Time Bombs Trap News Staff in 10-min Loop

LONDON: Four massive time bombs have exploded in Broadcasting House, headquarters of the BBC, this morning, in what is believed to have been a co-ordinated terrorist attack.

The blasts ripped through the heart of Department X, where the prestigious BBC 24 twenty-four hour news programme is produced, tearing up the fabric of time. As yet no attempt has been made to reach some 500 000 staff trapped in the rubble.

“The employees are unhurt, as far as we can tell, but they seem to be snared in a temporal loop,” said Whig Star, temporal head of London’s Metropolitan Police. “It would be folly to break the seal till we know what we’re up against.”

Police Psychologists are standing by for when, or if, the bubble bursts: “We’re particularly concerned for the wellbeing of newsreaders, who have been reading the same three items non-stop now for the better part of a day,” said psychologist Jeanette Saruman, who had wished to remain anonymous.

“One concerns a couple walking down an ordinary road, another deals with BBC coverage of this walking, and the third is about their own coverage of that coverage. We urge members of the public to switch off now for the sake of their own minds, or if that isn’t possible - because elderly relatives want it leaving on for company - at least try to talk over it and crack gentle meteorological jokes.”

War-on-Terror Victor May Never Be Revealed

(Terror contender: Osama demands closure.)

When the War on Terror ends, we may never know who won! That’s the startling bombshell leaked to London’s The Newspaper today. According to the explosive report, BBC planners believe that, whichever way the conflict goes, announcing the victor may simply be “not in the public interest.”

With the War on Terror entering its final decades now, expectation is rife as to who will come out tops. According to bookies, the odds-on favourite is still “a loose array of mutually antagonistic groups striving for diverse goals,” but it now looks increasingly less likely that we’ll ever find out.

Instead, broadcasting mandarins recommend that the winner and two runners-up be contacted in person at the close of hostilities and prizes sent discretely by PayPal.

Inevitably, some combatants have criticised the plan.

“This was never about the money,” said speechwriters of former American Presidential Candidate, and present ‘President Actual’ of the United States, George WWW ‘Dot’ Bush, speaking through him as best they could. “It’s true there is - what you call it? - a small cash prize, but that’s mainly just a symbol. It’s symbolic. That’s what I’m. What’s wrong with? What?”

And speechwriters of Osama bin Laden described the policy as “out of touch” and “a slap in the groin to ordinary terrorists and anti-terror officers. We accept that the outcome may not be the one we’d have liked, in an ideal world, but how can we move on unless we’re told?”

But Mark Thompson, future ex-Director General of the BBC, and current Director-in-Fact, rejected calls for an independent inquiry and denied allegations that the winner had already been decided in secret: “These are just suggestions from our adviser. Fronts are still open, and everything is very much to play for. I hope all sides will give it their best shot, and I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all good luck, although I realise that the net result of that will probably be a cancelling out of any additional luck my wishes may have brought.”

Voyeurs Still AWOL in Max Security Balloon

Missing prison balloon, Prison Balloon 5, “could be anywhere” after a week on the run and a search that has cost the British taxpayer (Marcus Howe) barely a billion pounds yet, while forfeiting the nation up to two whole prestige points on the UN informal ‘Best Country Board’. That’s according to a new police poll accidentally commissioned today, due to clerical fate, by the blimp itself.

The lofty lockup, which houses some of Britain’s most brutal voyeurs, was built out of ‘spare DNA’ in the form of a giant living eye as part of a scheme designed to shame inmates, but it seems the scheme backfired. The ghoulish gaol has looked once, say police, and should not be approached, “as it is much too high up. We urge the public to hide.”

The sentient private prison, hailed as the answer to Britain’s cell-shortage, is voted to have shrugged off its moorings on Tuesday night after an argument with keepers.

Under-eighteens have been issued with secular veils just for the emergency. “Patriot shawls obscure the face as effectively as the niqab,” said Home Secretary Samson Aspire, “but in a British way. Bans on religious masking still apply, except for Christian wedding veils, of course, and duchesses’ horse-race veils. We are also providing blinkers for concerned pundits.”

But it could be too late. “It’s likely the jail saw an act of virtual abuse near Portsmouth last night,” revealed forensic toy-maker Bill Memory, from memory, “and it has almost certainly imagined more.”

Ben and Rachel Gargantua, twin heads of Her Majesty’s Prison Service, praised the secure unit’s restraint and called on it to turn itself in to one of the pin-toting mobs out baying for its gas, as top detectives were reassigned from Homicide to stop the pervy penitentiary before it witnesses the orgy of panic sweeping the nation.

“The big fear is that some or all of the voyeurs could escape,” subvocalised ‘Full-Spectrum Inspector’ Sister Cecilia Apollo, self-appointed leader of the investigation, in her sleep yesterday. “With things as they are,” the 12 year old sister of two is expected to tell reporters who happened to have gathered at her bedside on unrelated business, “there’s no knowing what they might view.”

Terrorist Found in Gitmo - Bad Shock

(Left: Cheney breaks the news to dignitaries in his private lair.)

US authorities have announced the shocking discovery of a terrorist at Guantánamo Bay detention camp: “This is the last place we expected one to hide,” said US Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. “If we can find a terrorist in Gitmo, they could be anywhere!”

Since its inception over 230 years ago in response to the Al-Qaeda threat, US authorities had come to despair of results at the camp, but were too embarrassed to release more than a handful of prisoners: “With widespread use of specially approved incentives that do not amount to torture,” clarifies military interrogator Major Daniel Zwavelzuur, “almost all of the 70 000 plus inmates have confessed to being a terrorist at one time or another. But knowing if any were telling the truth is another matter. It’s typical bad-guy obfuscation.”

