Thursday 19 March 2009

Breaking News!

I loaded the BBC News homepage this afternoon to be confronted by the most stunning and shocking headline I've seen for a long time:

Austrian Fritzl sentenced to life

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo! I had my money down on an acquittal! I mean, yes, some might say that seeing as he imprisoned his daughter for 24 years, raped her repeatedly, fathered 7 children by her and let one of them die and then had the audacity to plead guilty to all charges, that in fact such a headline could be filed under:

Stating the fucking obvious

What will we get next?

Scientists claim 'Earth is round'

or

Global recession caused by greedy wankers with too many Porsches

or possibly

Politician admits to never having told the truth


Huh. I want better headlines than that! I want to see (and one of these includes an actual headline - see if you can guess which one before clicking on a link):

Pope urges poor black people to get Aids and die. 'I vill complete ze fuhrer's verk' pontificated the Pontiff.

Disgraced Banker can keep massive reward for gross spasticity. Government claims 'we can only invent unjust laws against those with no money, so he gets off'.

Outrage as Minister claims that study into dying bees 'not a priority'. Brown flimsily claims that 'two wars and a recession kind of distracted me.'

French strike yet again. Sarkozy rejects as 'outrageous' opposition claims that his economic policies have forced ordinary French people 'to do work'.

America deports former Nazi for war crimes. White House states 'the only way to get away with war crimes in the US is to be Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld. We're pretty sure he was neither.'

Mugabe makes plea for help. 'I've destroyed this country good and proper and now there's not enough money to buy me a new Mercedes for my birthday. Please send cash.'

Government discovers that borrowing vast sums of money with little income leads to a situation where you are 'fucked.'

Man paid a lot of money to 'predict the collapse of society' fails to look out of the window and gets it wrong by 21 years.

I'm available for hire as a headline writer at my usual email address :)

8 comments:

Belle said...

I hope Rupert Murdoch hires you. It would be a travesty if he didn't.

weenie said...

Agree with Belle - when Jade Goody dies, the gutter press will need your kind of headlines to entice the public.

Kevin Musgrove said...

"Accountability not my bag," says PM

Roshni said...

just hilarious!Keep them coming!

Anonymous said...

...ordinary French people to do work.

I'm still laughing about that Little Squirrel...

I wish you could write for our newspapers.

Heil Hitler!!!!!

p.s.
That lady's hair in the picture with the Pope is, well...just unreal. That's some BIG hair...
:)

Rachel Noy said...

I did a giggle. Great blog!

I'd love to see your headlines there, rather than that of the Express 'journalists' that wrote that recent tasteless Dunblane revisited report cock-up.

It'd certainly be less of a cheap shot at pulling in readers as it's fact, and would be much more effective!

Red Squirrel said...

Belle - thanks :) I feel I could a certain 'je ne sais quoi' to the newstands...

weenie - gutter press? I was thinking more of the Times!
Plus now she has died I feel it would be diplomatic of me to not comment right now.

Kevin - nice one :) Though I'd probably add a modern pop-culture reference and go for '"Accountability not my bag baby," says PM' :)

Roshni - cheers! :)

Sweet Cheeks - you're right, that is some truly awesome hair!

Rachel - welcome! That Dunblane piece in the Express was shocking. I hope you signed the petition (look on Graham Linehan's blog for details - plus it's very funny)?

Rachel Noy said...

Thankyou! Haha, I did last night actually, I am a technology addict and follow him on Twitter. He doesn't disappoint in the funny stakes!