Dr Fuckwit, I Presume?

(A warning to readers of a delicate disposition: this report contains non-PC language)

Formidably dense

Communications received via that modern marvel, wireless telegraphy, indicate that the intrepid Safari expedition has finally succeeded in making contact with hopelessly misguided Internet Explorers long held to have been lost for good in the formidably dense thickets of the darkest internet.

They have no word for 'upgrade'

Tools

The quest for the benighted Explorers – who are totally reliant on rudimentary tools otherwise to be seen only in municipal collections of antiquities - has, of late, greatly exercised the collective imagination of the entire world. Indeed, many learned gentlemen openly scoffed at the very notion that such throwbacks could still be alive in our modern age. Yet, not only do they exist; moreover, the brutish ingrates have in fact displayed an astonishing obtuseness in clinging defiantly to their primitive ways: threatening anyone who offers them Apples, dazzles them with shiny bits of Chrome or demonstrates their complete mastery of Firefox by sending them scurrying for cover under a veritable hail of vile excrement.

No support

“These backward Internet Explorers seem to have finally lost touch with civilisation way back in 98 [signals the Safari team], stubbornly sticking to their Stone Age ways even when they had no viable means of support remaining to them.”

Horrible viruses

Safari experts deserve our utmost praise for keeping the exact whereabouts of the Explorers from the enlightened world - rightly fearing that, riddled as these creatures undoubtedly are with all manner of horrible viruses, they must surely constitute a dire threat to our well-being. All efforts to bring the appallingly out-of-touch Explorers up to date have been angrily rebuffed; furthermore, they caution, any well-meaning attempts to actually convert them would certainly be met only with torrents of abuse and dung.

Quaint

Meanwhile, in an outburst of quaint, bird-like noises, elders of the Explorer tribe made it quite clear that any more unwelcome visitors from the civilised world will be killed and eaten.

Thieves Outraged At Being Punished For Theft

The online gaming fraternity is threatening to track down Bill Gates and blast his guts out, after thieving console owners who see themselves as exempt from paying for other people's hard work unexpectedly found themselves blocked out of Microsoft's Xbox Live service.

Gamers who thought they were being incredibly clever by installing illegal chips that bypass digital rights management, enabling pirated copies of software to run, found themselves howling with rage when they switched on their electronic substitutes for real life today - to be greeted by the shocking message: "Your console has been banned from Xbox, you thieving little bastard. Ha bloody ha."

"I was like, fuck, why me man?" sobbed copyright thief Liam Hacker. "At first I thought 'OK, is this just a joke?' - which is a perfectly reasonable assumption to make - so I like hit it with the TV remote and like there it was again. This is like so unfair. Why should I be singled out just because I enjoy ripping people off?"

"It's like telling someone their dog's died, just cos it like ate the face off some stupid kid what ortn't of got in its way right?" he wailed. "It's like games cost too much innit. I want every single game the day it's released, or all my mates will point at me and laugh innit - and there's just too many of them. Why can't I have everything I want for free? Cos money's like just a concept, yeah?"

"Well, fuck Microsoft," he added. "I'm going to nick a Playstation 3 tonight. I dunno how Microsoft done this - but I don't reckon Sony will cop on in a million years. Standard."

Microsoft Excretes Latest Sodding Version of Hated Operating System on Long-Suffering Public

People all over the world are holding street parties to celebrate the launch of the latest version of its wonky operating system, apparently, according to Microsoft.

The legendary wonky software giant has prepared party packs for groups of people who are so ecstatic over the launch of Windows 7 that they feel the urge to fling open their doors and dance into the street. Police forces across Britain report that, so far, traffic in residential and business districts appears to be moving normally, unhindered by crowds of enthusiastic PC users - but add that they are monitoring the situation carefully, should the need arise to send in riot squads and mounted crowd-control officers to restore order.

Windows 7 is, of course, the tenth wonky version of the legendary wonky operating system, after Windows 3.0, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows CE, Windows XP and Windows Vista. Claims of even earlier, wonkier versions of Windows have occasionally surfaced, but seem to be based on nothing more than the irrational assumption that - unlike Microsoft - most people start counting with 1.

PC owners are said to be mildly keen, after almost twenty years, to finally have an operating system that does what it's told, doesn't do what it isn't told, starts up in less than five minutes, has some basic level of resistance to malware, is compatible with the software they've spent a fortune on, leaves some CPU resources free to run programs and manages not to crash, hang or forget what JavaScript is.

