My NewsBiscuit Annual
From time to time I submit stuff to Newsbiscuit. More occasionally they use it. Their submission board is pretty awkward to work, though, so I thought I’d post my favourites on this blog also, where I can keep an eye on them. First, the ones they used:
- Large Hadron Collider "may destroy universe", say stupid people (original submission)
- Department for Children, Schools and Families to 'give up on schools' (original submission)
- Labour to use 'guest leaders' (original submission)
- Halloween update; local youths 'less frightening than usual' (original submission)
- Book of phone numbers 'left on doorstep' (original submission)
(I do like my headlines-with-quotes-in.)
Next, some of the ones they didn’t. I’ll put most of them after the fold, since there are a lot of them. Also, some might be offensive if you’re easily offended. First, though, my favourite, from early to mid October:
Gordon Brown has new kitchen sink installed under anti-terrorism laws
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has had his kitchen refitted under laws brought in in the wake of the September 11th and July 7th terrorist attacks.
The refit was proposed in August, as part of a larger reorganisation of Number 10. Brown’s wife Sarah raised objections to the plans at an early stage, saying that the new system would make cooking difficult and that she didn’t like the colour. It seemed that the deadlock was unresolvable until September 17th, when the Prime Minister realised he could use existing anti-terror laws to push the installation through without first gaining his wife’s approval.
Critics have claimed that this is “a clear abuse” of the power handed to the PM’s office by these new rules. One backbench MP said that while he understood the need to have special new measures to deal with the new kind of threat faced today, the government had taken advantage of the fear to pass laws granting themselves more power than they had ever been elected to. Other recent applications of the anti-terror laws include freezing the assets of Iceland UK, resolving the double-booking of a conference room in Parliament, and the emergency resolution on Tuesday which mandated it was James’ turn to do the washing up.
Brown has insisted that neither he nor the government has abused the trust placed in them by Parliament, saying that there are “other kinds of terrorism” besides violent attacks on civilians, and that these might be said to include refusal to wash dishes or bad taste in kitchen units.
The House of Lords is expected to overturn the decision, but James Brown has said that as he’s already done the washing up, it’s too late to reverse the damage and a system must be put in place to prevent these situations from arising in the first place.
Morrisons to launch own-brand Marks and Spencer
Supermarket chain Morrisons has announced plans to launch an ‘own-brand’ version of rival Marks and Spencer’s shops. The new stores, called ‘Morris And Sons’, will build on Morrisons’ existing corporate identity, the large green ‘M’, via the addition of an ampersand and an ‘S’. They aim to capture some of Marks and Spencer’s richer market by offering similarly high-class products at slightly lower prices. The new shops are expected to be opened right next to existing Marks and Spencer stores, and look similar enough that customers may enter the wrong one by mistake if they are not paying close attention. The chairman of Morrisons said, ‘this is my M&S.’
While the move has been praised by the Monopolies Commission, who have long felt that Marks and Spencer currently have an unfair dominance for the market of Marks and Spencer products, critics have complained that the culture of supermarket own-brand imitations has gone too far this time. One lawyer has even condemned the move as ‘blatant passing off’, but representatives of Marks and Spencer maintain that their customers are not about to desert the brand for a competitor. Officials have warned that if own-brand Marks and Spencers become commonplace then the term ‘M&S’ could become generic, like Xerox, Hoover or Sellotape, and simply be a word that any company could use to describe produce which is not as posh as it thinks it is. Marks and Spencer are reportedly working on an advert for this eventuality which begins ‘this is not just M&S chicken…’
Some people have expressed fears that if the plans are allowed to go ahead then high streets may consist of nothing other than Tesco versions of popular chains as early as 2015. Experts insist that there is no evidence that this will happen, pointing to America as an example, where a chain of ‘Frankie & Johnnie McDonald’s Steakhouse’ restaurants has been operating for years without incident.
‘Shit’ to be upgraded to Class B swear-word.
After massive public outrage at increasing use of the word ‘shit’, often by children as young as eight, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is set to announce plans to upgrade it to a class B swear-word. In her speech, Smith is expected to criticise the current cursing classifications as “archaic”, citing such oddities as thumb biting, seen in Shakespeare but rare in modern Britain and still considered a class C curse in the eyes of the law, and the fact that ‘punani’ is still not listed on the legislation.
