Terrorist Suspects Evade Authorities

Two TPIM suspects (pictured) have evaded government anti-terrorism officers by dressing as women. Spooks spotted the pair entering a haunted fairground, and set up surveillance. A few minutes later, the pair re-emerged dressed as a pair of sexy women, and managed to give the team the slip. It is believed that one of the suspects, Mr Somali Doo (right), distracted officers by blowing kisses and batting his eyelids, whilst the other, Mr Shaggy Khan, presented the team with flowers and a box of chocolates shaped like a love-heart. Police believe the pair could now be posing as anything from barbers to chefs, and ordered citizens to be on their guard.

Two TPIM suspects (pictured) have evaded government anti-terrorism officers by dressing as women. Spooks spotted the pair entering a haunted fairground, and set up surveillance. A few minutes later, the pair re-emerged dressed as a pair of sexy women, and managed to give the team the slip. It is believed that one of the suspects, Mr Somali Doo (right), distracted officers by blowing kisses and batting his eyelids, whilst the other, Mr Shaggy Khan, presented the team with flowers and a box of chocolates shaped like a love-heart. Police have issued a warning to the public that both suspects are masters of disguise, and could now be posing as anything from barbers to French chefs.

Countdown to Destruction

spy{A news story, written in 2006, that was suppressed for security reasons, now declassified and safe to disseminate}

The aftershocks from a government inquiry into the sinister world of light-entertainment quiz shows will be felt around the world for some years to come, intelligence analysts have predicted. The scandal – dubbed ‘Points Make Spy-sies’ in some circles – has prompted ministers to ask questions in parliament, and forced MI5 and MI6 to question all aspects of national security.

Initially, the inquiry’s remit was narrow, investigating only the Channel 4 mid-afternoon words-and-numbers show, Countdown, after credible intelligence from MI6 suggested that the quiz had been compromised by foreign agitators.

Their fears proved justified. The late Richard Whitely was revealed to have been a Soviet sympathiser who used his TV platform to send coded messages to the KGB.

‘Whitely’s shit gags were actually signals to undercover Russian operatives, ordering them to attack British and American industrial and military targets,’ said an MI6 contact. ‘On one edition of Countdown, a contestant managed to get the word GARDENER. Whitely then quipped, “Oh, gardener. Gardener. Yes… em… well, we… eh… are certainly seeing the … ha ha … green shoots of recovery in this game. Really … ha ha… pruning out the weeds from the roses, aren’t we?” This terrible series of puns was actually the green light for a Russian-built car bomb to detonate outside of an American embassy in Bombay, which resulted in the deaths of forty men.’

She used ‘Mathema-tits’ to lure her prey.

Carol Vorderman – real name Kremlin Vordenovich – was also implicated. Her ‘numbers game’ was rigged so that the board would reveal the IP addresses of MI6 officials. A Kremlin listening station would then note them down and use them to hack into sensitive data files held on British agents operating within Russia. Vorderman is believed to have been indirectly responsible for the deaths of 63 British agents, and to have committed one cold-blooded murder: that of a British agent who had been posing as a studio boom operator, whose neck Vorderman snapped with her thighs at that bit just before the ad break when the audience was suitably distracted by a dreary anecdote given by a D-list has-been stage actor who clearly thinks he’s as hilarious as he is charming.

Susie Dent was cleared of all connection to the conspiracy when it was revealed that many of the men on the panel had had ‘their first wank’ over her in the 80’s.

When the investigation was widened to include other light-entertainment quiz shows it was discovered that Deal or No Deal has less to do with Noel Edmonds’ infamous Cosmic Ordering and more to do with all of the contestants – and Edmonds – being on the payroll of the North Korean government. Actually, they’re not too sure about this one, but Edmonds was shot ‘just to be safe’, said a top brass contact.

In a separate investigation, the concept of ITV’s Goldenballs was said to be so complex that each episode ‘punched holes through time, conceivably allowing German dinosaurs to rampage through the portals and eat our WWII soldiers’.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ‘ICKE DON’T BELIEVE IT’ MAIN MENU, and more bizarre news stories.

The Show Must Stop: TV Finales – 24

24’s ending, unlike Lost’s, was pitch-perfect, as was its final season – admittedly after a slightly wobbly beginning. Season 8 showed us Jack Bauer with the safety off; a vengeful, brutal, half-mad slayer of wicked men; a man whose moral ambiguities about torture and killing had been flash-bombed from his soul following the execution of his girlfriend and the realisation of the extent to which evil and corruption had tainted the Oval Office – the hitherto incorruptible Alison Taylor included.

Jack went absolutely fucking ape-shit, and in his fury – and my imperfect use of English  – seemed even more indestructible and unstoppable than usual. His ass-kicking abilities were almost supernatural. In one scene, a few episodes from the end, he single-handedly ambushed a secret service convoy in a tunnel. Decked out in head-to-toe black body armour, complete with sinister black face-mask, he advanced on his enemies with the eerie, murderous calm of Jason Voorhees, spraying machine-gun fire this way and that, absorbing and ignoring their return bullets as if they were nothing more substantial than dust motes. It was a joy to behold. Genuinely thrilling and exciting, like 24 used to be.

