We may have to revise our preconceived opinions of the Neanderthal branch of humanity, say archaeologists who have discovered evidence that our Stone Age rivals used make-up to adorn themselves.
The team discovered shells marked with pigment residues at two sites in southern Spain, which they claim form compelling evidence that modern humans were not the only hominid species capable of vanity.
"Our findings conclusively demolish the old myths about hairy, halfwitted ape-men and women," insisted Professor Joao Zilhao of Bristol University. "We can now picture a touchingly-familiar Neanderthal domestic scene, with the male of the cavehold exasperatedly calling for his mate to hurry up and get ready before the bison herd moves on, as she blithely carries on applying her eyeliner with a club."
The archaeological world is now considering the implications of the discovery regarding the extinction of the Neanderthal race.
"Could it be that these tribes died out because they ended up spending all their time applying primitive wax strips to remove their thick, matted body hair?" mused Professor Tony Robinson, Emeritus Chair of Anthropology at More4 University. "Or were they all stung to death by angry bees? Find out after the break!"
Saturday, 9 January 2010
Selfish Salt Thieves Prompt Councils To Retaliate In Kind
Irresponsible motorists have been raiding council stockpiles of salt, often emptying local storage bins minutes after they have been refilled, according to reports from several council depots around the snowbound country.
"Happen these irresponsible folk are literally putting lives at risk," commented Councillor Al Cock, as North Yorkshire County Council took the precaution of transferring 400 tonnes from a remote, little-known rural depot to a more secure location in Skipton which shouldn't be too difficult to find.
Meanwhile, hundreds of householders in the region have reported hearing strange sounds in their homes in the middle of the night, and coming downstairs to find dayglo-jacketed council workmen rifling through kitchen cupboards and escaping through the window with their salt shakers.
"Happen tha's got to fight fire with fire," responded Cllr Cock defiantly, when the allegations were put to him.
"Happen these irresponsible folk are literally putting lives at risk," commented Councillor Al Cock, as North Yorkshire County Council took the precaution of transferring 400 tonnes from a remote, little-known rural depot to a more secure location in Skipton which shouldn't be too difficult to find.
Meanwhile, hundreds of householders in the region have reported hearing strange sounds in their homes in the middle of the night, and coming downstairs to find dayglo-jacketed council workmen rifling through kitchen cupboards and escaping through the window with their salt shakers.
"Happen tha's got to fight fire with fire," responded Cllr Cock defiantly, when the allegations were put to him.
Friday, 8 January 2010
Harman To Use Discrimination Laws Against Anyone Commenting On Her Inability To Drive
Equality minister Harriet Harman has warned that anyone who utters a single word about her £350 fine for driving without due care and attention will face the full fury of Britain's anti-discrimination laws and receive up to five years in prison if found guilty of harassing her over the nine penalty points on her driving licence.
Ms Harman - who avoided picking up an additional three points for using her mobile phone whilst driving, thus escaping an automatic ban, because the latter charge was dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service on the grounds of her jolly importance - angrily warned Britain's men to refrain from making the slightest disparaging remark about women drivers, or face the consequences.
Ms Harman, whose jolly importance to the well-being of the nation also includes her role as leader of the House of Commons, already had six points on her licence for two counts of thinking the speed limit only applied to ordinary little people.
The incident took place in July, when Mr Harman collided with a parked car whilst attempting the extremely difficult manoeuvre of driving her ministerial Rover out of a parking space whilst yapping away nineteen to the dozen. The owner of the stationary vehicle saw the collision from his flat, and telephoned the police as she drove away.
"Next time Harriet Harperson wants to conduct her constituency business," he told reporters after the verdict was delivered, "She might want to drop her ministerial car in one of the extra-wide parking bays which are a feature of China's new pink-painted women-only car park, and then catch a flight back to London."
"Or she could just make Britain's roads safer by staying in China," he added, moments before an armed response equality monitoring unit led by newly-honoured Asst Commissioner Cressida Dick burst in and shot him.
Ms Harman - who avoided picking up an additional three points for using her mobile phone whilst driving, thus escaping an automatic ban, because the latter charge was dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service on the grounds of her jolly importance - angrily warned Britain's men to refrain from making the slightest disparaging remark about women drivers, or face the consequences.
Ms Harman, whose jolly importance to the well-being of the nation also includes her role as leader of the House of Commons, already had six points on her licence for two counts of thinking the speed limit only applied to ordinary little people.
