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TOKYO - During a press conference yesterday co-pilot of the Virgin balloon Alex Ritchie
declared that he owed his life to the courage and daring of Richard Branson, specifically
Branson's own accounts of his courage and daring. 'There were so many moments when it looked
like we were going to crash into a mountain' explained Ritchie, 'but then Richard would start
going on about how he was going to out-do Camelot and revolutionise the National Lottery, and
the next thing I knew we were gaining altitude and soaring over the Himalayas.' Ritchie stated
that Virgin's round-the-world non-stop balloon journey would not have been possible without
Branson's round-the-world non-stop bragging.
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Gardai recover some, not sum of money
STORE STREET - A recent victim of a violent mugging was highly disgruntled this week to discover that a simple verbal mix-up had made it not worth his while turning up at a Dublin Garda Station with a view to picking up the £525 that was stolen from him at knife-point three nights previously. 'I was lying in my hopsital bed watching Crimeline' explained Eamonn McKittrick, 'when I heard that the Gardai had recovered "a sum of money" at the exact location and approximate time at which I was robbed. So naturally I got out of bed, picked up my crutches, and hobbled down to recover it.' McKittrick explains that when he arrived at the station, Sergeant Hannify handed him £IR 0.35. When McKittrick demanded to know where was the rest of it, it emerged during the conversation that he had allegedly confused sum with some of money. 'But you distinctly said "a some of money"' insisted McKittrick, to which Hannify tetchily remarked that he didn't need no English lessons from him to do his job properly.
Martians protest galacticization
POLAR REGION - Anti-galacticization protestors have blockaded the Hyatt Regency hotel on Pluto, where the GTO is holding its annual convention. Conference organisers, only recently smarting from the Seattle debacle, opted for holding the conference in the furthest-flung planet of the solar system in the hopes of reducing the conference's accessibility to mobs of what the galactic business press has derided as 'pinkos from the red planet'. Demonstrators are said to be protesting against Earth's hegemony in the solar trade market, the third planet's exploitation of third-world planets, and it's unscrupulous use of developing planets such as Mercury and Venus, where Nike sweatshops are alleged to be the hottest.
Limerick community defeat Amazonian red-bellied piranhas
SOUTH HILL - It was a closely fought contest, observers say, but members of a Limerick council estate were the winners again this year of an unusual international tournament. Explained organiser Carlos Ramirez: 'Basically we throw the piranhas a sheep and the Limerick guys a Ford Fiesta, and whoever is the first to reduce the item to a skeleton is the winner.' The community attribute their success to greater experience. 'Chimpanzees, swans and crocodiles are fairly smart and know how to avoid the piranhas' remarked team captain Seanie Donlon, 'but you'd be surprised how stupid people here are: they'll park their car anywhere and not think.' Ramirez has explained that, as part of the contest's tradition, the winners get to eat the losers.
Terrorist plot foiled by crap song
NORTHERN IRELAND - Army bomb disposal experts at a barracks in Lurgan yesterday defused a semtex device that was placed in the jukebox of an army barracks fifteen years ago. The unexploded bomb was wired to go off when the track 'Never gonna give you up' by Rick Astley was selected. 'This device would have killed anybody within a twelve-foot radius' explained Brigadier Laurence Smythe, 'but fortunately nobody has ever played this song since the day it was placed in the machine.' He continued: 'Every man in this barracks owes his life to the complete lack of songwriting capability exhibited by Stock Aitken & Waterman, and the generally nauseating cawing of their young protegé.' The IRA later claimed responsibility for planting the bomb, whilst Pete Waterman has denied any responsibility for his string of awful hit singles.
Human genome project actually Iguana genome project
SAN DIEGO - The scientific community was today shocked to learn that the Human Genome Project - the thirteen-year effort to map the complete nucleotide structure of human DNA - has been ruined by a laboratory blunder. It has emerged that the five samples of human DNA have been mixed up with DNA from that of a South American tree-dwelling lizard. Asked why the error was not discovered sooner, project leader Clive Siegrist explained that the process of unravelling DNA was a very slow one. 'When we discovered that the sample contained genetic instructions for a tail, we simply dismissed that as the vestigial vertebrae' he explained, 'It was only when we began to isolate chromosomes governing green scales, a forked tongue and independently rotating eyes that we realised that this might not be human DNA.' Siegrist has insisted that the research, though accidental, is nonetheless useful. 'Think how much we will know in five years time about how the Budweiser lizards are able to speak English' he told reporters. Asked if the public could continue to maintain full confidence in the competence of his team, Sigrest was in no doubt. 'Right now we have teams of researchers scouring the Amazonian rainforest for mosquitoes trapped in Amber, and we hope to have located a sample of human DNA within a year' he explained.
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We don't make cereals for anyone else 
