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A week in mild amusement

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24 July 2018

By Kieran

Gunn control

Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn was sacked by Disney for a series of bad jokes (and one good one) he made in 2009. Because that’s apparently a reasonable response. If we can be liable for idiotic things we said on Twitter in 2009 (and apologised for in 2012, by the way) then look forward to my upcoming sacking from beep. In fact, scratch 2009, I don’t come across greatly on Twitter today. The tweets were ‘unearthed’ by Mike Cernovich, an alt-right anti-feminist who was charged with rape in 2003. Nice to see who Mickey Mouse views as a moral barometer. I suppose that would explain Song of the South. Many have accused Disney of lacking a backbone. Which is obviously true. It’s only his head in the freezer to my understanding.

Training day

The father of a boy photographed with his head over the edge of a railway platform has said that his son was never in danger. Certainly, he wouldn’t have been if the line was Northern Rail. He could have slept on the tracks and read A Song of Ice and Fire in its entirety before a train came. Ian Stanton says his son Devon is an ‘inquisitive kid’ who presumably was curious to find out what it was like to have your head sail 100 feet into a Trowbridge washing line. The family had been going to Bath carnival so in all honesty, I don’t blame the kid. What I like about the photo is that due to the blurring of the kid’s face, it actually looks like a train went through a second before the camera flashed.

Every Lidl helps

Tesco is planning to open a number of stores in a new mystery format but won’t comment on what that means. There are rumours that the new stores will aim to challenge discount stores like Aldi and Lidl. Which… I mean that’s surely just a price drop? You can’t really call that a new format unless you work in US healthcare. How many ‘formats’ for buying stuff are there? There’s the normal Tesco model where you spend your time trying not to crush toddlers under your trolley wheels. There’s the Argos model, where you sit in a dentists waiting room but instead of a root canal, you get a poorly performing BBQ. And there’s the online model, where you order a six-pack of Andrex and they bring you an 18-pack of Tampax.

Life’s a beach

In the state of Maryland, a location that, in Britain, only conjures up images of cookies, a woman has been impaled by a beach umbrella. The umbrella flew through the air to impale her in the chest. Similarly, last week, a British woman pierced her leg on a parasol in New Jersey. I knew misogyny was an issue in America but I didn’t know inanimate objects were at it too. What I want to know is: what’s made umbrellas so angry? I suppose we put them through a lot without thanking them. The only person who ever sings their praises is Rihanna. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised umbrellas are beginning to get violent with us. They’ve been throwing shade at us for a long time.

(Editors note: I have no editor, that joke is staying in, so help me god).

They think it’s all rover

Scientists are asking the public to suggest names for the new Mars rover. They don’t learn, do they?  The, inevitably titled, Marsy McMarsFace will land on the red planet in 2021. Interestingly, in the naming rules, you cannot submit a person’s name unless they died before 1993. So, for instance, Diana wouldn’t be eligible. But, by the look of him, Prince Philip certainly is. I thought it would be an interesting exercise to devise a name from beep to the European Space Agency. Let’s see. It’s a highly expensive endeavor designed to leave a verdant lush environment in exchange for a barren dusty wasteland devoid of intelligent life. We could call it Brexit.

Fun and gun

It’s been suggested that schools could learn a lot from the video game Fortnite. And not just by the NRA, this time. An organisation that seems intent on allowing random firearm allocation to lead to one last pre-teen standing. The obsession and dedication children display towards the game is something that would hugely be beneficial to learning. In particular, learning how to spell ‘fortnight’. Professor Paul Howard Jones says some aspects of gaming can be inserted to make lessons more engaging. Something that American incels have been applying fairly liberally over the past two decades.

Seeing as you were all so nice about my limericks last week, I’d like to end on one encapsulating a final new story for this week viewable here.

 

Theresa May came to the North East

And was asked how she put up her feet

Under visible stress

She watches NCIS

But nothing beats fields of wheat.

 

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