"There are basically two schools of thought when it comes to the removal of excess fat," says Dr Hilliary Biscuit of the South East Yorkshire Clinic for the Cripplingly Obese. "There's sucking and there's blowing. Well, liposuction has been around for a while now, and it's had its chance. It's time for a new approach."
The new approach that Doctor Biscuit has in mind is to throw the whole procedure into reverse. Literally. He inserts a tube down the patient's throat, connects it to a powerful, industrial strength compressor and switches on - blasting that unwanted flab straight out of the patient's rear end.
"I won't deny that it comes as a bit of a shock to most people," Doctor Biscuit admits. "But at least it's quick. And anyway, as far as the patient is concerned it's a relatively simple procedure. It's the guy who has to stand at the other end with a bucket that I feel sorry for."
A recent report commissioned by the Home Office has revealed that for the year 2001/2002 the crime rate in the North Sea was practically zero. At depths of around 95 metres, instances of property crime are significantly lower than the national average, and car theft is practically unheard of. In deeper regions the figures are even more impressive. Researchers are currently looking into the reason for these impressive figures, and although no conclusions have yet been reached, many police forces around the country have already experimented with planting seaweed in troubled night-spots in order to stem the outbreak of violent crime.
The latest craze for the high-flying, celebrated and self-important elite is pizza therapy. It's inventor, Emo Ravioli, once owned a thriving pizza restaurant in Hollywood. Now he makes a fortune tending to the pizzas of the rich and famous, and Hollywood's 'A list' are happy to pay him anything up to $10,000 for a session. By inspecting a celebrity's favourite pizza, and carefully examining the condition of the peppers or the sweetcorn, Emo claims he has a window into the troubled star's soul. Often he can help just by suggesting an alternative topping. Sometimes happiness is only a pineapple chunk away. At other times more radical treatment is necessitated and Emo is required to adopt a 'hands on' approach - manipulating anchovies or stroking mushrooms in order to restore the perfect pizza balance. However, not everyone is impressed by his work. One Hollywood starlet, who shall remain nameless, is currently seeking damages against Ravioli, claiming that during one session last October he took advantage of his position of trust and manhandled her pepperoni.
We're all familiar with the expression 'as mad as a hatter', but has anyone ever really looked into the whole hatter/madness thing and produced some hard evidence? Well, the North American Milliner's Association attempted to do just that when they sent out a questionnaire to their members. It consisted of a single multiple-choice question: 'Approximately how mad are you?' The possible answers were -
'Dangerously mad',
'Very mad',
'Really quite mad',
'Moderately loopy' and
'I'm feeling much better now, thank you very much'.
When the questionnaires came back, officials were surprised to see that the answers were quite varied. The most common responses appeared to be 'crocodile', 'not today' and 'windy'. Some of the questionnaires were returned with pictures of animals, spaceships and motorbikes drawn in crayon, and some of the more imaginative examples had been folded into paper aeroplanes or hats. At least one of the forms appeared to have been partially regurgitated, and several more were smeared with substances that have still not been identified, despite extensive laboratory testing.
As a result of this survey, the North American Milliner's Association has now conceded that many of its members are significantly more mad than they'd previously given them credit for.