RIP News of the World

RIP News of the World. If heaven has phones, you'll be hacking baby Jesus' already, I bet.

This is a grim day for truth-lovers everywhere. Today sees the demise of the proud publication that once confused being a paediatrician with being a paedophile, leading to one of the former being attacked. The paper learned a valuable lesson about knowing what words mean before acting upon them. Personally, I've never subscribed to that school of thought, and remain a hermaphrodite about it.
Who can forget the papers' many scoops -- such as revealing that Max Mosley likes kinky sex, that Olympic athlete Michael Phelps smoked from a bong, that Pippa Middleton has an arse...I could go on (with about two more things).

But there's at least one silver lining to this shit cloud. Whilst hundreds of people will lose their jobs at the paper, no matter how much former editor and now chief executive of News International Rebekah Brooks is pushed to resign, she keeps rolling back -- like a kind of right-wing Sisyphus' rock.

I'd like to counter the vicious attacks that have been leveled against Brooks (née Wade, née The Hand of Sauron). Andreas Whittam Smith, in a pathetically well-researched article, claimed that Brooks at the time of editing NoW must have either been complicit in wrongful actions or otherwise incompetent. That's a false dichotomy. You can be both. He seems to think that as editor, she should have competently overseen the ethical and lawful running of the publication -- she was the editor, Andreas, not God. Idiot.

And Smith's ignorantly cogent piece ignores Brooks' main line of defence: she was on holiday during some of the alleged phone hacking. That means she wasn't responsible for the practices and ethos of the paper at the time. Just like how if I put my deep fat fryer on and then go to Jamaica for three weeks, I am not responsible for anything that happens.

There are also unfounded accusations that Brooks illegally paid the police for information during her time as editor, backed up only by this video of her saying she did so at a Parliamentary select committee. The pinko journalists who jumped on these comments should be glad that Brooks gave money to the police. With the News International-backed Tory party cutting police funding by 20%, Brooks was merely trying to help out a public service in crisis. And in a way, we're all guilty of giving money to the police, through taxation -- we should be in the dock, not Brooks. Indeed, her boss Rupert goes to great lengths to avoid paying such taxes, so he's even more blameless.

So on what course will Brooks steer the good ship News International now? Rumours abound that the company will quickly respond to this gap in the newspaper market by launching a Sunday version of The Sun. Indeed, the response is so quick that it actually came a week ago, meaning that effectively all they have done is suddenly fire lots of people and do something they were going to do anyway. I'm sure, however, that those 200 fired News of the World journalists are now lining up to talk about how great their editor was. They say a good captain always goes down with the ship. I agree. The only exception is when that captain was technically on holiday when the ship started sinking.

Budget 2011 Special Review

 The box was filled with gobstoppers and other tuck

Yesterday was Bring Your Child To Work Day in the House of Commons, and I must say the kid they let announce the budget was really impressive. Budgets are generally hard to understand – a multidirectional numberfuck endlessly picked over by an army of nerds emerging in TV studios like the Orcs in the Mines of Moria. But fortunately for you, Word-Happener is very clever  - I call myself the thinking man’s Einstein – and I can wrap it up pretty neatly. This budget protects the vulnerable and puts the burden of the recovery onto the shoulders of those who caused this mess. That’s right – you, you bastards.

A key policy, reiterated in the budget, is to lower Labour’s bank levy by £1 billion. And in another bit of good news for Big Money, corporation tax will now be lowered by 2%. This is a big relief for everyone – for example, Vodafone can now pay 2% less of the billions of pounds of taxes they don't pay.  So the rich are getting some much-needed relief – they’ve had a really rough couple of years, ok, and actually everyone’s been pretty rude to them and I know one millionaire who was so sad about it all he paid his butler to cry himself to sleep, so just back off, ok?