"Ho ho," chortled Microsoft boss Steve Ballsup at the product launch in New York. "If I had a dollar for every time I've heard some dim user trot out these completely unrealistic expectations, I'd be almost as rich as I am now. And I didn't get rich by selling products that work."

"A personal computer is the most horrendously complicated bastard thing you'll ever have the misfortune of owning," he explained. "If you don't believe me, try installing and configuring Linux on a clean computer. Anyone out there remember trying to get DOS4GW patches to work, and all those IRQ conflicts? Yeah? Well, shut the fuck up, then, and thank me for making your life slightly less hellish."

"On your knees," he added.

Several meaningless new wonky features are being promoted with Windows 7 which were already available, if you were that interested - such as touch-screen compatibility, cloud computing and the ability to recognise and ignore multi-core processors.

"One of the problems that featured prominently in our user feedback - which we look at from time to time, when we feel like a good laugh - was the fact that Vista makes the average PC run so slowly you wish to God you'd kept that old Commodore 64," said Ballsup. "And now that the fashion is to spend a small fortune on a horribly slow PC because it happens to be quite dinky and available in pink, that's more relevant now than ever.

"So, for the discerning customer who values style over functionality, a special cut-down version of Windows 7 will be available which will boot up like shit off a shovel. Then you'll realise that it doesn't actually do anything - but holy crap, you'll tell all your trendy friends, is that sucker fast."

Tory Health Spokesman Asks: If You Can't Trust Microsoft With Your Medical Records, Who Can You Trust?

A Conservative government would post your medical records on the internet and bombard your inbox with offers for fake Viagra, according to shadow health secretary Angela Lansbury.

"How could anyone have anything to fear from your confidential personal health data being hosted by Microsoft or Google?" he asked, as interviewer Andrew Marr accompanied him with his iconic trademark guitar chords this morning. "They will be totally secure. Using your surname as your user ID and your mother's maiden name as your password, what can possibly go wrong?"

Online sales of Love Hearts masquerading as erection pills could bring billions of pounds into the coffers of the NHS, he added.

Mr Lansbury was also quick to pour scorn on rumours that the Tory front bench was planning to increase the rate of VAT to 20% when they are elected.

"This old wives' tale has been doing the rounds in the media," he laughed. "Let me state quite categorically for the record: it's not 20%."

Microsoft Profits Now Ever So Slightly Less Obscene

Microsoft has stunned the worlds of IT and finance today with the shock announcement that it will eliminate 5,000 of its corporate minions worldwide, as Bill Gates is down to his last $47bn. The hapless drones are the first to be actively sacrificed in the corporation's history.

Although the majority of PC buyers are made to pay for Microsoft's bloated, hectoring operating system whether they want it or not, saddled with their crashy, slow and hack-prone internet browser and rarely taught to use any software not produced by Microsoft at school or work, in the last three months of 2008 the struggling corporation's net profit barely cleared the $4bn breadline.

"Just because we have a near-monopoly in personal and business computing, along with a vast chunk of the lucrative console market, doesn't mean your dearly-loved friend Microsoft couldn't just collapse overnight," warned chief executive Steve Ballmer, wiping away a tear with a piece of the Turin Shroud. "I implore you to consider the dire consequences that would follow. No more bug-fixes for Vista, no more emergency patches for Internet Explorer, no more closing of loopholes exploited by hackers. If we go down, I assure you, we're taking the whole damned world with us. Give us more money. Now."

"And Mac users can wipe those self-satisfied grins off their smug faces, too," he added. "Without our investment propping it up, Apple goes down the pan approximately three seconds after we do."

An angry Bill Gates - furious that any reduction in his net worth could hinder his dream of creating a chart-topping supergroup from clones of Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Mozart - was later reported to be hurling thunderbolts from his mountain lair, in an effort to persuade every man, woman and child on Earth to add to the £153.96 they have each already donated to his company and obscene personal wealth.

'Use Our Leaky, Rotten Browser Or Face The Consequences', Microsoft tells Web Users

Computer software giant Microsoft has urged net users to ignore the advice of internet security experts, who have strongly urged people to use alternatives to  Internet Explorer until Microsoft pull their fingers out of their arses and get around to fixing the browser's latest security flaw.

The latest in a never-ending catalogue of security breaches is said to mainly affect IE7, though Microsoft admitted that all versions were at risk from a trojan virus which - as usual - exploits yet another undocumented flaw in the browser to steal the user's passwords.