The incident took place in July, when Mr Harman collided with a parked car whilst attempting the extremely difficult manoeuvre of driving her ministerial Rover out of a parking space whilst yapping away nineteen to the dozen. The owner of the stationary vehicle saw the collision from his flat, and telephoned the police as she drove away.
"Next time Harriet Harperson wants to conduct her constituency business," he told reporters after the verdict was delivered, "She might want to drop her ministerial car in one of the extra-wide parking bays which are a feature of China's new pink-painted women-only car park, and then catch a flight back to London."
"Or she could just make Britain's roads safer by staying in China," he added, moments before an armed response equality monitoring unit led by newly-honoured Asst Commissioner Cressida Dick burst in and shot him.
TV Manufacturers Threaten To Bring Godawful 3D Crap Right Into Your Living Room
All of the big exhibitors at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today threatened to unleash evil 3D televisions on the public, if sales of their defective, unnecessary products failed to pick up sharpish.
"You might have thought that the awful sight of Jedward's smug, vacuous faces filling the wall of your front room was bad enough," warned a horrible, horrible bastard from Sony. "But I promise you now that Simon Cowell's next abomination will be inches from your big fat face unless you fuck off to Curry's right now and slap a broadband-enabled e-book Reader, a BluRay-compatible phone and a blog-ready camera on your groaning credit card."
"Well, what are you waiting for?" he snapped.
"Our exciting new GT240 Social Android phone will be in the shops in April," threatened an insufferable prick from LG. "Anybody who hasn't pre-ordered one by next Friday will come downstairs one morning to find their living space filled by Jeremy Kyle's enormous floating head. And don't think for a minute that we wouldn't dare."
"You might have thought that the awful sight of Jedward's smug, vacuous faces filling the wall of your front room was bad enough," warned a horrible, horrible bastard from Sony. "But I promise you now that Simon Cowell's next abomination will be inches from your big fat face unless you fuck off to Curry's right now and slap a broadband-enabled e-book Reader, a BluRay-compatible phone and a blog-ready camera on your groaning credit card."
"Well, what are you waiting for?" he snapped.
"Our exciting new GT240 Social Android phone will be in the shops in April," threatened an insufferable prick from LG. "Anybody who hasn't pre-ordered one by next Friday will come downstairs one morning to find their living space filled by Jeremy Kyle's enormous floating head. And don't think for a minute that we wouldn't dare."
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Facebook Cures Breast Cancer
The little-known medical condition known to specialists as breast cancer was today eradicated forever, after millions of breast owners united on social networking site Facebook to find a cure for the disease by telling everyone what colour their bra was.
Millions of stupid men logging on today were greeted by an apparently-inexplicable welter of one-word status updates, mainly 'black' or 'white'. Stupid, selfish men attempting to seek clarification were met with a hail of disapproval from irate breast owners, and castigated for their emotionally-stunted callousness.
Meanwhile, thousands of middle-aged housewives desperately tried to convince their friends that they were insatiable sexual athletes, by claiming that they were wearing a red bra.
The campaign - the inspired product of a brain-storming, nostril-destroying all-nighter at award-winning marketing solutions agency PoLLy WhaLLey DudaLL - has single-handedly succeeded in destroying the deadly cancer where decades of medical research and screening failed.
"The key conceptualising element was - if you'll deign to forgive the inescapable deploymentation of arcane marketing jargon here - 'Awareness'," said head sniffer Crispin WhaLLey, resplendent in the red tie and glasses of his profession. "Millions of innocent breast owners have been quite literally dying of tit rot every day, simply because they failed to prioritise the roll-out of a quasi-psychological bra strategy which identified recognition of fabric colour optimisation techniques as the essential driving force behind their perceptions of their physical selves as quintessentially sexual entities."
"By empowering them to confront the appropriacy of their scaffolding choices, through the viral co-optionment of Facebook as a meme-distribution analogue," he continued, "Our guerrilla campaign has ensured that no woman will ever again experience troubling concerns about the latent capacity of her funbags to send her to an early grave."
Linguistic experts say that Mr WhaLLey's statement may take years to decipher. However, the medical establishment agreed that the miracle of Facebook had indeed cured breast cancer forever - just as it has brought about an end to wars, racism, natural disasters and all the other horrid things in the world.
"My bra is blue," posted a confused woman, via mobile. "Are my tits going to drop off? God in heaven help me."
Millions of stupid, insensitive men have also been posting that last sentence to their Facebook profiles, or selfishly demanding that women meekly surrender their now-redundant mobile mammography trailers for conversion, to save their useless, ugly gonads.
