Monday 30 November 2009

Newsfalsh!

Welcome once again to Newsfalsh!, E14's pick of the weird and wonderful goings-on of the planet we call 'home'.

Passengers struck by Tube train

This couldn't be something awesome, could it? It couldn't be that people saw one particularly handsome tube train and thought "My goodness, my day has been somewhat brightened by that beautiful sight." It couldn't be that Godzilla had invaded London for the day or something, and was swinging a tube train around. That would be the kind of passenger-striking I could REALLY go for. But no, it has to be the decidedly less awesome version that involves blood and head wounds and stuff. Lame.

So the story here is that a vinyl barrier came loose and injured three people. Now, I like the fact that straight away, there's confusion. Apparently three people were injured, but only TWO were being treated?! What happened, did the other person react harshly to being struck by a bit of plastic from the side of a MOVING TRAIN? I can only imagine that were it me in their place, I'd be fucking livid, particularly as it's meant to be a PROTECTIVE BARRIER. I've got news for you folks; 'Irony' isn't just the way nails taste when you lick them.

As irony goes, "being injured by a protective barrier" is up there with me ringing for a doctor's appointment the other day only to find out that my doctor is ill. I can't work out how the receptionist wasn't laughing her arse off at that one, particularly when I, Robert Wade of Emotionally Fourteen pointed it out to her. But no, apparently she was suffering from an irony deficiency, or as I call it, "Humour Vacuum Disorder".

Incidentally, a pun on the word 'anaemia' with a reference to irony is more difficult than you'd think.

Anyway, you'll be pleased to know that TFL staff have assured the public not to worry, as incidents like this are "very rare". Now, I don't know about you, but I actually think the risk of injury and mutilation might add an edge to London commuting, but I realise I'm in a minority. As well as this, apparently none of the injured parties were critical, which I suppose is a relief on London public transportation.



Power-guzzling TVs to be banned

Apparently there are certain brands of television that use up a tremendous amount of power. Now, I know you know the ones I mean. What's more, YOU know I know you know the ones I mean. I have a friend with one, he paid £2,000 for it a couple of years ago. a 60" Plasma television. He has a one year old daughter now, and I'm convinced she'll feel like she's actually IN the shows sometimes.

Not that she'd want to be. Have you SEEN what they've done to Winnie the Pooh now? They've introduced this British girl, and made it all CG. I watched one around Halloween, and they decided to dress up as scary monsters. Pooh went as a vampire, good choice of scary creature and a safe bet for scares. The girl (whose name escapes me, partly because I released its cage door and said "FUCK OFF, NAME!") dressed up as a cat. Ok, not SO scary, but I suppose the idea of dressing up is something in itself. Unless you're Tigger, and you decide the scariest thing you can dress up as...is Napoleon.


Maybe he's scary to European generals HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO, but not so much to kids.

Anyway, I digress. Now, what confused me about this one was simple; I figured that while televisions gave off a lot of heat, particularly plasma and LCD sets in bigger sizes, the power drained would be somewhat similar across the board, since televisions, no matter what size, do the same job always. I mean, it's not like a television ever comes with a built-in George Foreman grill. Although that would be awesome, just to see one. I could never see myself buying one, but then I don't own a George Foreman grill, so it makes no odds for me.

I'd like to see them find strange ways to reduce the power consumed by televisions. Randomly, every half an hour, the television shuts off a random quarter of the screen. It could liven up reality television no end! Even better, I'd like to see the television picture just slightly rotate. Just a few degrees. I figure eventually people would get pissed off with it and switch it off. Or learn to hang off their living room ceiling like bats.

Australian aims to breed 'green' sheep that burp less.

Remember when I said scientists had little or nothing better to do with their time? Yeah, it turns out that I was more correct than I even had dared to hope.

On a related note, is anyone else sick to the back teeth of hearing about fucking climate change? I'm so sick of hearing about how much damage we're doing to the environment that I'm actually considering going to Antarctica just to kick a polar bear to death. Anyone who wants to be on the polar bears' side, just remember this: They sold their soul to promote Coca-Cola, they're as bad as those fucking Budweiser frogs for corporate bitchery.

Anyway, one of their new drives to bring down our Carbon footprint (another stupid bullshit term for 'humanity asserting its dominance on animals') is to find a way to reduce emissions caused by animals, specifically in this case sheep. Their research, incidentally, consists specifically of feeding two hundred sheep and seeing how much they belch. I haven't made this up, by the way; this is actual scientific research. Thankfully, scientists have noticed that 'there appear to be "significant differences" between individual animals.'

Well thanks for that, but I could have figured it out myself. I mean obviously some sheep are going to be more active than others. I mean, some are going to be walking everywhere, whereas some will have a car. Of course, some are going to have more demanding jobs than others, which means that some will have a more carbohydrate-heavy lunch than others. Of course, free time is important, and some may be into keep-fit, maybe have a Wii Fit, whereas some are going to be on the couch watching The Simpsons all night.

Which all makes sense, until you think WAIT A MINUTE, THEY'RE FUCKING SHEEP! WHAT THE FUCK?!



Seriously, sheep probably travel about ten miles in their entire life, eat nought but what they forage for or are given, and have about as much going on behind the eyes as a carved Halloween pumpkin! What the fuck do you mean, "significant differences"? Are you feeding one control group Ryvita and one a King Prawn Passanda with Three Colour rice? Is one getting beer and one getting real ale?

It's not even like this study is particularly in-depth. They developed special pens to measure belching (which are surely redundant, as you'll still have to hold it in front of the sheep the whole time anyway, you'd be better off with a carrier bag and a bit of paper on the end), and all they found was that 'the more they eat, the more they belch.'

Searing insight, no? Next, they'll be saying that monkeys can recognise bad grammar.

Oh wait...

1 comment:

  1. Haha. Excellent. Did you know that kangaroos can't fart. Can't fart. Don't fart. Not sure which, but apparently scientists have been trying to locate the gene and replicate it for evil cloning purposes or perhaps just to have less fart juice fugging up the atmosphere. What they don't know is that this has already been achieved and there is currently a herd of cows up in the Highlands who have an anti-fart gene. The scientific community at large cannot know this because the lead scientist on the anti-fart project is a koala and that would cause all kinds of drama.

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