But obviously Osborne knows that the rich have to play their part – that’s why he said the government would “encourage” wealthy people to give more. Not tax them more, you understand. But “encourage” them. This is, hopefully, part of a new wave of light-touch government initiatives. In future, I would like the government to “encourage” the Army to go to war, “look favourably upon” the police catching criminals and send good “vibes” to NHS doctors. Aside from hinting very strongly that wealth distribution might be nice, in another bold policy some marginal sections of society (specifically ‘everyone’) will pay more tax on most of what they buy with a VAT rise, and there’ll also be that huge reduction in public services everyone’s quacking on about. In short, this is a highly progressive budget, especially impressive given the Chancellor's age.

This budget has to be tough, because of the mess Labour landed us in. For those who are too young to remember the 2008 financial crisis (the Chancellor, perhaps), here's a guide.

History of the 2008 Financial Crash

In retrospect, it was an audacious manifesto pledge

In 2007, Labour was spending too much. That’s why at the time the Tories had an audacious alternative - they said they would stick to Labour’s spending if elected, indeed raise it. Just before making that pledge, Osborne also said he favoured much less regulation in the nation’s finances – saying we should “look and learn from across the Irish sea” (the fact that Ireland’s finances just suffered a kind of monetary equivalent of the Hindenburg disaster is neither here nor there). 

Then – BAM – for some MAD reason, Gordon Brown caused the US housing bubble to burst. According to sources in my mind, he did it because he found it “funny”. Labour then spends loads of public money - either to make things worse or to stabilise the economy, I forget which. The polls at the time showed the public clearly trusted Brown over Cameron to sort out the crisis – but don’t forget, the public have also attended Justin Bieber’s 3D biopic Justin Bieber: Never Say Never in high numbers, so they’re clearly idiots. Cut forward to the present: banks bailed out with taxpayer money receive billions in bonuses, and everyone else is fine. I assume. Now, I gotta go catch that Justin Bieber: Never Say Never - apparently in 3D he's even dreamier.

UK Film Council axed 'before costs known'

The National Audit Office reported this week that the decision to axe the UK Film Council was “based on insufficient financial information and analysis” and will most likely “lead to higher overall costs or the displacement of costs elsewhere”.

People used to criticise the Tories for knowing the price of everything, but the value of nothing. Well, they can’t do that anymore. The cuts implemented by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have been criticised by the totally insane-sounding National Audit Office for being uncosted, expensive and incompetent. You know the Department for Culture, Media and Sport – it’s the one run by Jeremy Hunt, who also runs the website iwishrupertmurdochwasmydad.com. He’s shown the country that we cuts-supporters can have it all: we can undermine national institutions and make it cost more.

Winner was unimpressed by The King’s Speech

We all remember where we were when we saw on the news that the UKFC was going to be axed. I was watching the news. The move was violently opposed by a mass online petition and budding actors Clint Eastwood, James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Pete Postlethwaite, Damian Lewis, Timothy Spall, Daniel Barber and Ian Holm. But the pro-cut side soon got its knight in shining armour. Michael Winner. The guy off of that advert and some directing. Well, he got his way – Michael by name, Michael by nature.

And the fact of the matter is the UKFC doesn’t need all that money. They’re so wasteful. Apparently Colin Firth refused to imitate a stutter in The King’s Speech, so it had to be created through painstaking and expensive CGI. In In The Loop, Peter Capaldi reportedly insisted on having the production team pay for Michael Douglas to stand just out of shot during all of his scenes to “feed off his energy”. Unbelievable.

And sure, for every £1 the UKFC invests in films it generates £5 at the box office. But it could be making so much more. For example, they could easily merge Helena Bonham Carter with Leavesden Studios. They can use her for prestige films plus rent out her hair as a fully-operational studio backlot. BAM – you’ve doubled your revenue. And if Richard Curtis tries to make another film like Love, Actually, why not halve him?

