…and my thoughts on what the story probably contains. Note that I managed to find all of these headlines on the BBC News site yesterday evening…

Global Warming Blamed On Man

…the man, a Mr. Arthur Jones of Chipping Sodbury, 37, has strenuously denied the claims, saying that while he had left his central heating on overnight by mistake, to make up for it, he’d left his fridge door open the following afternoon.

Police Move To Adopt Offenders

Find a particular young old-lady-mugging house-burgling scallywag quite cute? Why not take him home after your shift? After all, the prisons are overcrowded enough as it is…

To be honest, I could have just run with the original:

About 100 Nottinghamshire criminals are to get to know their local police officers much better. The county’s police are piloting a scheme called Adopt An Offender.BBC News

Senate Grills US Iraq Commentator

…along with three servicemen and over 400 sausages in record barbeque attempt.

MSPs urged to reject euthanasia

…instead, simply to stand down at the next election.

Underwear ‘concerned’ Dame Kiri

I was thinking maybe something along the lines of a “Let’s all go commando!” shock but it turns out the real story is better:

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa pulled out of three concerts with John Farnham in 2005, and is being sued by the concert promoter. Her explanation for pulling out of the concerts was that after seeing a video of one of his previous concerts, she was concerned about the possibility of John Farnham picking up the underwear that was thrown at him, and said:

How could I, in my classical form, perform this way?Dame Kiri Te Kanawa

A word of advice, Mrs. K — don’t go arranging any concerts with Tom Jones.

Eel Pie’s Place In Rock History

I didn’t look to see what the story was about because I didn’t want to risk being disappointed. But that headline’s going to take some beating…

President’s “HIV cure” condemned

Again, another bit of weirdnes that I don’t really need to add anything to. Apparently Yahya Jammeh, the President of Gambia, has claimed that he can cure AIDS in three ddays using “secret medicinal herb ingedients”. Oh, and he can cure asthma as well. Take a look at the BBC story if you don’t believe me.

Now to be fair, if he really can do all of this, then he’s a very clever man and ought to be roundly lauded and applauded. However, before we all assume he has a cure, it would make some sense to subject his claims to just a teensy bit of independent scientific scrutiny, don’t you think?

‘Distract Criminals’ says Minister

People should try to “distract” criminals whilst waiting for the police to arrive, a home office ministrer says. Hmm. I can just see it now…

Oh, hang on mate. I know you’ve just mugged that old lady, and that policeman fellow is chasing you, but did you know your flies are undone? And you really ought to fasten your laces up to, you could trip up and hurt yourself…My thoughts on distracting criminals

Actually, that’s pretty much what the minister suggested:

Jeremy Vine:

He’s now hitting her and the police haven’t come. What do you do?

Tony McNulty:

The same, the same, you always…

Jeremy Vine:

Still wait?

Tony McNulty:

Get back to the police, try some distractive activities whatever else.

Jeremy Vine:

What, jump up and down?

Tony McNulty:

But I would say that you know sometimes that may well work.

BBC News — Panorama

Well done Tony McNulty for that one. If you encounter dangerous criminal activity, and the police aren’t there, the official recommendation is that you now jump up and down to distract the criminals. I simply wouldn’t have thought of that one myself…

Bottles found at ‘bomb factory’

Aside from the “bomb factory? what do you mean a bomb factory?” thought, it did occur to me that surely it’s more unusual to find a bomb than it is to find a bottle. This headline seems to be saying that finding a bomb in a bottle factory would be a perfectly normal occurrence, but finding a bottle (actually multiple bottles) in a bomb factory is newsworthy.

to be fair, the article is about bottles of hydrogen peroxide, and the court case relating to the people charged with being “the 21st July terror plotters” as the BBC puts it.

And that was it for the BBC. There was one headline from The Register that I simply had to include, however:

Channel 4 pulls ‘wank week’

This, pretty much is exactly what it says. Channel 4 were due to show a series of programmes about masturbation, including one about a masturbate-a-thon, which I’m guessing is pretty much what it sounds like (one minor question: wouldn’t it get sore?) but, like The Register says, they’ve pulled it off…

…the air. They’ve pulled it off the air.

Go on then, what did you think of that lot, and/or have you noticed any other odd news stories?