Millions of stupid men logging on today were greeted by an apparently-inexplicable welter of one-word status updates, mainly 'black' or 'white'. Stupid, selfish men attempting to seek clarification were met with a hail of disapproval from irate breast owners, and castigated for their emotionally-stunted callousness.
Meanwhile, thousands of middle-aged housewives desperately tried to convince their friends that they were insatiable sexual athletes, by claiming that they were wearing a red bra.
The campaign - the inspired product of a brain-storming, nostril-destroying all-nighter at award-winning marketing solutions agency PoLLy WhaLLey DudaLL - has single-handedly succeeded in destroying the deadly cancer where decades of medical research and screening failed.
"The key conceptualising element was - if you'll deign to forgive the inescapable deploymentation of arcane marketing jargon here - 'Awareness'," said head sniffer Crispin WhaLLey, resplendent in the red tie and glasses of his profession. "Millions of innocent breast owners have been quite literally dying of tit rot every day, simply because they failed to prioritise the roll-out of a quasi-psychological bra strategy which identified recognition of fabric colour optimisation techniques as the essential driving force behind their perceptions of their physical selves as quintessentially sexual entities."
"By empowering them to confront the appropriacy of their scaffolding choices, through the viral co-optionment of Facebook as a meme-distribution analogue," he continued, "Our guerrilla campaign has ensured that no woman will ever again experience troubling concerns about the latent capacity of her funbags to send her to an early grave."
Linguistic experts say that Mr WhaLLey's statement may take years to decipher. However, the medical establishment agreed that the miracle of Facebook had indeed cured breast cancer forever - just as it has brought about an end to wars, racism, natural disasters and all the other horrid things in the world.
"My bra is blue," posted a confused woman, via mobile. "Are my tits going to drop off? God in heaven help me."
Millions of stupid, insensitive men have also been posting that last sentence to their Facebook profiles, or selfishly demanding that women meekly surrender their now-redundant mobile mammography trailers for conversion, to save their useless, ugly gonads.
Man Announces Intention to Retire
A man approaching his fiftieth birthday today stunned the world by announcing his decision to retire.
The man, who has a customer-facing job in the media, said he would not be renewing his contract with his employer when it comes up for renewal in six months' time.
It is thought that the man - who has been doing his job for thirteen years now - has managed to save enough from his salary to enable him to live out his remaining years quietly in relative comfort.
The man's employers said they were sad to see him leave, and wished him a happy retirement. Another man who works in a similar position within the organisation is likely to be promoted to fill the vacancy.
The man, who has a customer-facing job in the media, said he would not be renewing his contract with his employer when it comes up for renewal in six months' time.
It is thought that the man - who has been doing his job for thirteen years now - has managed to save enough from his salary to enable him to live out his remaining years quietly in relative comfort.
The man's employers said they were sad to see him leave, and wished him a happy retirement. Another man who works in a similar position within the organisation is likely to be promoted to fill the vacancy.
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Great God! This Is An Awful Place
As the last vestiges of infrastructure finally collapsed today in the snowy desolation formerly known as Great Britain, the first polar bears arrived to chase down and eat the few huddled survivors of the nightmarish end of civilisation.
Ice rafts, floating up Britain's estuaries on the incoming tides and bearing the relentless Arctic predators, were sighted by scattered bands of foraging Subaru drivers as they hunted desperately amid the drifting snows, chasing rumours of a mythical supermarket with remaining stocks of sliced bread.
"Once they get a whiff of human being, you're as good as dead," moaned a haggard, frostbitten woman who used to be a teacher until the nation's schools were crushed by the encroaching glaciers. "I've tried masking my deliciously meaty scent by emptying a bottle of Davidoff Cool Water for Women over myself, but that fuzzy bastard seems to be gaining on me all the same."
In the barren wastelands of London, tusk-wielding Labour backbenchers holed up in the Palace of Westminster - now visible only by the clockface of Big Ben poking forlornly out of a mountain of snow - mounted a desperate challenge to the authority of hapless tribal chieftain Gordon the Brown, in a last-ditch attempt to propitiate the Wendigo, the mysterious wind-walking god whose anger has all but extirpated their tribe from the face of their once green and pleasant land, with a blood sacrifice.
Meanwhile, Islam4UK reasserted its intention to hold a trek across the mile-thick ice-sheet covering Wootton Bassett to raise awareness of the terrible plight of Muslims in warm countries, despite the threat of being killed and eaten by a rival EDL hunting party.
