Newsfalsh! - June 1st, 2009

More news for you, the stories you may not have seen courtesy of your friends at E14.

More overseas students 'found'

See, straightaway I love this article just from the title. More overseas students 'found', with found in inverted commas, as if it's quoting an expert.

"After extensive research, we have discovered the existence of a 47 million year old fossil, using the scientific approach known as 'finding' it."

So the article, to sum up for those who would rather read attempts at topical humour than actually read the source material in any significant depth, is about a report from the British Council (through whose graces I had one of the best experiences of my life in France) which details the discovery that there are considerably more overseas students in England than they originally thought.

How many more, you ask? 25? Nope. 500? Still cold. 10,000? Not even close.

The British Council has managed to find another 124,240 overseas students at universities across the country.

Now, my first question bearing this in mind is "How the fuck do you lose 124,000 people?" Were they hiding for any particular reason? I mean, we all know overseas students pay higher tuition fees. Oh, you didn't know that? Interesting. Anyway, apparently the reason for this change in numbers is due to a change in the methods of calculation for overseas students in universities.

You would think, surely, that the formula for calculating the number of overseas students in universities is simple:

Total number of students in UK universities - Total number of UK nationality students in UK universities = total number of overseas students in UK universities.

Apparently, that's what the formula has now become.

So what, I hear you ask (silently), did the British Council use as their method before this conversion? They would read the address of the applicant, and sort according to the country of origin OF THE ADDRESS. How was that ever likely to reflect an accurate number? Bearing in mind that you have to have a sponsor address to get a student visa in the UK anyway, I don't see how they could fail to notice that before the recalculation, there were no students whatsoever from Eastern Europe. I mean, I'm certainly not one to subscribe to this "They come over here and take our jobs" mentality, but I'm certainly not blind to the fact that they do come over here.

Toddler buys real digger online

eBay is awesome frankly, and stories like this just go ahead and prove it every time I see one online.

First of all, this child is three years old. Not a year, not 2. Three years old. SURELY the child at least understands that when you are searching on an auction website (we're led to assume it's eBay although it's never stated officially - but let's face it: what other website would sell toys AND real earthdiggers?), that there is an upper limit to how much toys cost? No parent on Earth would be that much of a bastard to tell the kids that their toys cost thousands upon thousands of pounds each, you'll traumatise the poor buggers.

I would also like to draw your attention to the awesomeness of the child's name: Pipi Quinlan. What a great name, it sounds like she deserves her own late-night hard-hitting detective series. Skeptical as you might be, I'd watch the shit out of "The Pipi Quinlan Mysteries".

What's great about this is the mother's words about how the saga evolved. Apparently she was shopping for toys online with her daughter, and was surprised to wake up the next morning to find an email asking for money to be deposited. Exactly how familiar was she was online auctions? I've been part of a few, that's generally EXACTLY how it works. I buy something, they ask for the money. It's the model that commerce has been built on since the oldest times, and it's seemingly worked pretty well up until now.

I mean, this is all assuming the child actually ordered the digger, and it wasn't just a drunken mistake by the parents.

"Christ, how much did we have to drink last night?"
"I don't know, but it looks like no harm's been do...Oh shit."
"What? What is it?"
"Well, you remember we talked about how much we like plant machinery?"
"We didn't..."

Just be careful, doting mother: If your child starts shopping for forensics kits and magnifying glasses, don't you DARE stand in her way.

Youtube helps man deliver baby

First things first: I have NEVER understood the use of the word "delivery" when referring to the act of childbirth. It's got almost nothing in common with any delivery I've ever signed for. Firstly, I have to sign for deliveries, and as far as I know no paperwork is kept on file for these babies apart from a birth certificate. Secondly, that I know of, no baby has ever been signed for as "in good condition". Thirdly, no baby is guaranteed next-day delivery, no matter how much extra the parents would be willing to pay.

So it transpires that while waiting for their midwife to arrive, the guy decided to take matters into his own hands, and using knowledge he'd gained from Youtube videos, deliver the baby himself. What a nice and caring guy, eh? I thought so, anyway, until I read him saying that with previous births he'd been at his wife's head, but would now be comfortable at "the business end". What the fuck is he playing at calling his wife's pussy the "business end"? Is he asking for an economic shrinkage?!

I thought this was a great story until I read this one a few days later.

Pornographic videos flood Youtube

Double standards much Youtube? What, so just because the lady's "business end" is probably actually earning her some money, you've got an issue with it?