Nuclear testing is to be made compulsory in India. During the months of March and April next year, all adults over the age of 21 will be required to report of their local testing station to be exploded.
Mastercard have introduced a new credit card for its more thrifty customers. The new card discourages its holder from making purchases by screaming when more than £50 is charged to it. If it is used to pay for anything over £100 it launches into bouts of fitful sobbing, and for an amount in excess of £500 it tells you the story of how it was orphaned as a child, and then threatens to slash its wrists with a spoon.
Residents in Trenton, New Jersey, are raising money to send local boy Milton Pope to New York, so that he can push a pig off the top of the Empire State Building. To our knowledge, no one has ever pushed a pig off the top of the Empire State before, although in 1962 a ram was ejected from a window on the 75th floor. There are also unconfirmed reports of a racoon seen teetering on a balcony at various times during the winter of 1975.
Only last week, Pope very nearly succeeded in shoving a rabbit off the top of his local all-night gas station. Nevertheless, he isn't complacent about his chances in New York, and realises that he will have to undergo a good deal more training before he's ready to tackle 'the big one' as he calls it. He's been practising his technique for many months now, and much care and consideration has gone into the selection of the right pig.
Pushing farmyard animals from the top of tall buildings was briefly popular in the forties and early fifties, but the practice has been in decline in recent years. Nevertheless, Milton Pope is a driven man. When asked by a local newspaper exactly why he wanted to push a pig off the famous landmark, he replied simply, "Hey, everyone's gotta have a hobby."
Wilbur Thump, a part time pillock from County Durham, has been presented with the Queen's Award for Industry for breeding the world's first talking duck. The duck, which he named Geraldine, has an IQ of one hundred and forty, and can say the word 'Quack' in over sixty different languages.
June McDivot, a 36 year old assistant manager of a moderately busy city centre travel agent, has gone down in history as the first person ever to be successful in obtaining a restraining order on a bar of chocolate. McDivot - a rather shy, pasty-faced individual with a collection of racy hats and a keen interest in fruit - has claimed that she has been stalked by chocolate bars since her late teens. The first occasion was on the eve of her nineteenth birthday when, on returning home one night from a local pub, she had the distinct impression she was being followed. Turning quickly, she caught a glimpse of a Mars bar as it ducked into a doorway. She hurried home as fast as she could, and though she was shaken by the experience, she thought nothing more about it. However, two days later, on glancing out of her window, she noticed a Curly Wurly watching her from across the road.
McDivot immediately notified the police, but they refused to take her claims seriously. The incidents continued with alarming regularity. She was once followed around the supermarket by a Double Decker, groups of Maltesers have hounded her on the streets and to this day she still finds herself subjected to abuse by tubes of Smarties that draw up alongside her at traffic lights. In 1989 she even had to withdraw from an evening class after a Toblerone enrolled on her course and sat behind her, whispering her name and making slurping noises.
The groundbreaking restraining order has been taken out against a Twix which has been stalking McDivot for some time now, making lewd and threatening remarks. "We used to go out," McDivot explains. "But he took it bad when we split up. Kind of flipped, y'know."
And McDivot is about to make history once more when her evidence will help convict a notorious Marathon, who committed a string of armed robberies before adopting the alias 'Snickers' and going to ground in 1994.
In an item last month we reported that a Mr Colin David Burridge had to be rescued by the fire brigade when he got his head wedged in the icebox of his own refrigerator. Certain sections of that item have since been criticised, in particular the point where we described Mr Burridge as 'an arsehole'. We would therefore like to apologise to Mr Burridge for making these defamatory remarks, but would like to take the opportunity to remind him that it's his own fault for being such a wanker.