Ice rafts, floating up Britain's estuaries on the incoming tides and bearing the relentless Arctic predators, were sighted by scattered bands of foraging Subaru drivers as they hunted desperately amid the drifting snows, chasing rumours of a mythical supermarket with remaining stocks of sliced bread.
"Once they get a whiff of human being, you're as good as dead," moaned a haggard, frostbitten woman who used to be a teacher until the nation's schools were crushed by the encroaching glaciers. "I've tried masking my deliciously meaty scent by emptying a bottle of Davidoff Cool Water for Women over myself, but that fuzzy bastard seems to be gaining on me all the same."
In the barren wastelands of London, tusk-wielding Labour backbenchers holed up in the Palace of Westminster - now visible only by the clockface of Big Ben poking forlornly out of a mountain of snow - mounted a desperate challenge to the authority of hapless tribal chieftain Gordon the Brown, in a last-ditch attempt to propitiate the Wendigo, the mysterious wind-walking god whose anger has all but extirpated their tribe from the face of their once green and pleasant land, with a blood sacrifice.
Meanwhile, Islam4UK reasserted its intention to hold a trek across the mile-thick ice-sheet covering Wootton Bassett to raise awareness of the terrible plight of Muslims in warm countries, despite the threat of being killed and eaten by a rival EDL hunting party.
Dubai Proudly Unveils World's Tallest Folly
The world's tallest monument to man's hubris, the 2,716ft Burj Khalifi, was opened yesterday in Dubai - dwarfing the previous record holder, the ill-fated liner RMS Titanic, whose paltry 883ft hull could comfortably fit upright on top of its two sister ships inside the enormous, pointless edifice.
Towering above the tiny, bankrupt state of Dubai, the gigantic irrelevance will stand as a futile, half-empty monument to the horribly-misplaced financial confidence of mankind for generations to come.
"In future, our nomadic grandchildren will be drawn to our deserted city from up to sixty miles away, attracted by its glinting glass cladding. They will shake their heads sadly, as they ask themselves what sort of irresponsible clowns could have spent $1.5bn they didn't have on such a colossal vanity project," boasted Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rash Al-Along. "They will scale its empty lift shafts, and peer out in amazement over the scrub-covered ruins of extravagantly silly artificial islands that look like a map of the world, a stylised palm tree and a huge dollar sign."
"I can only hope, in all humility, that they will also pause to beg Allah to forgive us, at the world's highest unfurnished mosque on the 158th floor," he added.
Towering above the tiny, bankrupt state of Dubai, the gigantic irrelevance will stand as a futile, half-empty monument to the horribly-misplaced financial confidence of mankind for generations to come.
"In future, our nomadic grandchildren will be drawn to our deserted city from up to sixty miles away, attracted by its glinting glass cladding. They will shake their heads sadly, as they ask themselves what sort of irresponsible clowns could have spent $1.5bn they didn't have on such a colossal vanity project," boasted Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rash Al-Along. "They will scale its empty lift shafts, and peer out in amazement over the scrub-covered ruins of extravagantly silly artificial islands that look like a map of the world, a stylised palm tree and a huge dollar sign."
"I can only hope, in all humility, that they will also pause to beg Allah to forgive us, at the world's highest unfurnished mosque on the 158th floor," he added.
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Naïve Icelandic Bumpkin-in-Chief Actually Believes All That Democracy Guff
Iceland's rustic president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, today acknowledged a petition - signed in a matter of days by a quarter of the entire electorate - by vetoing a parliamentary decision to borrow $5bn to cover the tiny island nation's bank debts and charge it to the taxpayers.
On hearing the news, the UK government - to whom much of the money is owed - reacted with incandescent fury.
"What in the name of Christ prompted this Nordic village idiot to overthrow a perfectly reasonable business decision taken by the nation's elected career politicians and put the nation's finances to some kind of yokel referendum?" spluttered a puce-faced Gordon Brown. "Britain desperately needs the billions lost by Iceland's stupid, irresponsible bankers to replace an insignificant fraction of the hundreds of billions lost by our own stupid, irresponsible bankers."
"This dangerous democratic experiment absolutely must not be allowed to happen," concurred business secretary Lord Mandelson. "Who knows what might happen if a quarter of the British population, instead of moaning harmlessly on Facebook about how shit everything is, took it upon themselves to march up to the head of state's official residence, knock on the door, apologise for interrupting their viewing and give them a piece of their collective mind? Well, they'd be arrested or shot before they got within shouting distance, actually, but that's beside the point."