There are also plans to crack down on rogue cursers who supplant their swear-words by ‘cutting’ them using harmless letters (producing variants like the increasingly popular ‘feck’), or more dangerous punctuation marks or characters from Wingdings or Zapf Dingbats.
There is growing concern among parents that ‘shit’, while not particularly offensive in its own right, may lead on to the use of “harder” curses such as ‘fuck’ or the middle finger. Some are afriad that their children may experiment with dangerous cocktails of powerful swear-words such as ‘sheep-shagging motherfucking cunt’. However, others have argued that making ‘shit’ less acceptable will do nothing but increase its strength. “The whole appeal of swearing is that it’s a taboo,” said one representative. “If you try to regulate it, that will only encourage people. Surely we all remember what happened whet the government tried to classify ‘knob’ as a class C swear-word. Use sky-rocketed and we lost a generation of stand-up comedians. Since it was declassified and isn’t considered offensive any more, nobody bothers to say it much.” This point is addressed in the text of the Home Secretary’s statement, citing the drop in use of the word ‘nigger’ as a success story for the legislation.
Civil rights campaigners have also slammed the plans, claiming that the right to free speech means that citizens can use any words they like and in any order, provided that it is not libellous or fraudulent.
Parliament has not yet unveiled plans to close the loophole which allows elaborate innuendo, but a certain member is expected to push through such a crackdown in the near future.
(alternate, more offensive headline: ‘Cunt’ to be upgraded to ‘B-Word’.)
Britain to Jacqui Smith: “We were being sarcastic” (probably makes no sense now)
London to host 2012 Olympics in Second Life
The chair of the London 2012 Organising Committee Sebastian Coe, has announced that the stadium where most events will take place is being built inside the Second Life computer game world. The game world has previously hosted conferences and meetings and some real-world companies have offices there. However, this is the first time a major public sporting event has been held entirely within a virtual universe. The virtual stadium will be able to seat 80,000 spectator ‘avatars’, and of course those without Second Life characters will be able to watch on TV. Second Life was chosen over the game world of World of Warcraft to prevent athletes from using performance-enhancing potions such as Swiftness.
London Mayor Boris Johnson hailed the plans as innovative, and said they show that Britain and London are leading the world in embracing the future and online culture, but fellow Conservative Ann Widdecombe said in her Daily Express column that it was a stunt, “a shameless failure to live up to Britain’s promise when we bid for the games, and to just fob the IOC and the world off with something cheaper instead”. Her party leader David Cameron dismissed this opinion, however. Speaking on Webcameron, he said that the modern Conservative Party was excited by the new possibilities made open by the technology, and said that his Second Life avatar, Secameron, had already reserved a seat. Johnson made the speech from a podium outside his Second Life HQ. His avatar is a tall, confident man in a business suit, with neat, black hair in a left parting and a large and conspicuous pair of blue horns which he hasn’t worked out how to delete.
Many athletes have objected to the plans, saying that their years of training will be useless in Second Life, but Coe said in an interview that the Internet was the future, and that that might mean traditional skills become obsolete. Johnson answered the criticism less deftly, saying “well, maybe you should have learned to do something more useful than throwing a heavy frisbee a long way”. His office later clarified the remark in a press release, but former discus champion Carl Myerscough whose avatar attended the event later said “I would have pelted him with eggs if I knew what button did that”.
McCain and Palin to host Countdown
John McCain and Sarah Palin, the failed Republican contendors for the White House, have been signed to present the next series of Countdown, say sources close to the programme. “After Des O’Connor and Carol Vorderman quit the show, we’d been hunting for a new pair to replace them. We needed an older man and a woman about Carol’s age who our viewers would find attractive but not intimidatingly so. And they should know each other and have some chemistry. After months of auditions, we turned on the TV and were shocked to see the perfect pair running for election.”
McCain released a statement confirming the leak, saying “When I first got the offer, I thought it was for MSNBC’s Countdown, currently hosted by Keith Olbermann. It seemed like a good opportunity to tone down the network’s rampant liberal bias. Then they flew me to a state called ‘Yorkshire’ for the audition and I realised my mistake.”