Yes, 24 in its own way was just as preposterous as Lost; 24’s writers loved their nonsensical, character-destroying curve-balls, too. But we forgive 24 because we don’t – and were never encouraged to – take it too seriously. We let ourselves get swept away in the viciously fast current of its plot, our logic centres battered into submission by the insane rhythm of its non-stop, high-octane excitement. 24 has never had high or lofty ideals, or wished to stir our souls; all it’s ever wanted to do is to go to town on our adrenal glands.

Day 1 was great. Day 2 was good. Day 3 was a bit iffy, although the multi-episode arc with the hotel and the bio-weapon was thrilling. Day 4 was a bit shitty. Day 5, featuring our first taste of President Logan’s evil, was one of the best. Day 6 was one of the most preposterous and abominable outings for Jack, during which the series didn’t so much jump the shark as secure it to a space-rocket with a length of chain and tow it to Mars. 24:Redemption was pant-shittingly bad. Day 7 had its moments, but collapsed under the weight of its own ’double-double-double-double-agent’ ridiculousness: a certain someone should have stayed dead. Day 8, the last day, restored all of the series’ starting quota of intrigue, fun, thrills, scares, shocks and brutality, ensuring that past transgressions into illogic and shoddiness will be forgotten, and only the good times remembered. What a way to go.

In 24‘s final scene, Jack and Chloe share a goodbye. Chloe is in New York’s CTU, watching Jack on the screen, his image relayed by a CTU drone. They know this is probably the last time they’ll speak to each other. Because of the enormity of the scheme Jack has helped to expose, and the uncompromising brutality he’s visited upon its architects, he will forever be on the run from both the Russian and American governments. The peaceful retirement he was promised in the season’s opening episodes is now an impossible dream.

As Chloe deactivates CTU’s systems to aid Jack’s dash to anonymity and freedom, we catch one more glimpse of his face on the view-screen, looking searchingly into Chloe’s eyes.

I half-expected Jack to quote Jim Carrey at the end of The Truman Show: ‘Good morning. And in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening and good night!’ Then he‘s gone. Jack Bauer: the man whose chase will never be over. Tortured. Hunted. Haunted.

We’ll miss him.

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Read all about the finale of Lost here.

A Plea to Fate

I’m going on holiday next week, acutely aware that the odds of dying increase exponentially the farther you venture from your own fart-stained sofa (despite what all of those ads from the 80s told you, which featured old grannies being immolated by their plug sockets and big, fat guys with beards being cooked alive in chip-pan fires).

 

So this is my plea to fate, in which I don’t believe. Really, this is just a pointless ritual to make me feel better.

1) Air Disasters

None of that, please. I’ve been keeping an eye on recent news reports featuring crashes – thanks to @bigmarkdavies for his research assistance – and found evidence of at least 5 major incidents in the last fortnight. That should be plenty. You’ve had your fill, Fate. OK, the victims mostly have been Asian, but you don’t have diversity targets to hit. It’s all about the numbers, baby. Leave me out of it. By my reckoning, travelling after 5 crashes I should be virtually indestructible. Hence I’m going to remove my seat-belt mid-flight, send people texts from 20,000ft and run from side to side in an attempt to tip the plane.

2) Terrorism

I checked out the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website, and read up on Turkey. The PKK, a Kurdish separatist group, announced in March that they plan to unleash a wave of terrorist atrocities on various parts of Turkey, including resorts popular with foreign tourists. Not a bad plan, chaps, and I’m not questioning the effectiveness of your terrifying campaign, but at least wait until the English school holidays. You’ll only get one shot at this, and you’ll want to ensure a large, broad selection of targets. And nobody would really give a shit if I died, so I’m a poor choice of victim. Plus, do you really want to take the chance that John Smeaton’s on vacation in Turkey? He’d fuck your entire organisation into the ground with one swift banjo. That man makes Bruce Willis look like Willis from Diff’rent Strokes. Thank you.

3) Highly contagious disease

Hello, pathogen. Skip me, please. I don’t really go out that much, so your chances of bringing down the species by infecting me with a highly contagious, incurable disease are slim. Plus, Swine Flu already came to Falkirk, and we kicked its porcine ass. Did you kill a single person, Swine Flu? No. All you did was give publicist Max Clifford work, and allowed a young Falkirk couple to cash in on their ‘We were infected on our Mexican honeymoon’ fame so they could get a new conservatory. You failed. Spanish Flu pissed itself laughing when it heard. And Bird Flu thought to itself, ‘At least I fucked over a few swans, and made some farmers shoot themselves.’ Here’s an idea, Fate: send giraffe flu to Swansea instead.