credit: Trevor Dennis

EDINBURGH. When faced with a bewildering wine list and an incomprehensible sommelier, ordering the second cheapest bottle of wine on the menu is a “pretty reliable” way to choose a bottle of wine, a local man revealed today.

David Walsh, 26, made the statement while he and a group of old friends were struggling to decipher an inexplicably confusing wine list at a restaurant in the city last Sunday. “The second cheapest is usually the way to go”, Walsh explained. “It’s pretty reliable, and will usually get you something solid, albeit not spectacular. I mean, it just stands to reason: etiquette says you can’t order the absolute cheapest wine in a restaurant, but since you don’t understand anything about wine you don’t want to order anything too expensive. So just go for the second cheapest.”

When pressed further on the subject, Walsh did reveal, however, that the days of ordering the second cheapest bottle might be numbered. “I think ordering the second cheapest of anything is a pretty widespread practice”, Walsh said. “I’m pretty confident I didn’t event that. So you’ve got to ask yourself – do the restaurant owners know about the second cheapest too? If they do, they’ll make sure the second cheapest wine on the menu is something rubbish and overpriced, since people are going to order it anyway. Pretty soon we’ll need to start mixing things up, and go for maybe the second second cheapest, the second second second cheapest, or maybe even, in extreme cases, the cheapest.

“Basically, all wine tastes pretty similar”, Walsh concluded. “The game is basically to not look too tight, while at the same time not overpaying for something too expensive, since you probably won’t be able to taste the difference anyway.”

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LINCOLN. A local man today insisted to friends that popular music is in terminal decline, adding that most current popular music could be described as “just noise, really”. Craig Shearer, 47, from Horncastle, near Lincoln, made the somewhat predictable declaration over drinks with work colleagues in a local pub.

“Back in our day we had proper songwriting and people played real instruments”, Mr Shearer explained. “Nowadays computers are writing songs”.

When it was put to him by a junior colleague that basically every generation since the beginning of time has claimed the same thing, Shearer was unrepentant. “Our music was great”, Shearer responded. “Our parents just didn’t understand it.”. Shearer also refuted the allegation that had basically become a bit like his parents, and wasn’t in touch with young people today. “I really am in touch with the kids”, he explained. “I watch X-Factor and everything.”

photo credit: La Tête Krançien

WESTMINSTER. Government budgets are too big to understand; the best fiscal policy is pure luck; large budgets are more easily understood when converted into an equivalent number of expensive bottles of champagne. Those were among the surprises revealed today by the Chancellor, who, in a rare unguarded – and possibly inebriated – press conference at the Treasury, revealed perhaps more than he intended about the genesis of the government’s fiscal policy.

“I mean, let’s be honest, pretty much nobody understand numbers once they get above a billion”, the Chancellor said, responding to a journalist who had asked if the Chancellor fully understood the scale of the cuts being proposed in the forthcoming budget.. “If somebody says to me, what’s the difference between £200 and £300, I’d say, easy – a nice lunch in Mayfair with a glass of champagne. But if someone says what’s the different between £20 billion and £30 billion, I think it’s fair to say that no one really knows. Is this government department worth £20 billion a year or £30 billion? Really, it hurts your brain if you try and think about what that difference of £10 billion means. It makes more sense to use something you really understand the value of, so I use Dom Pérignon ’61, which I think everyone can relate to. For example, this year we have to pay down £47 billion in interest on our debt. How much is that? Is it a lot? It’s just a number. But if I tell you that it works out as 117,500,000 bottles of Dom Pérignon ’61 then I think you’ll agree that fuck yeah, that’s a lot.”

photo credit: legalnonresident

BIRMINGHAM. People making commitments to change their behaviour in the New Year should aim for trivially easy targets to increase their chance of success, a local taxi driver told relations today.

Peter Oldham, 48, was helping himself to an additional portion of parsnips during his families traditional New Year’s Day roast when he offered the unsolicited advice to a gathering of seven or eight relatives.

“These people want to bring about serious change in their lives, for example losing lots of weight, smoking less or giving up some kind of vice”, Mr Oldham explained. “Those kind of resolutions actually require a bit of effort and that’s why people fail. They should aim for things they might actually be able to pull off, like giving up some food they don’t like.”

The opinion appears to have been prompted by Auntie Doris’ earlier revelation that she planned to quit smoking for the New Year; the eleventh time she has made the same commitment, so far without success.

Mr Oldham went on to explain how people could fool friends and loved ones using his concept of “resolution offseting”. “Basically, what you do is you pair up something you’re not supposed to do with something you want to do more of”, Mr Oldham explained. “For example, if your missus wants you to watch TV, tell her you’ve made a resolution to watch less TV. Then whenever she has a pop at you for watching too much TV, you get up and go the pub. You don’t break your resolution, and you get to go the the pub. It’s a win win.”

credit: 姒儿喵喵

SHROPSHIRE. At least 114% of British citizens have no understanding of simple probability, new research published today reveals. A study undertaken by Professor Gordon Delicious, Professor of Statistical Nonsense at the University of Shropshire, looked at how well ordinary people coped with GCSE level mathematical concepts.

“The results are pretty damning”, Professor Delicious explained today. “37% of people were unable to correctly estimate the probability of rolling snake eyes with two fair dice. 54% didn’t understand how to handle probabilities of conditional events, and 23% couldn’t understand concepts of permutations and combinations. In total that gives up a surprising 114% who have made at least one kind of basic error”.

When asked why 69 million of Brtain’s 61 million iinhabitants were unable to perform the tasks, Professor Delicious suggested that education was to blame. “At least 34 children in every class of 30 are failing to learn how to interpret numbers correctly. I think you will agree that is pretty alarming.”

photo credit: Thomas Hawk

BRIXTON. An office worker today celebrated on the inside after overtaking eight fellow cyclists on a busy uphill road in South London. Tom Johnson, 32, was the first of the group of eight unconnected commuters to reach the top of Brixton Hill, and revealed that while it may have looked easy, a lot of effort was involved.

“My heart was beating pretty hard, but it’s important to look relaxed when you overtake people,” Johnson explained. ” You can’t let them know that you’re racing them. But everybody races sometimes.”

Johnson’s victory was all the more impressive given the calibre of the opposition, which included a woman on a shopping bike, a couple of teenagers, and a guy wearing lycra riding what looked like an a pretty expensive road bike. “It was particularly sweet to beat that guy”, Johnson added. “He looks pretty fast but he made a right mess of the traffic lights, and that cost him dear”.

credit: Darwin Bell

LONDON. The avocado has continued its unwarranted advance on dinnerplates across the globe, new research published today has revealed.

The squishy, tastless fruit has long been a staple of guacamole and bland salads but has recently also been making significant advances in side-salads, sandwiches and burgers.

“The rise in unneccessary avocado consumption has really been quite alarming”, explained Sarah Berry, Professor of Fruit at the University of Shropshire. “The number of meals with avocado in has been increasing year on year, far above the rate that we would expect for such a crappy and pointless fruit.”

Professor Berry’s research also indicated that more and more people are admitting that they like avocado: a dangerous development that Berry reads as a sign that the subversive tactics of the avocado are starting to have an effect on the population at large.

“The campaign the avocado is fighting is a smart and effective one”, Berry explained. “One day avocados will be in every meal, and people will be asking – ‘how did this happen? – but by then it will be too late.”

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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.”