The thing that really pisses on my goat is the idea that the UK film industry is worth investing in at all. It creates £4.5 billion per year for the UK economy, up 50% since 2000, when the UKFC was created. But that’s only two billion more than the banks will pay in this year’s bank levy – and they created that money just by fucking up massively. If the UK Film Council had half an enterprising brain it would contribute to a worldwide recession – then the government could go easy on it and the money would come rolling in.

Cameron to act as a 'critic of the government'

Spin emanating from a ‘close ally’ of David Cameron last week suggested in future the Prime Minister will “act as a critic of the Government, a tribune of the people against the Government when it falls short”, according to the Guardian and the Telegraph.

Cameron in a recent cabinet meeting

Cameron has gone rogue. This is the story of an underdog fighting against all the odds. An expensively educated, nuclear warhead controlling underdog. With a personal security detail. Pitted against the people he appointed ten months ago and has the power to sack at any point. He’s basically Jack Bauer.

The news that in future Cameron will try to distance himself from his own government, and intervene when it ‘falls short’ (or ‘does something that, it turns out, is very unpopular’) warms my heart. It takes a special kind of hero to appoint a cabinet of people, watch as every policy is passed through No 10, and then (when it turns out the public don’t like it) stand up and say “No. Not today. Not like this.” But how can just one Prime Minister hope to make a difference in a mad world like this?

Because this hero has got a whole host of establishment incompetency to fight against. Sitting around the cabinet table one day, as the conversation of his cabinet colleagues roamed from the U turn over the forest sell-off to the U turn over ‘the fuel tax stabiliser’ to the U turn over sport spending in school to the U turn over free school milk for under-fives to the U turn over Bookstart funding, Cameron must have thought: “what idiot appointed these people?”

Fraser Nelson compared Cameron’s strategy of waiting to see whether or not a policy ‘works/causes a huge outcry’ and then intervening to stop it with a chef coming out into the restaurant and tasting people’s food to see if it’s cooked properly. Nelson makes the point that this should ideally happen in the kitchen. I take huge issue with that – when I’m hosting, I genuinely can’t tell if a chicken is totally raw or cooked to perfection until I see my first guest making a dash for the toilet muttering “oh god oh god please no”.

Similarly, how can we expect Cameron to appoint competent people, oversee the policies of the government and exercise basic collective responsibility? He’s the Prime Minister, not God. He’s a true underdog because his only previous job experience is as a PR man – and now we expect him to lead the country. Shame on us. But I have faith in this knight of old. It takes a special kind of bravery to distance yourself from your colleagues when something goes wrong in order to snipe at them. Sure, it means he can maintain his personal poll rating whilst the coalition slips in the polls. But that's just the price you pay for doing the right thing. 

Government approves BSkyB deal

The Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has given his approval for News Corporation to own all shares in BSkyB, despite Ofcom saying the decision should be made by the competition commission, in a move which the BBC business editor says will “generate revenues that would dwarf all rivals, even the BBC”.

Example of a bad empire

I actually quite like empires. Sure, sometimes they become bureaucratic – the Death Star out of Star Wars, which was essentially just one big laser canon, seemed to have a lot of redundant office space for what it was. And yeah, they might tend towards evil sometimes – like, say, the Evil Empire out of Star Wars. But if Star Wars has taught me anything (and everything I know about empires I learned from Star Wars, so clearly it did), it’s that empires always prevail (nb I have only seen up to The Empire Strikes Back, NO spoilers please). That’s why I’m over the moon about the Tory Culture Secretary making News Corporation an even more colossal media empire than it already was (it owns a third of the British newspaper market).

It’s unlikely News Corp will be surprised by the decision – presumably they've been hacking Jeremy Hunt’s phone for ages. But also because, as his website puts it, Hunt believes Murdoch “has probably done more to create variety and choice in British TV than any other single person”, and that we “wouldn’t be saying that British TV is the envy of the world if it hadn’t been for him”. That’s right. A quick look at what’s on Sky tonight will show why British TV is the envy of the world – The Simpsons, America’s Next Top Model and old episodes of Hawaii Five-0. All independent, grassroots British projects that Murdoch gave life to, like a big, friendly right-wing hen.