Reporters were also shown a copy of the tape from the audition. McCain is said to have not really grasped what the show was about or who it was aimed at, and viewers responded well to that, because it represented strong continuity. Palin performed well in the letters game, and better than expected in the numbers. In the first round she failed to make the target of 270, but by the end of the show she had found her form. Faced with a 75, a 10, a 4, two 7s and a 1, and a target of 689, she drew a complex-looking diagram on the board made up mostly of numbers, arrows, and arithmetical operator symbols, and explained, “Well, it’s like my momma always said, when you have the sevens, and a four, and you see what you do with them and you multiply… you multiply the numbers, and you pray, and all of them just really come together beautifully so that when you get down to it it’s really a matter of whether you want to make 689 or not.” Then she cocked her head to one side and squinted at the audience to see whether they had understood. 80% of the audience found this ‘not at all different’ to Carol’s performance.
Producers had hoped to test McCain’s ability to handle a Crucial Countdown Conundrum, but one contestant had ammassed a large lead in the early stages of the contest and there was never really any chance that it would go down to the wire.
Vatican City on international watch list
A spokesperson for the Foreign Office was forced to admit last night that the Vatican City had for some time been the subject of international security amid rising fears of religiously-motivated terrorism.
‘We have a number of criteria for these decisions,’ he said, ‘and the Vatican City meets many of them. It is a real cause for concern.’ He went on to point out that only people who subscribe to the national religion - Catholicism - are allowed to work in the Vatican City. Homosexuals are not permitted to work there either. ‘This is not what we can reasonably call a free or democratic nation. It has no education or healthcare infrastructure, and has some very strange laws about celibacy.’
There are also fears that the state may be a harbour for fascism: the Vatican was declared an independent nation in 1929 by the Lateran treaty, signed into law by Benito Mussolini, and recently appointed a former member of the Hitler Youth its leader in a secret vote between only a small number of men. The Vatican has never participated in any kind of international dialogue, and sources say that any official negotiation between it and the United States may be unconstitutional. Sympathisers with the Vatican are barred by law from becoming UK royalty.
It was also confirmed that the country has thousands of cells of ‘devoted followers’ scattered around the world, including in the United Kingdom, however reporters were assured that neither the UK or the US is planning an invasion.
More worryingly, there are reports that Tony Blair has recently been associated with the ‘rogue state’.
Woolworths now worth less than wool.
Man who cut off own hand to free himself ‘would have been okay anyway’
Following a car accident on a country lane, keen mountainclimber Liam Richards and nephew John, 19, became trapped in their vehicle on Tuesday. With no signal on his mobile phone and unable to escape the vehicle, Richards eventually resorted to using his penknife to amputate has own left hand, which was pinned between two crushed panels. ‘I’d seen people on TV who’d done it, and I thought, “I could do that.”’ He then ran to the nearest telephone box to raise the alarm. According to Dave Moore, the first paramedic who attended the scene, ‘Mr Richards was incredibly brave. I don’t know how many other people could have done what he did,’ but added ‘of course, a local woman had seen the accident and alerted us already, so he would have been fine anyway. Still though, wow.’
‘I saw his car swerve off the road and hit the tree from my kitchen. Straight away I dialled 999 and told them to come right away,’ said local Margaret Houseman. ‘I tried to get his attention, but then I saw him cutting off his arm and I had to sit down for a bit. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know any first aid anyway.’ Paramedics say that Mr Richards’ hand was not badly damaged, but due to the way he had severed it, it would not be possible to reattach it.
Also in the car was John Richards, who was instantly killed upon impact. Peers at his school have described him as ‘annoying’, and ‘not one of the more popular boys’. His teachers said that he ‘rarely paid attention’ and ‘consistently underachieved’. The car had been travelling from a nearby town after a shopping trip, an activity the family say the pair ‘did not particularly enjoy’. Richards said they hadn’t bought anything special that day, ‘just some clothes and stuff.’
Asked about the need for such trees to be removed from the sides of rural roads to prevent such events in the future, John’s mother, Sylvia, issued a statement saying ‘you can’t save everybody all of the time. Obviously we’re all shocked by John’s tragic death, but overprotecting everyone will not help in the long run.’
The car was a 1996 Nissan Micra, which Richards described as ‘basically okay’ and ‘easily replaceable’.
Wikipedia user sets new world record time
Wikipedia user “90.196.252.184” is celebrating today after breaking the men’s world record for updating Wikipedia after a major world event.
