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SHROPSHIRE. The sell-by dates on food products can be safely extended by around two weeks, a student claimed today. Liam Madden, 20, who is studying Astrophysics with Golf Course Management at the University of Shropshire, insisted that the suggested dates were “proper cautious” and that other factors could be used to determine food edibility.

“Those dates really don’t mean anything”, Madden explained to flatmates earlier today, while tucking into a sandwich of week old bacon on two-week old bread, topped off with two-year old ketchup.  “They’re just being proper cautious because they can’t cut it fine. In reality, you can just add a couple of weeks on and you’ll probably be fine. Sometimes more than that, sometimes less. It’s a judgement call.”

When challenged by disgusted flatmate Anna Jones, 19, if he was then simply planning to leave food festering in the fridge forever, Madden suggested that other proofing methods can be employed to determine if food is safe to eat. “Furriness is the obvious one”, Madden explained. “Most food that doesn’t start out furry shouldn’t become furry with time. Watch out too for things that randomly change colour, texture, start soft and get hard, start hard and get soft, or just generally smell unpleasant. ”

Madden did concede, however, that some food simply has to be thrown away. “Even in these tough economic times, a line has to be drawn somewhere. It’s up to each man to determine where that line is for himself.”

MANCHESTER. A bored office worker today set a new timewasting record after he read 231 articles on Wikipedia in one eight hour working day. Tom Marsh, 26, estimates the feat took in the region of six and a half hours, and smashed his own record of 157 pages, set last November.

“The key to wasting that amount of time is to not be afraid of just reading about things you actually aren’t that interested in,” Marsh explained. “Just start with something you have a passing interest in, and then take something related to that, and then something related to that, and so on, and so on – until you’re reading about the Scandanavian Welface Model and you can’t remember why.”
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SHROPSHIRE. When people start a sentence with “I’m not racist, but…”, they generally tend to follow it up with something a little bit racist, it was revealed today.

“It stands to reason, when you think about it”, explained Dr. Nero Sparboom, Professor of Linguistics at Shropshire, who has spent the last ten years studying what people say right after they say I’m not racist, but. “You don’t often hear people say ‘I’m not racist, but I’m just off to the shops to get a pint of milk’. There’s really no need to qualify your lack of racism there. Compare that with‘I’m not racist, but the bloody foreigners are ruining this country’ – clearly a more appropriate use of the phrase, as it helps to deflect the subsequent casual racism.”

The new research will certainly be a blow to casual racists across the country, who had until now been successfully disguising their intolerant xenophonic opinions with the simple four word phrase. “It’s getting harder to be a little bit racist without anyone noticing”, said Bob, 48, a simple minded bigot from Surrey. “I’m thinking of starting more sentences with ‘you people’ or ‘the trouble with this country is’ instead.”

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LONDON. A valiant but short lived attempt to save money and eat more healthily came to an end today when a local man officially ended his stint of preparing healthy lunches, returning instead to his customary ritual of selecting a packaged sandwich at random from the supermarket across the street from his office.

John Lahm, 27, from East Dulwich, South London, made the dramatic U-Turn only five days after telling friends and colleagues that he was going to make nutritious packed lunches “every day from now on”. While the extract reason for the humilating climbdown is still shrouded in mystery, sources closes to Lahm suggest that that laziness, a lack of inspiration, an absence of good ingredients in the house and a stonking hangover may all contributed to his decision.
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LOS ANGELES. A new twist emerged this morning in the ongoing debate surrounding mobile social network Foursquare, after it was revealed some burglars are using the service to lure other burglars into the open in order to “reburgle” the stuff they already burgled. Foursquare has recently been the target of criticism as it reveals the location of it’s users – information that could be of potential interest to burglars, as highlighted by websites like Please Rob Me. Now so called “reburglers” are using Foursqaure, Twitter and similar services in order to deliberately create the impression that they are not home. They then burgle the burglars when they themselves pop out to do a bit of burgling.

“Burglars tend to have a good stash of swag, on account of all the burgling they’ve been doing”, a reburglar told us. “We also know that they are big Foursquare fans, so when they check in with something like @ur house, burgling all your stuff they don’t realise we’re actually at their house burgling all the stuff they already burgled.”

LONDON. A television news anchor from London feels a deep personal responsibility to ask everyone in the entire world tough questions, it was revealed today. In a frank interview with himself, John Gator, 57, made the admission after he backed himself into a corner with an uncomfortable line of questioning.

“I always have to challenge everything anyone says”, Gator explained. “It’s my duty as a journalist. Why is the coffee pot empty? Who in power allowed that to happen? What is the future for that coffee pot? The public have a right to know the answers”.

Gator also questioned himself on the subject of his private life, saying “the public have a right to know who their news anchor really is”. Gator was unrepentant, however, defending his recent decisions, including accusing his friends of “flip-flopping” for not turning up to the pub when they said they would and asking his son if he considered his position “untenable” after he forgot his father’s birthday. “Whenever anyone says anything, anything at all, it must be challenged”, Gator told viewers. “People needs to learn that if they ever make mistakes, everyone in the world will know.”

LONDON. A mature student, well known amongst his friends for never bothering to buy new clothes, became briefly fashionable today after he accidentally put together a new season outfit from some old clothes he found lying around. Dave Barry, 43, admitted he never really cares what he is wearing, adding that he was “both surprised and delighted” to learn that some of his crappy old clothes had become trendy since he last wore them.

Fashion experts believe that today’s unexpected bout of trendiness is becoming increasingly common. “Fashion tends to go in cycles”, fashion journalist Trisha Tomkins explained. “Things that were once fashionable tend to become fashionable again, so it stands to reason that if you never change your clothes, you’ll be fashionable for a short while every twenty or thirty years.”

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SHEFFIELD. A local couple have been making the most of the cold weather by enjoying low prices on a variety of ice cream brands at  local supermarkets. David Hogg, 34, and his wife Hannah, have reported a huge increase in their consumption of the frozen desert, despite the fact that it is more commonly associated with hot weather.”There are plenty of half price boxes of ice creams”, David explained earlier today. “Sometimes you see ‘buy one get one free’ too, which is not quite the same, but it is still pretty good. I guess we just use the special offers to help tell us what to buy – that’s probably why we eat lots of puddings and root vegetables in summer.”

For her part, Hannah Hogg revealed that the couple always felt a twinge of excitement in waiting to see which brands were on special offer. “We’re always hope to hind Haagen Dasz on offer, that’s no secret,” she explained. “Ben and Jerry’s is good results too. Mars bar ice creams, Magnums and Soleros are all par for the course. Anything less – I’m talking about supermarket own brand, I guess – would be a little disappointing. But the cheap ice cream season runs for three of four months, so most years you have time to get them all in.”

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LONDON. A regular rush hour commuter was left open-mouthed earlier today, after learning the next tube would not arrive at the platform for 6 minutes. Molly Jones, 29, was standing on the northbound Victoria Line platform at Green Park when she received the terrible news. “6 minutes is ridiculous”, Jones told reporters. “1 or 2 minutes is totally fine; 3 or 4 is disappointing; I’ve heard stories of 5 minutes before but 6 minutes is unprecedented. I didn’t even have a book or iPod with me. I was forced to just stare into space and got a little bit bored”.

The delay added as much as five minutes to Jones’ regular 50 minute commute, meaning that she only arrived at work five minutes early, rather than her usual ten.