"Our research shows that the majority of PC owners are sheep-like morons who automatically use Internet Explorer without thinking, thanks to our highly-successful policies of filling schools with our heavily-discounted software and bribing the media with freebies to write cheerily uncritical puff-pieces on our product launches," said a Microsoft spokesman. "However, some smart-arsed heretics out there use rebel browsers like Firefox and Chrome, which aren't illegal but should be. Our constant fear is that one day the world will wake up and realise that non-Microsoft products might actually be as good as - or indeed better than - ours. Now here's God - and I warn you, he's not happy."

The scowling face of Bill Gates then appeared on every screen in the world to tell web users that their personal details were already common knowledge to dodgy computer frauds, and that if any disloyal traitor should use a non-Microsoft browser and subsequently wake up one morning to find their hard drive mysteriously full of underage porn and their house full of insane vigilantes wielding meat-cleavers, he certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

Inverness Chosen As First UK Site For Mass Storage of Souls

In a joint venture with Satan, the Prince of Darkness, Microsoft has chosen Inverness as the location for the UK’s first cloud computing centre. Central to the revolutionary concept is the idea that people should give Microsoft unrestricted access to their souls, rather than having to go to all the bother and expense of storing them on their own computers.

“Personal soul storage has never been so expensive,” explained a fork-tailed spokesman for Alchemy Plus. “Why go to all the trouble and cost of a memory stick or a pack of DVDs when, just by signing a simple contract with a tiny drop of your blood, you can let us keep your soul totally secure forever on a giant, multi-user web?”

Inverness was chosen partly because of its chilly climate, which will help to cool the vast banks of computers needed to store all the souls.

Stewart Nicol, chief executive of Inverness Chamber of Horrors, said: “This project will really put the city on the map for developments in damnation technology. And living in Inverness is pretty close to hell anyway.”

“Ow! Careful with that pitchfork, ye wee red bastard,” he added.

The Gates of Hell

Multi-squillionaire St Bill Gates is stepping down today from the day-to-day running of Microsoft, the world’s largest software company.

Media organisations around the world united in their hymns of praise to the 52-year-old uber-nerd. As a teenager, St Bill claims, he had a vision of a personal computer on every desk in the home, rather than the usual visions which preoccupy most other teenage boys - which are, ironically, more readily available to them than ever before thanks to St Gates’ computer vision.

St Bill’s business methods have long been a source of inspiration to millions of dullards on the bottom rungs of management. Briefly, the Gates formula for mega-success is this:

1. Ensure that you are born to wealthy parents.

2. Take a good look at someone else’s hard work – for example, an obscure programming language called BASIC that has been around for a few years. Twiddle with it slightly. Persuade a huge corporate giant such as IBM to buy your version. Spend the next quarter of a century encouraging everyone to believe that you created it all yourself.

3. Take a good look at someone else’s hard work – for example, an obscure operating system called QDOS. Using some of the cash generated previously, acquire the company that developed it. Twiddle with it slightly. Change its name. Persuade your IBM chums to buy your version. Spend the next quarter of a century encouraging everyone to believe that you created it all yourself.

St Gates will retain his position as chairman of Microsoft, where he will work on special projects - thought to include building an enormous base inside a remote island volcano, cloning a midget version of himself and acquiring exclusive rights to every language ever spoken. He will also devote more time to charity work, especially whenever the word ‘monopoly’ is mentioned.

Anyone for Monopoly?

As the humanitarian situation worsens in Burma - with even the unconcerned military rulers admitting a death toll of 78,000 - Microsoft has announced that it would consider a partial buyout of the Yahoo! internet search engine.

With the spectre of death from malnutrition stalking an estimated 30,000 under-fives in the stricken Asian state, the software giant released a statement saying that it "is not proposing to make a new bid to acquire all of Yahoo at this time, but reserves the right to reconsider that alternative" after withdrawing its offer of $33 per Yahoo share, which valued the company at over $47bn.

The Association of South East Asian Nations is holding urgent talks to try to find ways of getting relief to the 2.4 million Burmese caught up in the continuing disaster. Meanwhile, billionaire investor Carl Icahn is seeking to buy up shares in Yahoo in an attempt to force out the board which rebuffed Microsoft’s offer.

“Shh, don’t bother us with the real world,” said Microsoft’s Bill Gates. “Icahn’s just landed on Park Lane. I’ve got Mayfair, but the crucual question facing the world is: will he buy it just to thwart my ambitions, or will he be content to sit back on his portfolio of utilities, stations and middle-rent properties and play the longer game? Where is Burma anyway? Is it anywhere near Old Kent Road?”