The Wikipedia page “100 metres” was updated to reflect Usain Bolt’s historic race only 9.69 seconds after the race ended. The previous record was set earlier in the year on July 7th when user CoolKid1993 updated the encyclopaedia to reflect Hillary Clinton’s withdrawal from the Democratic nomination race only 9.74 seconds after her sentence ended.
90.196.252.184 has so far been unavailable for comment, but a statement issued on his User:Talk page simply curses himself for failing to log-on to the website and claim the record under his preferred name.
The record has been ratified by Wikipedia’s controllers, however an appeal has been launched by user 218.186.13.2, who claims that 90.196.252.184’s time should be disregarded because he misspelt “Beijing” in the record table halfway down the article. CoolKid1993 has refused to endorse or oppose the appeal, standing by his initial statement that he always knew the record would be broken and is excited at the talent coming up through the Wikipedia registration page.
Nobody has yet bothered to set a women’s record.
Gordon Brown spending all day replying to e-petitions
Over the last year, in an attempt to connect with younger voters, the Prime Minister’s office has set up a comprehensive interactive website, as well a Twitter feed and pages on Facebook and Flickr. A source inside 10 Downing Street has told reporters that Gordon Brown now spends ‘most of his time’ tending to these services and profiles.
“It took a while for him to get to grips with all the services, but once he did it was impossible to get him off them. We had hoped that other staff would keep them up to date, but Gordon insisted on doing it himself. Now he spends most afternoons responding to e-petitions.”
The Government has not officially responded to this, although the Downing Street Twitter profile did post an update to explain that the Prime Minister felt it was important to connect with the population as directly as possible. Some, however, have expressed concern that it may be his way of hiding from reality. “Brown has 72 friends on the Downing Street Facebook page, which is far more than he has in Parliament. That said, many of them are clearly gimmick accounts. We know for a fact that he’s never actually met anyone called Jesus H Christ.” Brown’s Facebook page lists him as “in a special relationship”.
There have also been accusations that the new digital services are a waste of money. The amount of updates on the sites in total is thought to be a major drain on government time, especially since most of the Twitter updates are 135-140 characters long, suggesting that Brown spends several minutes crafting each one.
According to a note posted on the Downing Street Blog, the blame for this situation rests firmly with the media, whose incessant nagging two years ago forced all politicians to purchase iPods to fill with music which was more popular than them.
US National Debt mysteriously ‘rolls round’ to zero
At 2:41 yesterday afternoon, panic gripped the White House as the National Debt reached nine trillion, nine hundred and ninety-nine billion, nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars for the first time in the nation’s history. Officials immediately set about drawing up a raft of proposals to fix the problem, including tax increases, spending cuts and the invasion of Switzerland, but at 3:07 a junior staffer working in Times Square phoned and pointed out that actually the national debt stood at only a few hundred dollars, one of the lowest on Earth.
At first President Bush did not believe the news, and immediately flew out to New York to check the clock for himself. Some aides attempted to explain that the debt could be more accurately checked within the White House, but Bush insisted that he liked to get his information the same way the American People get theirs. One staff member is reported to have insisted that there will be plenty of time for that in February, but the President’s resolve was characteristically strong. At a press conference, he told reporters that this new era of prosperity spelled an end to the fears of foreclosure faced by millions of Americans and that his vision and the $700bn financial bailout should be credited with the reversal in the nation’s economic situation.
One journalist at the press conference asked if it was possible that the debt had “run out of digits and rolled round to zero”, to which the President responded that complex issues like the economy never have just one cause. “The design of the clock may have been a factor,” he conceded, “but it was [his] decisions and leadership that pushed it over the edge.”
Bush has promised a wave of tax cuts and spending increases in order to make sure that Americans see the benefits of the new solvency in the budget, however President-Elect Barack Obama has announced that he intends to reverse these, claiming that the reduction in debt is somehow “an illusion”. Early polling figures suggest that Obama’s popularity dropped seven points following the announcement.
Outbreak ‘could have been prevented’ by rubber tongue cleaners
The World Health Organisation has said that the cause of the recent outbreak which killed nearly a million people in the poorest parts of Africa was a tongue-borne virus which could have been prevented had these people had access to basic vital medical supplies such as toothbrushes with little rubberised tongue-cleaners on the back.