And the non-Murdoch rebels are forgetting the huge concessions News Corp has made: namely, to spin off Sky News into an independent company. The term ‘spin off’ suggests the relationship between News Corp and Sky News will be minimal, like that between Cheers and Frasier – although, since News Corp will still retain exactly the same percentage of shares in Sky News, it’ll be more like if Frasier was set in Boston. In a bar. With the all the same characters as Cheers. And called Cheers.

Now this deal is settled, we can look forward to this media Reich lasting a thousand years – and if there’s talk of ‘pro-Tory bias’ in News Corp influencing this decision, I say GROW UP and remember the front cover of News Corp-owned The Sun on election day 2010.

Either they were comparing Cameron to an inspiring, left wing, and internationally renowned US politician or to the abstract concept of hope itself.  I’d agree with either, but I’d stress The Sun didn’t pick that cover because of any bias in News Corp. They literally just typed ‘hope’ into Google and David Cameron’s face came up, and they were so startled by this little-known meaning of the word they made it front page news.

The LAST thing anyone wants is a plurality of opinion and voices in the media. After all, when I said I heard lots of voices in my head, they called me MAD. This government has made the same decision I made – pick one of those voices and follow it. Let’s just hope things turn out better for them than they did for me, that fateful winter morning…  

Tory council makes homelessness basically illegal

Tory-run Westminster City Council, the richest council in the UK, is proposing a byelaw to make it illegal to “lie down or sleep on any public place” and is to ban charities giving homeless people free food.

I’m a strong believer in giving to charity – in that I’m 99% certain other people do it. But I think I have a right to not have to look at homeless people. Independent research carried out in my mind suggests that looking at a homeless person actually lowers the value of your house by 0.2%. That’s why it’s such great news that the Tory Westminster Council are planning to effectively make homelessness (and free food handouts) illegal in a large area around Westminster Cathedral, a known hotspot for rough sleepers, charitable work and, most likely, homeless Al Qaeda terrorists using free soup handouts to build one of those dreaded Minestrone Bombs.

What others call “idiotic” I prefer to think of as “clear-minded”. This is one of the more clear-minded Tory initiatives I’ve come across. It’s a simple answer to a complex problem: first, you reduce government funding for homeless charities by 30%, then you make being homeless illegal. Eventually, homeless people will realise their non-legal status and disappear in a puff of logic.

Of course, not everyone’s happy about it. A spokesperson for the extremist militant group 'the Salvation Army’ said "rather than intimidating rough sleepers to retreat into back alleyways, to hide away in refuse containers, or to squat in derelict buildings, the answer is to give them somewhere to stay." Firstly, last time I checked, I think prison counts as a ‘place to stay’. Secondly – they don’t have to ‘squat in derelict buildings’ – they could just as easily lie down or perch, removing a significant strain to their thighs. Thirdly, of course the Salvation Army don’t like this law – they have a vested interest in helping homeless people.

I actually think this byelaw is a great starting point for solving lots of complex problems. For example, surely if the budget deficit was made illegal, it couldn’t exist? Unless…unless the deficit became an outlaw, and escaped into the countryside on horseback, creeping into people’s homes at night to increase their levels of debt…it might make me poor – Jesus Shit! I might lose my golden slippers, my vials of swan blood – my tea towels made of Shakespeare folios. I might lose my house! That would be horrible! 

Police funding cut by 20%

Finally, someone did it. Someone cut police funding. In the Commons a few hours ago, a brave government majority approved a cut of 20% to police forces in England and Wales. The Association of Police Authorities said this will do long-term damage to policing capabilities - but I couldn't hear them over the sound of the party poppers I was letting off.

