“Try to avoid drinking until at least breakfast”, haggard-looking government tells nation

“Or at least stick to something mild on your cornflakes. Gin? Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

Having utterly failed to convince even a single man, woman or child in Britain to slightly moderate their drinking habits, or “lives” as they are otherwise known, parliament has released a set of guidelines ironically entitled “We Give Up” to try to corral the average Brit into simply laying off the absinthe for as little as 48 hours.

A standard Tuesday morning in the UK

The report has been met with laughter, derision, and in true British style even got its face kicked in by some tanked up arseholes in Nuneaton.

Aside from the frank admission that Britain as a concept is now pretty much constantly blitzed (look at a map of the globe. Britain would describe itself as existing at a ‘jaunty’ angle, but we all know that that lean is way more of a ‘four pint stumbly’ angle), two overriding truths have been revealed about our great land.

First, it has become apparent that whoever is in charge of alcohol guidelines is an absolute, perfectly formed moron. The new guidelines, published 2012, have come about because the old guidelines, published 1995, “appeared to endorse daily drinking” (direct quote that, a real one too and not one I’ve just made up for a change).

It has taken in excess of 16 (SIXTEEN!) years for anybody in a position of authority to notice that guidelines which suggest that people imbibe no more than 4 units of booze daily might, just might, make it seem like daily drinking was ok. Apparently the word ‘daily’ was meant to be taken in a much less literal context than the word ‘daily’ is often understood. Or in the lesser-known alternative meaning of the word, which must be ‘not every day’.

Perhaps if they were trying to avoid daily drinking, they might have used a less misleading word than ‘daily’ to achieve that end. Just a thought.

“You must eat your 5-a-day. And what we obviously mean by this is three carrots a year.No, I don’t see how you could have interpreted that statement in any other way.”

The second, more heartening revelation is that the people of Britain are capable, and have indeed been engaged in, mass collective action on an astounding scale.

According to the figures, 90% of people are aware of the existence of alcoholic ‘units’ but an astounding 107% of people are unable to specify what this translates to in the glass. This is, of course, bullshit. We all know a unit is about three measly sips of Tesco value wine, or an eighth of a pint, or something equally unrealistically tiny. So we have entered into a mass deception to fool the authorities whereby units are a complete mystery, and we can thereby continue getting absolutely slashed with a squeaky clean conscience.

Most people choose to describe a unit as “a quarter of what I have drunk and will drink this evening”, but others are bolder and more fanciful and claim that a unit is an incredibly rare bird that lives in the Amazon, and it is therefore difficult, not to mention unethical, to consume four in a day. Some have bastardised the “one glass = one unit” methodology with gusto, becoming wonderfully liberal with what constitutes one drink.  Triple whisky. One glass, one unit. Yard of White Lightning. One glass, one unit. Industrial-sized bottle of Ouzo. Technically One glass, one unit.

It’s as though acknowledging something exists exempts us from any further knowledge of it.

“I’m aware of the existence of ‘the law’, but as I can’t conceptualise it adequately I’m going to stove this man’s face in with a sharp lizard and you will have no power to stop me.”

Would be an extreme example of this logic.

To celebrate the new alcohol guidelines I’ll be having two days away from drink and then enjoying a rather large bottle of Scotch with supper on Friday.

One glass, one unit.

Gah! Kill it!

With the news that scientists in the US (where else, seriously.) have created not one but THREE harbingers of death  ‘chimera monkeys’ which show no signs of dying any time soon, many of the world’s inhabitants have reacted entirely appropriately by grabbing the nearest pitchfork and flaming torch.

The beasts have been described as "extraordinarily evil" by their creators

EVEN THE MONKEY LOOKS SHOCKED AT HOW EVIL IT IS.

Nobody would be surprised if they escaped and wreaked havoc upon the lab which made them, sporadically releasing grainy youtube videos of themselves feasting on the cleaners’ entrails whilst listening to Chris deBurgh and doing that weird wheezing laugh that all evil creatures do in the films.

You would have thought that somewhere along the line somebody in the scientific community would have said something along the lines of “No” or “Get out of here you psychopaths”, but apparently it’s now cool to build animals out of bits of other animals like giant furry Lego.

“Look, professor, I know your sceptical about the ethical and scientific implications of this type of thing, but I have two words for you: eagle panther.”

“Yes, I take cheques.”

I feel it would be wrong to write off the practice of monkey-making entirely, as I have just done, so I have prepared the following list of pros and cons so you can come to your own conclusions:

Pros

Zoos would be more interesting – “Mummy, I want to see the flying shark-lion”.

Nature would be more interesting – Flying shark lion. Proficient on land, sea and in the air. Death in three mediums. Your move, gazelle.

Dinner would be more interesting – Two words. Steak bacon. Mmm, steacon. That’s the kind of meat I’d tamper with the natural order of things for.

Cons

Inevitable destruction of the human race by intelligent, psychotic and unfathomably deadly Franken-pets – See above

It’s a crazy tough call.

Happy Sunday!

“Nice idea, but what’s in it for me?” Nation asks Miliband

“Responsible capitalism, you say? No, I don’t believe I follow.”

The embattled Labour chief has faced confusion and a mild level of threat from the public in the wake of his outrageous assertions that perhaps we might all be just a bit nicer and less all-round bastardish when it comes to each other and money.

“But if I’m not actively fucking somebody over how on Earth am I going to afford more shiny, pointless shit to fill the gaping hole where my soul used to be?” was the much-echoed response of the British Union of Priests.

With a recent opinion poll indicating that over 98% of Britons now regard trading in their grandmother for an R-reg Volkswagen Golf as less of a heinous unthinkable act and more of a solid economic move, Miliband’s plea for us to stop robbing each other blind in search of another luxury yacht/bigger telly/shinier shoes/chips appears to have fallen on deaf ears.

Whilst it’s certainly true that many of us would probably like to see an end to the “get screwed, screw someone else” individualism that has seen the UK descend into some kind of horrendous economic conga line gang-bang, a ghastly product from the unholy union of the joint national loves of queueing and debauchery, most are afraid that if they step outside the cycle then they won’t be ‘getting’ any at all.

As it were.

“So, you’re saying that the people who make my heating bill the written equivalent of water-boarding every few months could stop doing that, but in return I’d have to stop exploiting everyone around me to further my hollow existence? You’re insane.”

It’s hard not to feel sorry for quiet Ed. Prominent members of his party who certainly wouldn’t be prominent members of his party were it not for him have decried his lack of strategy and leadership, apparently on the grounds that Miliband prefers adult, reasoned debate to shouting and screaming and calling David Cameron a misguided, ruddy-faced idiot.

And apparently he is in danger of ‘losing the economic argument’ by saying that perhaps a bit less ego-centrism might be a good thing.

Which it obviously would.

God the world is depressing.