‘People don’t realise how vital these tongue-cleaners are,’ said the spokesperson. ‘They think they’re just a gimmick cooked up to sell more toothbrushes after people got wise to the whole “flexible neck” fad. But the truth is that a dirty tongue can be disastrous for your health. Remember that everything you eat goes over your tongue. In many ways, it’s simply a miracle that mankind survived this long without this technology.’
He went on to explain that he considered it ‘imperative’ to make tongue-cleaning brushes available to everyone, and has joined forces with the WWF to make this technology available to the animal kingdom. ‘Most animals have some form of tongue and yet only mankind have developed a pimpled rubber pad to clean it with. It is surely our sacred duty to provide this to our brethren in other species, before they are decimated by germs that live on the tongue and inside the cheeks, and those hard-to-reach places around the gumline.’
Fox News: Obama to end ‘pork barrel’ citing rules of Halal.
Trading halted as wasp enters London Stock Exchange
The credit crunch looks set to worsen today as news emerges that trading has been suspended on the floor of the Stock Exchange due to a wasp which has been loose above the exchange floor for the last four hours.
It is thought that the insect got into the building on the coat of a licensed broker, but authorities have yet to name a suspect. Trading had been in full force until shortly after lunchtime, at which point investor Brian Jameson “thought he heard something”. At first he suspected some kind of electrical fault, but ruled that out when he noticed the sound was moving.
When traders started to realise that there was a wasp in the room, they started to head for the exits, wary of being stung on the trading floor. This has lead to a situation known in financial circles as “a bee market”.
Some companies are, however, benefiting from the incident: those who trade on the Internet are reporting ‘significantly’ less competition, and there are reports of a single investor still on the floor, who appears to be doing quite well for himself. So far, the wasp has stayed away from him, although nobody can guarantee how long his luck might hold. This has lead to speculation by some analysts that the wasp may have been introduced deliberately in order to reduce his competition.
Authorities now say that the wasp is buzzing about behind one of the large screens in place to show current stock prices, and is impossible to access. “It would be easy if we unplugged the screen,” they admitted, “but it’s been there ages and we’re not sure where all the wires go any more. Anyway, that one guy is still using it.” At present, there is no way to know how long the danger may last, or how much it could affect the value of British companies.
“At Least We’re Not Falling Into The Sea”, says North (also probably no longer makes sense)
Doctor, Liverpool fail to regenerate
Common maths errors “should be accepted”
According to an article in the Times Higher Education Supplement by Ken Smith, Professor of Criminology at Bucks New University, university lecturers should stop correcting the most common mathematical errors in students’ work and simply accept them as “variant” answers.
“Why shouldn’t 57 be a prime number?” he asks. “It looks like one, and a lot of my students think that it is. Surely that gives it as good a claim to be prime as any other number?”
Other proposals to “simplify” mathematics in his article include making 0÷0 equal to one, truncating Ï€ to four decimal places – 3.1415 – since that’s all anyone can remember, accepting “proof by example” as mathematically valid, and allowing students to “cancel the d” in calculus questions.
“I’ve seen mathematics teachers repeatedly correcting the same error in the same student’s work, and yet the problem would be solved if they simply accepted the 10 commonest errors as correct.
“Mathematics teachers are just too uptight about the subject to allow any change. Would it hurt them so much if 0.9 recurring was strictly less than one? That would seem pretty sensible to me.”
Scientists calculate formula for the perfect number of days’ detention
Scientists at the University of Westminster have calculated a scientific theory to work out how many days the government should detain a terror suspect without trial. According to Dr. Brown, the formula is D=T—(21/7)—1W, where D = number of days detention, W = number of days in a week and T = number of towers destroyed, and 21/7 is the date of the most recent attack on London.
The academics and mathematicians behind the study, commissioned by the Labour Party, say that the formula will be of use to anyone planning to detain criminals beyond the period normally allowed by law.
The scientists have stressed that the formula is only valid in Britain. Dr Blair was quick to point out that their research found that “in America, for example, imprisonment, or even torture, without trial should continue indefinitely”.
Human rights campaigners have welcomed the findings. A spokesperson for Liberty said “oh, well, if it’s maths then I guess it must be okay”.