The police – arguably the laziest public service – have had this coming for a long while. Here are some facts about police wastage:

• 99% of police time is spent being extras in the TV series The Bill. It’s not even on anymore!

• 100% of all solved crimes are either committed by, or solved by, the police. A chilling statistic.

• Despite having sold 30 million copies of the single Roxanne, The Police have consistently failed to chart in Canada.

Now, David Cameron promised on a TV show before the election that there would be no frontline cuts to the police. But the producer of that show, who was probably Greg Dyke, cut away from Cameron just as he mouthed – ‘but I will cut them by 20%’.  The Association of Police Authorities says this will cut frontline police. Indeed, the Association of Police Authorities said this will do "long term damage to policing capability". But if the Association of Police Authorities was worth listening to, surely I’d have bothered to look up who they are?

The thing that the dope-smoking, police-loving liberal left don’t understand is these are necessary cuts, given the state of the economy. No matter how much they permanently destabilise law and order. After a recession, common sense tells you that the way you run a country’s finance is exactly the same as the way you run your household finance. If your household is overspending, then you destroy a part of your house.

And that’s the thought I want to leave you with. Complex problems demand simple solutions.

Take the ancient riddle “if a tree falls in the woods, and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?” My answer would be to privatise that wood, cut it down and have it turned into a shopping centre, because the trees are all weird and philosophical. And since when have trees been any good at fighting crime, anyway? Everyone is an idiot. 

Daily Mail - Gay lessons to be taught in schools

Actual exam paper

Melanie Phillips, a tireless campaigner for sanity, wrote in the Daily Mail today about how “the ruthless campaign by the gay rights lobby” means “schoolchildren are to be bombarded with homosexual references in maths, geography and ­science lessons as part of a Government-backed drive to promote the gay agenda.” That’s right. Homosexuality is now mandatory for schoolchildren.

The lesson plans are being made available online for schools who choose to download them, so technically it’s only ‘mandatory’ in the same way that Doodle Jump is mandatory. But you know what it’s like – if something is available to download, you basically have to download it. That, at least, is my defence for the ‘horse_slut.mpg’ controversy I was involved in a while back.

Now, Word-Happener is no enemy of the gays. I once accidentally bought some moisturising peach-scented handwash from Waitrose, and I actually used it in the guest bathroom. So I think I understand the queers. Therefore, as a neutral observer, I can see that Melanie Phillips isn’t implying that homosexuality is morally wrong – it’s just that mentioning it to schoolchildren is an “abuse of childhood”. In the same way that answering questions about bird migration for my Maths GCSE made me, for a short time, develop feathers and create a nest in the lower-sixth common room, if we say the word ‘gay’ too much around kids they might become gay. Or – worse - gay birds.

Melanie Phillips makes the very valid point that this initiative would “destroy the concept of normal sexual behaviour”.  Mmm baby, that kinda talk turns me on…I’d love to get a cheap motel room with Phillips, make a list of all the most scintillatingly standard sexual practices and do them for a sexily average amount of time. If I apply heterosexual maths to sexual statistics, I predict I would orgasm in 4.7 minutes. Melanie baby, are you ready for my jelly? It's very run-of-the-mill.

And she’s got a point about how we’ve turned against the normal ethics of sexuality. “Expressing what used to be the moral norm of Western civilisation” will now get you into trouble. Exactly. I’d like to hear what the Ancient Greeks would think about all this gay sex. Besides, if LGBT people want to change social norms they should do it through something other than education, like…er…You know. Declaring war or something.

Of course, the best defence against this kind of silliness is to deny there is such a thing as LGBT people. As the user ‘lord_summerisle’ says on the Daily Telegraph comments page for this story – “I seriously doubt that the LGTB community actually exists”. Well said, your Lordship. So when Sue Sanders, of the LGBT pressure group Schools Out tries to defend what is basically gay Nazism by saying “all we are attempting to do is remind teachers that LGBT people are part of the population”, we can simply all look puzzled and ask “what people?”. 

