Sunday, October 31, 2010

Scotland To Push For Its Own Time Zone

Extract from “Time for Scotland” – available on the SurrealScoop Player:-

The time is now 1825.

As once again the clocks go back across the UK leading scientists and sociologists are campaigning to end the practice of moving back onto GMT for the entire country. They cite the benefits for both individual well being and road safety of having more daylight in the evenings. We are joined today by one of the leading campaigners for reform in this area, Professor Scott J. McBillingsworth. However Professor McBillingsworth would rather Scotland have its own time.

Interviewer :
Professor McBillingsworth welcome to “Time for Scotland” and may I start by saying that is a very interesting shirt?

McBillingsworth :
Nay, it's no a shirt, it's ma pyjama top, I got dressed in the dark. Forgot to put ma clock back didn't I? Living in England as most Scots do I find it is a complete inconvenience to put the clocks back just to appease highland farmers who don't want to milk in the dark.

Interviewer :
Well, you wouldn’t want to milk a bull by mistake.

McBillingsworth :
Quite. But why should the rest of the UK suffer? After all farmers can fill in their EU milk subsidy applications at any time of the day.

Interviewer :
And so Scotland should be free to set its own time?

McBillingsworth :
Indeed, I suggest that because of the northern latitudes, its needs are separate from the rest of the country and it should indeed be on its own time compared to England.

Interviewer :
And by how much?

McBillingsworth :
Well I think the clocks in Scotland should be advanced to 1827.

Interviewer:
Advanced? But that is the time now!

McBillingsworth :
The year 1827, it would be a bit of an advance, but I think Scotland is ready to handle the 19th century.


Friday, October 22, 2010

Royal Navy To Be Redeployed To Defend The Serpentine

Following the Strategic Defence and Security Review that identified cyber-terrorism as one of the key threats facing the country in the twenty-first century it has been announced that the remaining Royal Navy ship will be moved to patrol the key waterway of the boating lake in Hyde Park.

“We feel this has many advantages for both the country and the Navy in maintaining operational effectiveness,” said Rear Admiral Horatio Billingsworth. “Myself and the remaining sailor can save on tube fares by sharing a flat near the Admiralty.”

Billingsworth would not comment if the new austerity measures would extend to diplomatic trips abroad and include room sharing with the Foreign Secretary.

The Royal Navy has emphasised that as part of the move, full operational effectiveness of the central London carrier will be achieved by re-equipping with a combination of air-sea helicopters and attack pedalos.

“The reduction of the surface fleet to a single ship based at an artificial lake in central London may look like an extreme measure,” explained the Rear Admiral. “However it will be bolstered by the submarine fleet that will continue to provide a vital nuclear deterrent by being beached at key locations around the British Isles.”

To further support the reduced Navy’s effectiveness, the designs for the new replacement carriers will be amended to provide capability for landing planes from foreign air forces.

“The need to accommodate American planes on the carrier will require us to install the latest in combined burger and donut outlets and a wider carrier deck,” said Billingsworth. “For French joint strike fighter landings there will be a state-of-the-art ship-board brothel.”

Whilst the changes to carrier design and deployment were seen as a drastic change to the operational readiness of the Royal Navy, plans are in place to increase its capacity when new funding becomes available.

“We think that the upturn in funding may be no more than a year away,” said Rear Admiral Billingsworth. “Only this morning I received an email from a former government minister in Nigeria wanting to move money to the UK.”

Friday, October 08, 2010

Facebook Offers New Ways For You To Share Your Data – And Better Ways To Hawk You To Global Corporations

Facebook, the massive Internet repository of what you are having for lunch and how many coins you have just won on FarmVille, has launched new “group” functions to ensure that users have more control over the information that they give to Facebook to hawk to the highest bidder.

“It is not our information. It is people's information. We just have this strong philosophical belief in distracting you from what we are actually doing with your data,” said Mark Billingsberg at the launch of the new features. “All of your data belongs to you and sits on our servers to be demographically mined to help massive corporations sell to you.”

The latest groups features enable Facebook users to limit data they share publicly to only those people with they have their most intimate relationships, whether they are friends, family, colleagues or the marketing demographic requests from mobile phone companies.

“With groups we will be able to identify thousands of circles of twenty something males and share them with holiday companies in Ibiza,” said Billingsberg. “And that is what we really mean by sharing control.”

Facebook has long been criticised by users so concerned over their privacy that they have spent hours uploading their most intimate information and photos onto the Internet. And their daily soup choice.

“Facebook needed to take steps, because it is worrying that every time I talk to my friends about the latest Grand Prix all the ads on the site feature racing cars. Oh and I had minestrone today,” commented one Facebook user on a Facebook page complaining about the site’s privacy settings. “Look, it’s happening again. It is like they are monitoring me. The same thing happens to my Gmail messages about Donkey Porn.”

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

US Military Extends “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” To Include Being A Russian Spy Or Al-Qaeda Bomber

With the formal continuation of the US Military’s “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” guidance to homosexuals who wish to risk their lives for a country that doesn’t want them to exist, senior figures in the Pentagon are planning to extend the policy to other areas.

“It’s an effective policy approach. All the things that we don’t want to admit are in the US Army, well we simply won’t ask people about them and so they won’t be there,” said General George C Billingsworth. “Being a Russian Spy will be next.”

The new approach will mean that if you are spying for the Kremlin then as long as you don’t tell anyone no one will ask and you can continue your career as an archivist at NORAD headquarters.

“Just as America doesn’t want American gays fighting for America in America’s military, and similarly we don’t want Russian spies either,” said General Billingsworth. “There are risks for this policy – that of remaining covert. But again the similarity is that we do not want either the Russians or the gays shoved down our throats and so they must take it slower and approach American society from behind, as it were.”

Whilst “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is most commonly thought of as solely being a means of curbing gay servicemen’s desire to run into battle with the arse cut out of their uniform, Russian spies are only the latest unwanted group within the Army to which it has been extended.

“It must be said though that our previous policies to other groups weren’t as successful as with the gays,” said Billingsworth. “Back in the sixties we said don’t ask and don’t tell applied to black people and women too.”

The other group to benefit from the new approach will be Al Qaeda operatives who are currently serving in the US military as sleeper cell members. With the new policy the US military will finally be able to equalise terrorist murder, treason and being gay.

“No one wants an Al Qaeda suicide bomber in the military, which is why we plan to treat them as criminal as them homos” said the General. “Still at least none of Bin Laden’s lot are likely to be gay themselves.”



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