The terrorist, whose name has not been revealed yet for security reasons, is thought to be held on level 110b of the underground detention complex.

“That’s a wing reserved for suspects who have slipped into a coma to escape justice,” Major Zwavelzuur explains.

“I’m afraid we can’t release details of his offence at this time,” said Cheney, speaking at a rotary club dinner recently, “but I can say that it was an act of extreme psychological terror, perpetrated shortly after the tenth anniversary of his capture.”

Subtlety First for London’s The Newspaper

London’s The Newspaper newspaper surprised critics today by introducing into one of its articles a note of ambivalence. For the first time in its 120 year history, the popular tabloid broadsheet granted that there might be two sides to a story.

The break with tradition comes ten months into the Whilmsley Pre-School siege. Till now, editors have been outspoken in their support for the SAS men’s right to let off steam in any way they choose, even launching an appeal to buy electric eye-gougers for the high-spirited lads currently holed up in the Suffolk playgroup.

The paper has repeatedly slammed claims that the soldiers “lost it” during last year’s Armistice Night revelries as “political correctness gone feral.” It successfully sued for treason the parents of one little girl who objected to their daughter being used as a human egg-timer, and successfully flayed alive a paediatrician who minded his patient being used as a human hungry hippo.

But a steady stream of readers’ letters forced them to concede that residents have rights too: to a good night’s sleep.

“It’s... difficult,” said editor Roy Sportson, “getting your head around two whole things at once. On the one hand, they are our boys. But then there’s house prices to consider. The horrendous screams are potentially off-putting, both to first-time buyers and to the experienced home-hunter. Some of our shareholders have a lot of dough invested in that village; some have even invested money.”

But Sportson reassured readers that today’s leader would not set “some kind of ghastly precedent. Tomorrow we lead on bisexualism; there’s no two ways about that.”

The Danish Verses

Hundreds of mermaids were beheaded across the Middle East today, and a mastiff set alight, having been mistaken for a Great Dane, following claims that key Islamic scriptures were redrafted by drafts-spies from Jutland.

The artistic agents are accused of travelling back in time to corrupt the Hadith, a body of tradition in Islamic jurisprudence, which records the deeds and wise sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. The Hadith reveals which verses to obey when the Quran contradicts itself; it outlines how to live properly and how to punish disagreers. But now a team of imams at Tehran University have found ‘smoking gun’ evidence of sabotage, and a gut feeling for who done it.

“We were studying the writings to get a better understanding of how to love God more,” said Ayatollah Rasoul Hobseini, “but, to our horror, we found them peppered with bigotry, intolerance and a, frankly, medieval attitude towards women. It’s hard to think of a bigger insult to our faith.”

“The Danes will have blood on their hands: who’s to know what we will do in our rage?” said Grand Ayatollah Paellah-Patellah Mulhollani Testostari.

The tampering is believed to be retaliation for the Jyllands-Posten cartoon row in which mobs stoned butter and other products associated with the offensive peninsula, and things that rhymed with them. Rioters in Karachi expressed their wrath by spurning existential philosophy for a day, while, in Iran, innovative low-budget films about ennui were pulled from cinemas. Most shockingly of all, the Danish Prime Minister Morten Stod was dismantled in lego effigy, by pilgrims in Mecca, and symbolically put back in his box.

But extremist cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Giraffi called the imams’ research “a fable and a detestable lie. Even if we have been manipulated here by unscrupulous (albeit gifted) agents, what can we do?” he said, almost in tears from the embarrassment. “These outrageous beliefs are ours now. Anyone who rejects them will go to hell.”

Crimewave Blamed on Influx of Governments

(Divide and conquer: a legislation too many?)

Residents of Two Close, Eely, were in uproar tonight after it emerged that yet another government has moved onto their quiet English street. The regime, which arrived yesterday and is still unpacking, is said to be a relatively liberal administration with strong, albeit vague, views on something it calls “the Family.”

Locals voiced their fears at an emergency meeting in Two community centre where feelings were running high. A one-armed man, who did not wish to be identified, called the state a “hypocritical robber,” and claimed that it had victimised him for years. Others said they had seen the government watching them from its back garden and making notes. And a perceptive youth warned that it would “exploit our paranoia to set us all at loggerheads.”

But the new arrival, speaking through a TV channel it happened to control, asked for patience, declaring that it “wasn’t like other governments.”

There are estimated to be some 12 000 governments now living in the Cambridgeshire town, with up to twice that many in the surrounding fens, lurking. Although most are small governments, they are fiercely territorial, and responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime in the area.

Residents complain of kidnappings, theft, extortion, firearms offences, torture and pontifications.

The legislative bodies arrive with “different standards,” according to local ventriloquist Maggie Capricorn, speaking through a ‘friend’. “They lope into town on moonless evenings, get drunk on power, and make life a misery. Many seem unfamiliar with basic morality. In terms of ethics, they’re probably about four centuries behind the average person. They are truly the neighbours from hell.”

“They’ve virtually monopolised violence,” said police poet Jocund Bo, “Much of it’s linked to feuds between fellow legislative bodies from all over the world, but innocent bystanders are often the ones who suffer.”

However, in a statement beamed into residents’ dreams, the government assured them it was committed to unspecified change and bound to its neighbours by a “social charter” of unknown content, which none of them had signed up to, and with no opt-out clause, adding that it would also like to strengthen “the Family” and “the values of the Family values.”