forecast: probably quite a few. Hurricanes yes, slight atmosphere, pollen count 4, rain 2-1 sleet after extra time. Further weather available at 40 pence a kilo. * * * ARCHAEOLOGISTS AT THE University of Birmingham have confirmed reports that they have "dug a little too deep" (Reuters). A spokesspeaker announced to journalists earlier that their recent work on Roman villas near Chepstow has penetrated so far into the earth that they reached the end of the geological strata and "began again from the end of time". While geologists have flocked to deny persistent rumours that strata loop round in this way in the past, this discovery will no doubt raise the ever-popular issue to the fore again. When questioned further, spokesspeaker Michael Smeeeeth revealed that the dig had now reached as far down as next Tuesday. He displayed fragments of pottery unearthed that morning, explaining that these finds were "typical of the period". He suggested that they might be indicative of ceremonial burial or possibly advanced tool-making at that time. Mystery still shrouds the hours immediately after the dig reached future strata. However, Dr. Smeeeeth denied findings of around two thousand and thirty-eight functional lasercrystal war-robots complete with the ability to change physical constants at will and slay across time and space, propelling any owner - even a bespectacled and grubby gaggle of academics - to effortless world domination. * * * A FIND OF MILLIONS of unused apostrophes lost from a decade of internet chat and text messaging has created waves in the linguistics community. The haul, spotted by divers near Mallorca, has been hailed as "fucking yeah!" by distinguished figures such as Dr. Noam Chomsky. "I,ve never seen anything like it," he mused commentfully this afternoon. * * * PRIMETIME TELEVISION is to be consolidated into one twenty-five-year-long compendium spreading across a hundred and eighteen channels in forty countries, a media type smarmed earlier. "This will save us a lot of effort," he explained. The new programme will be hosted by Carol Vorderman. * * * PRIMETIME TELEVISION will not be consolidated into a single programme, according to Carol Vorderman. "What a silly idea," said the multi-talented presenter of absolutely fucking everything. * * * THE NEW $20 BILL is to feature a picture of itself in place of the proposed portrait of Martin Luther King. "This will fox forgers no end," enthused Alan Greenspan at a sort of press conference in a box. "They'll be forced to copy an infinite series of identical pictures to fake the money. But they won't because they won't bother. I'm as clever as clever." The first new $20 bill is currently printing and is due to enter circulation shortly after the end of time. * * * THE ART WORLD has been shocked by a controversial, oh, thing or something. In a gallery. For a change. * * * GARY KASPAROV HAS publicly challenged himself to a game of chess at this year's Chess Grand Supreme Final Supro-Ultimato-Contestatron. Grandmaster Kramnik, who currently holds both the world title and the Galactic Hypero-Trophy of Ultra-Chess, claims to have defeated both sides in advance and to have already won the initiative and bishop pair in the rematch. Bobby Fischer parachuted into the middle of the opening ceremony to announce that, as a recluse and possibly even being dead, he would not be entering. Upon leaving event security staff relieved him of a pawn and three boards he was attempting to smuggle back to America, where they may not have such things. On being told all this, the chess computer Deep Blue merely smiled slightly to itself. And waited. And waited. And smiled slightly to itself. And waited. * * * THE TATE MODERN Art Gallery in London has bought Tracy Emin's latest oeuvre, "Thing or Something", for the undisclosed sum of £1.8m. * * * MINIMALIST ARCHITECTURE has reached such an advanced stage of minimalism, say critics, whereby it has achieved such pinnacles of minimalism that it has not only ceased to exist at all but, furthermore, erased any memory of itself from the course of history. This article will therefore self destruct in three sec

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