Coulson resigns

Coulson making his statement yesterday morning

Now cracks a noble heart. “I’m sad Coulson felt compelled to quit” said David Cameron, echoing the views of the nation. "He was doing his best," a government insider said, their voice cracking slightly. Perhaps the most poignant words came from Coulson himself, however, as he remarked in a defiant but quavering voice - "it's time to move on", looking toward the sunset outside No 10, a single tear rolling down his princely cheek.

He was a great PR man (he managed to convince the nation that George Osborne is an adult), and we will look for his coming in the Downing Street press office in vain. 

I think it’s shameful that people are victimising Andy Coulson for something we can’t know for sure he did. It would be fairer, for example, to victimise him for choosing to edit the News of the World at all. This is, after all, the paper that confused being a paediatrician with being a paedophile, leading to one woman being attacked in 2000. 

It was this kind of thinking that led Coulson to some embarrassing moments in government, such as when he believed being a ‘spin doctor’ meant he was actually a qualified doctor, resulting in him giving Michael Gove a near-deadly prescription of hypochlorous acid. The scandal passed, and Gove eventually regained the use of his legs, but most importantly Coulson learnt a lesson about knowing what words mean before acting upon them. Personally, I’ve never subscribed to that school of thought, and remain a hermaphrodite about it.

The real problem facing the Tories now is that it’s lost its best PR man. Take a look at this photo of David Cameron, before Coulson was able to photoshop it:

Cameron at his Witney constituency

That’s just not going to play well with the Islington elite. And now with Coulson gone, Cameron has to temporarily handle his own PR. Word-Happener has heard from trusted sources some of the PR initiatives Cameron has come up with on his own. Blogs are of course highly reliable news sources, being the virtual equivalent of a wall someone has graffitied “Bazzer is gay” on. Here are some Cameron PR initiatives, which will be a hard sell without the noble lion of PR:

-  Rebrand ‘money’ as ‘Care Points’. That way, when a banker gives himself a bonus of ‘7 million Care Points’, they just sound really lovely.

- Rebrand the upcoming lack of NHS beds to lie down on as "vertical health solutions". 

- Cut the army. I mean all of it. Defence spending is £32 billion a year. The army will be replaced by Cameron’s vision of the ‘Rush Hour Militia’. By asking hard-working families to give up an hour or two before rush hour each day to be involved in various land conflicts, he will “hand responsibility – and a Glock 19 – to local mothers, fathers and citizens”. As Cameron will put it, “mother knows best”, for example when it comes to launching a tactical assault on a heavily fortified enemy forward flank.  

Bill to scrap EMA approved in Commons

The Daily Mail has published a very thoughtful article by Jan Moir defending the scrapping of EMA (as well as an article about how breasts are “getting bigger” - a very serious biological think piece with great photographs).

Her argument is targeted against people like the “beautiful young woman” who she saw arguing for EMA on Newsnight. Firstly, I’m glad to see Moir is liberated enough to follow the Mail in being unable to mention a young woman without coming across as a pervy retired colonel at a supermarket checkout. Secondly, Moir is right to suggest that the girl “has probably never sliced a breaded gammon nor combed out a perm in her life”. I’m not sure what the stats are on gammon-slicing (Labour’s probably suppressed them), or quite what Moir’s point is, but it has an unsettling ring of truth about it. Thirdly, Moir’s right to slam Labour’s denial that EMA is a waste of money. Labour would probably even deny that breasts are getting bigger, if they thought it would win them an election. So let’s just take these non-gammon-slicing, breast-growth refuseniks to task.