The 42-day detention without charge of terror suspects is a controversial measure, and it is hard to find anyone in government or the media whose opinion is not guided by an obvious vested interest. Therefore, in line with standard media practice, we have found two ordinary members of the public on opposite sides of the debate and given them both a chance to have their say here:
Mohammed Imami
I was arrested in Euston Station three months ago. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I was released without charge after 26 days, but my employers had already replaced me. My marriage had been strained to breaking point and I hadn’t been able to pay my bills. My life has been a total nightmare ever since. I cannot see any justification for the new measures.
Moyra Haynes
Well, as a woman who was raped by a man released without charge from police custody 39 days earlier, I have to say I’m in favour of the measures. I only wish we’d had them sooner. It turned out that my attacker hadn’t actually committed the crime he’d been arrested for, but that’s the power of these new measures – they still would have protected me.
Official Chinese Olympic report mentions only events China won
Following the discovery that the fireworks seen around the world at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics were computer generated, and the replacement of a singer Yang Peiyi with a more photogenic mime, details have begun to emerge of other alterations the Chinese have made to the Olympic Games’ image.
The official website so far makes no mention of the swimming events in which Chinese athletes managed only bronze and silver medals, and bloggers in Beijing are reporting that they can’t find the stadium anywhere in the city, leading to speculation that a more attractive city, possibly in Korea, has been used as a stand-in.
One intrepid Olympic correspondent has noted that only one of the Chinese synchronised diving team is ever available for interviews, and that his dressing room contains a fifteen metre high mirror.
Judge decides Mosely basement romp “not wrong”
Josef Fritzl seeking to hire same lawyer.
Inflatable church blows away, converts four (This was the week that two unrelated inflatables were in the news. I just related them.)
An inflatable church designed for Italian beachgoers became detached from its moorings last week and blew into a town centre. Three men and a woman having lunch in a local cafe at the time were struck by the blow-up house of God and were instantly converted to Roman Catholicism.
One of the victims said, “I was having a coffee outside, when suddenly I felt something large and rubbery brush past the back of my head. I was filled with this amazing feeling of love, and I suddenly felt that somehow everything was going to be alright.”
Not all of the group were happy about the conversion, however. One was previously a non-practicing Christian, and did not notice her conversion for two days, when she saw the Pope on television and couldn’t shake the feeling that his word was infallible. Theologians diagnosed her with Catholicism the following day. Since then she has read Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion in its entirety twice, but failed to beat her condition. “It’s been dreadful,” said another. “I was quite happy as an agnostic, but since becoming a Catholic I’ve been racked with guilt and had difficulty reconciling much of my knowledge with my new faith.”
Also struck by the floating house of worship was Abu Mohammed Ahmed, then a devout Muslim. He is considering suing the operators of the inflatable church, claiming that since his conversion he has been shunned by his family for apostasy and finds it difficult fitting in to his new church. He has, however, found that he quite likes pork, previously forbidden to him since pigs are considered unclean in Islam.
Tesco Store Sign Changes Again
A drive by the Plain English Campaign (PEC) to change signs in Tesco stores has caused mass confusion. The offending signs originally read “10 items or less”, but the PEC complained that “less” should only be used to modify mass nouns. Their proposed alternative, “10 items or fewer”, was deemed ‘too stilted’ by the store’s managers and “no more than 10 items” sounded ‘too negative’. A new sign was eventually unveiled that read “up to 10 items”, but this soon came under fire from the public, who no longer knew if they were allowed exactly ten items.
Tesco rejected a proposal from the UK Mathematics Trust to solve this problem using signs that read “n items, where 0 < n < 10”, when a focus group admitted it had them entirely stumped. The phrasing “10 items or not as many items as that” was rejected also, as was “No more items than you have fingers” as it was feared that the latter might offend the disabled, and nobody was sure if thumbs counted anyway.
In an interview with the BBC, a spokesperson for the Plain English Campaign was asked if it was true that there had actually been less than 5 complaints about the original signs. “I’m sorry,” was the response, “but I don’t know what you mean,” and he kept up this ridiculous charade until the interviewer gave an audible sigh and asked if fewer than 5 people had complained. The spokesperson then admitted that actually nobody at all had complained.
The signs currently read “zero, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 items”, and so far nobody has complained except for the man who makes the signs and two shoppers in Cambridge who were offended by the use of the so-called ‘Oxford comma’. Tesco management have admitted they neither know nor care what that means.
It is thought that all of this has cost Tesco just fewer than £2 million.