Outrage Over Health Claims For Water

Medical professionals were outraged today over claims that water might be "good for you".

In an article posted last week on the highly-regarded medical journal The Internet, it was claimed that the chemical compound H₂O, commonly known as "water", could confer miraculous health benefits, including thirst relief, moisturising and even a reduction in the amount of skin bacteria.

"I'm outraged," said Dr. Malik Singh of Harley Street, London. "These claims are totally spurious and unsupported by any big-pharma financed, long-term, double-blind, highly lucrative clinical trial. This substance must be regarded as potentially dangerous until proper doctors have been paid a fortune to conduct and publish a peer-reviewed study that no-one will bother to read."

The author of the article, Joe Mumble, was unrepentant, claiming that H₂O was perfectly safe when diluted repeatedly with itself to the point where less than one molecule of the original substance remained per litre of water. "Furthermore, when just one glass of this is taken with a handful of antiviral drugs, it can definitely help reduce the symptoms of both HIV and AIDS. On its own, not so much."

An NHS administrator who wished to remain anonymous explained, "While this substance has admittedly been in use in NHS hospitals for decades, its primary function has always been seen as an industrial solvent. It's also used in small, carefully-controlled quantities as a sterilizing agent for surgical instruments, but our clinicians are always very careful to remove all traces of it with a greasy cloth before use in the theatre. I certainly wouldn't recommend drinking the stuff, I'd rather pour raw bleach down my throat."

X Factor Winner Joe McElderry Comes Out As Geordie

Gay singing sensation Joe McElderry has left the showbiz world stunned with the shock revelation that he is a Geordie.

"Why, man," said Joe yesterday, "it's never reely occurred to me befoah, like, but I were just thinking aboot it when I were standing in G.A.Y. with me boyfriend supping a pint of Newky Brown. I heupe it doesn't affect me relationship with me fans, y'knaa."

Until now, Joe has steadfastly denied being a Geordie, claiming that he was born in Outer Mongolia, "Where everyone smoke tabs aal the time, man pet man." But after his Twitter account was hacked by pranksters, he was forced to come clean. He said that he found his decision to come out "reet liberating, like" and that he could now "be Northern".

He revealed he once went out without a coat before going on the X Factor but says he never thought more about it until recently.

The 19-year-old X Factor winner came out just a week after telling his mentor, Cheryl Cole. "Why, I were gutted, at forst, like," admitted the former Girls Aloud member. "I felt betrayed and humiliated, like when wor fans found oot tha' Nadine were the only one in our group who could actually sing live. The bitch."

Fans of the gurning teenager have expressed their full support. 16-year-old Tracy Sherman of Chelmsford explained, "When you've heard some of the godawful shit coming out of the mouths of the other X Factor finalists, a Geordie accent is the least of your worries. After all, it's not as if he's Scottish. Er, he's not, is he?"

Leading X Factor judge Simon Cowell said, "I'm going to be honest. I'll do absolutely anything to get a new record to the top of the charts, but having to back another fucking Northerner makes me sick in my mouth." This slip of the tongue has led to frenzied speculation about which of Cowell's other protégées may have been from the Newcastle area. So far, Fleet Street's finest have drawn a complete blank.

Joe's debut album is due to be released this October, after which everyone will promptly forget he ever existed.

East Fortune Airshow 2010

So this time we remembered to bring folding chairs, so that we didn't a) crick our necks looking up all the time or b) get wet off the grass. I took 300 photos and videos, mostly of empty sky, wingtips, exhaust smoke or trees. Of the rest, these are the least worst.

As usual, click to embiggen.

Vampire

Russian Red Arrows

Spitfire

Wing Walkers

Wing Walkers (video)

The Tale of the Missionary and the Black Sheep

A missionary gets sent into deepest, darkest Africa. He spends years with the people, teaching them to read and write, and about the good Christian ways of the white man. One thing he particularly stresses is the evils of sexual sin, "Thou must not commit adultery or fornication!"

One day the wife of the Village Chief gives birth to a white child.

The village is shocked and the chief is sent by his people to talk to the missionary.

"You taught us of the evils of sexual sin, yet here is a black women who gives birth to a white child. You are the only white man that has ever set foot in our village. It doesn't take a genius to work out what has been going on!"

The missionary replies: "No, no, my good man. You are mistaken. What you have here is a rare, but natural occurrence. It's called an albino. Look to thy yonder field. See there a field of white sheep, and yet amongst them is one black sheep. Nature does this on occasion."

The chief pauses for a moment and then says, "Tell you what, my friend, you say nothing about the black sheep, and I'll say nothing about the white child!"

Edward Cullen Eat Your Undead Heart Out

So this week, young, almost teenage girls have been falling over each other to get some of my precious bodily fluids.

They've been very, very persistent, sending me letters, begging me to come and pay them a visit.

And when I eventually arrived, they were clamouring around me in their short, white skirts and tight blouses, demanding to know every little thing about me.

"What do they call you, handsome?"

"What's your star sign?" ¹

"Hey, do you operate, you know, heavy machinery?" They get totally turned on by that.

"So, where do you take your holidays? San Francisco? Equatorial Africa? Anywhere that's had a recent outbreak of a communicable disease?"

"Man, have you done any good shit lately? Smack, crack, anything involving needles, basically?"

And then they got really personal, asking about my sex life and that. Not so much about all the prostitutes I'd murdered but whether I'd had unprotected sex with them, either before, during or after.

Then they gently laid me down and I barely felt the tiny, sharp sting as they began to suck out my lifeblood and I slipped into a daze...

Next thing I knew, I was sipping a nice cuppa tea with my chocolate Hobnobs.

Best thing about it? Not an angst-ridden Twilight fan in sight.

¹ Technically, "What's your date of birth?" But anybody can work out your star sign from that, right? Right.

Computer Terms Illustrated

Haven't done this for a while. Honest, these are all genuine computer terms.

API

Enterprise Architecture

Micro

Polling

Proxy(sp?) Server

Spoofing

Escape Characters

Pipe

Tar

There's also Shell, of course. Think I'll save that for later.

Down By The River

So as my Twitter followers will know, I went for a stroll down by the Water of Leith yesterday, watched the pretty birdies and broke the first rule of photography - didn't take my camera. #headslap

To make up for it, I went back today with camera in hand and took a few snaps.

As usual, click to embiggen.

Water of Leith

Heron>

Swan

Swan closeup

Another Heron

Duck

Wallflowers

The only thing that spoiled it for me was trying to get a shot without the assorted prams, bicycles and shopping trolleys that have been discarded in the river over the years by gormless vandals.

Gormless

Toot toot!