“Under-18s are outraged that they might have to pay for their own beer, ciggies and Pret A Manger sandwiches. What do we want? Crayfish and mayo. When do we want it? Now!” Moir’s portrayal of today’s youth would be outrageous, if it were true. So I think it probably is true. Just to be clear - I wasn’t like that when I claimed EMA. Who the fuck buys crayfish when Pret do warm meatball wraps? I had principles. Juicy, spicy principles with melted cheese on top. But I used to see these other young fat cats – some of them in households earning as much as £33,000 – riding into college in carriages made out of gold and hypocrisy, swan blood dribbling from their mouths as they sang The People’s Flag.

Moir’s single, powerful argument is that EMA is an “expensive flop” designed to keep young people “off the unemployment register”. Too right. I suppose another way of putting it is that it keeps young people in education rather than on the dole, but I question whether we really want it that way round. This is a time of record youth unemployment, so young people clearly find something attractive about being unemployed. Let them have what they want.

Secondly, Moir’s right that EMA’s expensive. The IFS (probably at the behest of Greg Dyke or someone like that) did say the cost of EMA is “more than recouped by the increase in productivity” it provides. But the IFS is itself, most likely, run by paedophiles. And I have yet to see one report from the IFS on the recent shocking growth in breast size.

So, there you have it. I’m not saying that supporters of EMA are basically worse than Hitler. I’m writing it. The fact that I benefitted from it doesn’t mean I’m kicking the ladder out from underneath me. I’m just saying the ladder shouldn’t have been there in the first place, and the ladder is morally wrong. And how are ladders going to help anyone through education anyway? The world’s gone mad.

Predictions for 2011

It's the time of the year when newspapers print reams of pages predicting what will happen in the coming year, bravely moving away from a 'news' focus into a sort of 'bullshit' vibe. One of the things readers won't know about me, however, is I'm a genuinely gifted futurologist. I got into the game fulltime after my asbestos business went bust.

Ladies and gentlemen - behold, the future!

Prediction #1

* It’ll be the year of iPad apps. In February the app makers DigiSolutions will release an iPad app that can digitally replace a human bow tie. “Going to a dinner party? Forgot a bow tie? Welcome to iTie.” The software consists HD image of a bow tie, which the user holds up to his neck. It will sell for £2.99 and will be downloaded over a 750 million times. In April, the iTie SX will come out, allowing you to choose between four different colours of bow tie. Eventually, the company branches out into hats, shoes and contraception.

Prediction #2

* David Cameron will personally launch a new government scheme to create a series of magic rings - five for the dwarf lords, seven for the elves and nine for men. Part of the initiative will involve the further creation of an extra “big” ring, which Cameron shall wield. The objective, as he will announce at a press conference surrounded by young supporters, is to give him power over all the free peoples in the land and create a never-ending darkness wherein the living shall envy the dead. After the initial announcement, the government will downscale its plans due to pressure from academics, care workers and wizards. Ed Miliband will be unavailable for comment, but will later remark that the government should be “careful” with such schemes.

Prediction #3

* You’ll be able to download celebrities. The hadron collider in Switzerland will finally achieve something useful, and crack atom-reassembling through digital transfer – in layman’s terms, you’ll be able to beam the real Justin Bieber into your home, relatively cheaply. Unfortunately, the service will soon be abused by rich students with laptops and boats, who repeatedly summon Amanda Holden into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Illegal downloading will also become a problem, with JLS being downloaded for free and kept in a closet by a 15-year-old in Stevenage. They will be forced to sing for scraps and water, before JB manages to escape and run for help.

A Way To Make 2011 More Bearable

When sitting down to watch a film, imagine you’re somebody who thinks the film is Ocean’s Eleven. You’re wondering when George Clooney is going to turn up and start robbing casinos, and you're confused about how the film is progressing so far. Perhaps cast about for the TV guide, a perplexed look on your face. Maybe check your watch. Perhaps think things like “God, they’re building up to Brad Pitt’s first scene in really weird way” or “Surely any moment A Little Less Conversation is gonna kick in and the wise-cracks will start”? Recommended films to do this with: Schindler’s List, Gandhi and Saw.