“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.”

“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.”

photo credit: alexbrn

Childrens entertainer Punch today leapt to the defense of so called “Punch and Judy politics”, insisting it had been “unfairly maligned” by opponents trying to discredit him ahead of the general election in May. Speaking in South London, where he is contesting the Croydon North seat on behalf of the Seaside Puppet Party, Punch insisted that Punch And Just politics was exactly what the country needed to help it out of the current ecomomic downturn.

“Some people may call it Punch and Judy politics, but to my wife Judy and I it is more than that. It’s our way of life,” Punch explained. “Whenever disputes need to be resolved, the most effective way is nearly always to whack someone on the head for the entertainment of others. Laughter and visual comedy are a sound basis for a system of goverment.”

At today’s press conference Punch also unveiled his manifesto for the forthcoming election. Key policies objectives include telling jokes, whacking people with a stick and generally making everyone “Pleased as Punch”.

credit: [phil h]

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.

credit: Tambako the Jaguar

RUSSIA. Following a high profile and relentless disambiguation campaign, Russian website comparethemeerkat.com has now become the world’s fifth most popular destination for users seeking to compare meerkats. Though the advertisements initially started to help redirect lost Internet users looking to compare car insurance policies, Compare The Meerkat has now itself started to grow in popularity – a welcome surprise to founder Alexandr Orlov.

“We started the adverts because we were seeing lots people looking for car insurance”, Orlov explained. “It was all pretty altruistic to begin with – I wanted to use some of my money for good so I decided to help clarify the confusion. We’ve seen a real boost in our own traffic, though – it’s unexpected but really pleasing.”

There has been a lot of media hype surrounding the trial, the first of its kind since the infamous “subjunctive trials”, and the presiding judge, Donald Kelly, issued strict instructions to the jury. “You will all have some relationship to The Passive Voice”, he said at the start of the trial this morning. “You will all know about some things that are or have been done, but you must disregard them. I must ask you also to disregard the previous good work conducted by the defendant, and concentrate solely on the charges at hand”, he added – referring of course to the many achievments with which The Passive Voice is credited, such as people who were rescued, miracles that were performed and men who were created equal.

For his part, The Voice has always maintained his innocence. “They are making me a scapegoat”, he told the BBC in an interview given before his arrest last year. “When we don’t have the facts, it’s always the same – blame the Passive Voice. We’ve sleepwalked into a society that is willing to put a grammatical construction on trial in order to avoid blame and find closure. That’s as chilling as it is ridiculous.”

Critics of the prosecution have defended The Voice, insisting that the trial is the brainchild of literary scholars who want to remove the Passive Voice in order that the Active Voice might reassert it’s stronghold, leading to less unattributed bullshit in modern society. While denying involvment which the prosecution, the anti-Passive lobby make no secret of their dislike. “The Passive Voice is responsbile for too much uncertainty”, explained Mitchell Webb from Citizens For Increased Use Of The Active Voice. “With the Passive out of the way, the Active voice will let us know exactly who did what at every time, and that will lead to a fairer society”.

photo credit: eb0la

LONDON. A conglomerate of major news broadcasters today came together to announce they would no longer be covering anything that happened more than twenty-four hours ago, branding it “yesterday’s news”. The broadcasters, who include BBC, Sky, ITV and CNN, revealed they instead intend to focus on real-time breaking news and commentary. The move was widely forecast by industry experts. “The time when viewers wanted news reporting to be accurate and reliable has come and gone”, said Mark Johnson, a London-based media analyst. “What people want is to know what’s happening now. No one cares if it’s important or true – so long as it’s happening now. People who watch twenty-four hour news channels don’t want twenty-five or twenty-six hour news. They want twenty-four hour news.”

The announcement was made by The News Broadcasters Assocation, an organisation whose mission statement is “to promote the common interests of news broadcasters”, but it seen by many as a news cartel seeking to restrict competition and dictate the news agenda. Their chief executive is new-romantic-popstar turned media-mogul, Larry Lombardi. “We’ve got big plans”, Lombardi told reporters at a press conference this afternoon. “We want to increase the number of reporters we have standing in front of things that have just happened. That is a big part of our plan. Across the industry there are also plans for brighter graphics that scroll across the screen even faster than ever before. We’re also looking to introduce new channels, like our new Twitter channel or the Super Breaking News Channel, which will have news that isn’t yet breaking news, or might turn out not to be news at all.”

As well as providing benefits to viewers, Lombardi admitted that the industry itself would benefit too. “The move will allow us to make substantial savings, that is true,” he added. “Our news archives can go, because history isn’t as important or interesting as what’s happening now. We also expect to be able to trim the fat in our editorial departments. No story will last more than a few hours, so there isn’t the same emphasis for us to get the facts right that there once was. Our army of journalists can, over time be replaced by a combination of citizen journalists and judicial use of the phrases Here’s what we know so far.., it’s too early to say if… and the facts are still coming in. We’re also going to boost the amount of fatuous opinion and commentary, which is cheaper to produce.” Lombardi was quick to defend criticisms of the change in programming. “Real-time people talking in real-time about real-time news”, he said. “That is the future”.

“That’ll teach Simon Cowell a big lesson,” he continued, despites pleas for him not to bother. “Some of us even are considering not watching his shows any more, even though that will make it harder for us to complain about them the whole time”.