Giving head(lines): Bourgeois & Maurice take on the week’s news
By Nick Bond
We’ve rounded up the top stories from the week and what a lol-acoaster it’s been! Here’s the big hitters:
Going up
Type 2 diabetes – everyone’s at it. Research published this week says it’s 21st century Britain’s must-have disease. Pass us another McHeartMurmer with fries, please.
Going down
A Latvian air Baltic pilot has been sentenced to six months in prison after being found seven times over the alcohol limit, just before he was due to fly from Norway to Crete. The pilot admitted to drinking two bottles of whisky and a ‘a few beers’ before take off. We sympathise – when the air hostess keeps offering you those little freebies it’s hard to say no.
In other news…
Youth better werk
Young unemployed people in the UK are to be forced to attend ‘work boot camp’ under new measures dreamt up by a senior Tory during a particularly vivid wet dream. Cabinet Office minister Matt Hancock says the idea just came to him, fully formed, as he slept standing upright in his gold plated coffin: “I was in a building that looked like my school only it wasn’t my school – you know? – the hall was lined with big metal doors and I pushed one open to reveal a classroom of broken young people, all hope sucked from them, and they were chanting lines from a blackboard that read ‘I am a slug on the vegetable of society, squash me, destroy me, turn me into compost and let new life grow’. It was beautiful. I told my dream to Mr Cameron and he agreed it was brilliant and gave me a twenty pound bonus from his own wallet, which I’m going to spend on some thermonuclear warheads for my front patio.” Critics have argued that work camps will de-motivate young people and act as a form of punishment, forcing them to take the blame for a weak job market with little hope of growth due to continuing austerity measures. But those critics are probably all Jeremy Corbyn-loving hippies so their thoughts can be dismissed on mental health grounds.
Draconian Amazonian
A damning New York Times article about Amazon’s brutal treatment of its office staff has gone viral, causing many people on social media to fleetingly pretend they are going to boycott the online retailer. Some of the company’s employees – who go by the name of ‘Amazonians’ due to the obvious similarities between the Starbucks-drinking residents of Seattle and the rainforest-dwelling tribes of Brazil – reported seeing colleagues crying in public, losing jobs for having children and being encouraged to slag each other off using the company’s automated ‘bitch button’*. Try working in showbiz, loves. At least you have a pension.
*legal disclaimer: not its real name. But it should be.
Goodbye old friend
Sexy lefty Alexis Tsipras has resigned as Prime Minister of Greece and called for an early election, saying he had a “moral duty” to go back to the Greek people to seek their approval (bit needy, Alexis babes). He announced his decision on national TV and openly stated that he had not achieved what he set out to do – isn’t that what politics is about? In response, right wing I-told-you-so’s are jizzing all over their pressed trousers and poverty pornos, whilst left-wing moaners are furious at the PM’s inability to stand against austerity. Coincidentally, that is also the blurb for the next series of Gogglebox. Vive la television
Hail the new puritans
The personal details of 32million registered users of cheating website Ashley Madison (tag line – ‘Life is short, have an affair’) have been dumped online by hackers. This is disappointing for two reasons – 1) when did hackers become the puritanical guardians of moral decency? 2) the majority of the users were heterosexual men. We thought straight people didn’t do stuff like this – isn’t that what all the opponents of gay marriage said? Gays are promiscuous and devalue the sanctity of marriage etc etc? 32million married heteros beg to differ.
Talking of sexuality (when are we not?) – according to a YouGov survey published this week, half of the UK’s 18-24 year old population don’t identify as exclusively heterosexual. Commentators on the Mail Online have gone into meltdown. Our favourite responses are: “please stop pushing this down my throat. I know my friends really well and no way”, “yet another cultural Marxist agenda driven poll” and “I wouldn’t bother asking 18 to 24 year olds anything”. One commenter blamed the results on all the hormones “they” keep putting in our food. Bloody “they”.
OK, you weirdos, that’s it from us. See you in a bitch.
B&M x