"Unlike quaint, unsophisticated Iceland, of course, as a mature democracy Britain has plenty of high walls, railings, police and armed troops to keep the peasantry away from their unelected head of state, who has neither the political power nor the will to change things anyway," commented chancellor Alistair Darling. "So you can forget any notions of giving vent to your feelings about your elected representatives letting the banks off scot-free and making you and your children pay for their cock-ups for the next fifty years or so."
"Every few years, we kindly let you decide which pack of self-serving MPs can suck up to the world of high finance in the hope of a few juicy directorships when they eventually get given the boot," he added. "That's quite enough democracy for Britain, thank you very much."
Reports that the UK is considering punitive measures against its northerly neighbour - including a puffin embargo and threatening to perform the blood eagle on Plymouth Argyle midfielder Kári Árnáson - are, as yet, unconfirmed.
On hearing the news, the UK government - to whom much of the money is owed - reacted with incandescent fury.
"What in the name of Christ prompted this Nordic village idiot to overthrow a perfectly reasonable business decision taken by the nation's elected career politicians and put the nation's finances to some kind of yokel referendum?" spluttered a puce-faced Gordon Brown. "Britain desperately needs the billions lost by Iceland's stupid, irresponsible bankers to replace an insignificant fraction of the hundreds of billions lost by our own stupid, irresponsible bankers."
"This dangerous democratic experiment absolutely must not be allowed to happen," concurred business secretary Lord Mandelson. "Who knows what might happen if a quarter of the British population, instead of moaning harmlessly on Facebook about how shit everything is, took it upon themselves to march up to the head of state's official residence, knock on the door, apologise for interrupting their viewing and give them a piece of their collective mind? Well, they'd be arrested or shot before they got within shouting distance, actually, but that's beside the point."
"Unlike quaint, unsophisticated Iceland, of course, as a mature democracy Britain has plenty of high walls, railings, police and armed troops to keep the peasantry away from their unelected head of state, who has neither the political power nor the will to change things anyway," commented chancellor Alistair Darling. "So you can forget any notions of giving vent to your feelings about your elected representatives letting the banks off scot-free and making you and your children pay for their cock-ups for the next fifty years or so."
"Every few years, we kindly let you decide which pack of self-serving MPs can suck up to the world of high finance in the hope of a few juicy directorships when they eventually get given the boot," he added. "That's quite enough democracy for Britain, thank you very much."
Reports that the UK is considering punitive measures against its northerly neighbour - including a puffin embargo and threatening to perform the blood eagle on Plymouth Argyle midfielder Kári Árnáson - are, as yet, unconfirmed.
Serious Risk of Losing Sight, Legs and Kidneys To Diabetes Is Well Worth Giving Up Fags For, Scream Medics
New research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, which demonstrates that smokers who give up their evil, murderous habit are more than twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes than if they keep puffing away at their foul cancer sticks, has been angrily denounced by stürmbanndoktors as 'sodding inconvenient'.
US researchers from Johns Hopkins University, who made the deeply unhelpful discovery that quitters are 70% more likely to develop the condition than lifelong non-smokers, have said they are very sorry for revealing an awkward fact, and begged not to be struck off or used as experimental test subjects.
"What happens is that smokers who kick their filthy but appetite-suppressing habit rapidly bloat up like walruses at an all-you-can-eat seal buffet," said a goose-stepping official of the British National Socialist Medical Association. "And once they become hideous fat bastards, of course, they fall into the high-risk category for type 2 diabetes and serve them right. They can then look forward to a life-long likelihood of kidney failure, heart attacks, strokes, blindness caused by glaucoma or macular retinopathy, urinary tract infections and multiple amputations. So what? Obviously, the simple answer is to quit eating as well as smoking."
"I really can't see the problem here," he added. "Heil Hippocrates."
US researchers from Johns Hopkins University, who made the deeply unhelpful discovery that quitters are 70% more likely to develop the condition than lifelong non-smokers, have said they are very sorry for revealing an awkward fact, and begged not to be struck off or used as experimental test subjects.
"What happens is that smokers who kick their filthy but appetite-suppressing habit rapidly bloat up like walruses at an all-you-can-eat seal buffet," said a goose-stepping official of the British National Socialist Medical Association. "And once they become hideous fat bastards, of course, they fall into the high-risk category for type 2 diabetes and serve them right. They can then look forward to a life-long likelihood of kidney failure, heart attacks, strokes, blindness caused by glaucoma or macular retinopathy, urinary tract infections and multiple amputations. So what? Obviously, the simple answer is to quit eating as well as smoking."
"I really can't see the problem here," he added. "Heil Hippocrates."
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