Twisted Poppy Burner

Although we are perceived to have a rather stoic and reserved personality overseas (except for club 18-30 holidays), sometimes an event occurs in Britain which causes mass hysteria within the public. The average member of the public will go, as the experts call it, “snooker loopy” at the mention of war heroes being defiled, paedophiles, suicide bombers, benefit cheats, and of course Princess Diana. Whilst all those things are undoubtedly awful, it seems that Britain is just lurching from one national outcry to the next, as the latest topic of poppy burning proved yesterday.

As of the 8^th of March, most tabloids ran with a headline along the lines of “SICKO POPPY BURNING MUSLIM CLAIMS BENEFITS”. As expected, this boils down to another symptom of Great British Outrage, one which happens to tick all the boxes on The Daily Mail’s official list of things to hate. The man in question is Emdadur Choudhury, a protestor with the Muslims Against Crusades.

There’s no doubt that this action was ultimately idiotic, but these headlines fail to hit the real crux of the problem for me.

At the risk of sounding like a sympathiser for vehement extremists (coincidentally, why isn’t there a term for people who are only mildly in support, such as a laid-backist?), why are the papers focussing so much on his religion? Is the fact that he’s a Muslim on benefits the real problem with this? I don’t understand why his religion is such a big identifier when he’s found guilty of a crime. Surely if this was the case, we’d see such headlines as “BAPTIST RAPIST RAVAGES WYCOMBE WOMAN”, or “PAEDO JOVO RAIDS DOLE OFFICE”. Never before has a person’s Christianity been at the forefront of one of these headlines, so I fail to see why the fact that he’s a Muslim is bought up on the front page.

In reality, the main problem with his action of burning poppies is that poppies are the British Legion’s icon of remembrance. That is, the remembrance for the fallen soldiers of the 1^st and 2^nd World War. Muslims Against Crusades are supposed to be protesting against the current foreign policy towards the Middle East, and the wars fought/still being fought there, so by burning poppies he’s actually missed the point his group were trying to make. This proves without a doubt that Emdadur Choudhury is a gigantic spong.

But of course, the red tops won’t pick up on this, and instead will use this for their hateful agenda. By marrying the word Muslim with a criminal act, they are trying to create an association that simply isn’t there. Muslims, by definition, are not dole cheats who spend all of their benefit money on poppies, creosote and matches. It’s the same tactic they used to create the equation Beard + Dark Skin = Explosion, and one of the main reasons why opinion polls regarding immigration are generally negative towards it. The more you demonise these people, the more monstrous they will appear.

My point being that in order to beat zealous extremism, the best tool we have is a sharp one that is still in possession by many of us across the world; wit. Pick holes in these people’s views. Point out how ridiculous they are. Make their cause seem less terrifying and more hilarious. Across the board, fanatics of any group will soon become less fanatical once they realise that they aren’t getting the desired results; shock and outrage. You can’t have terrorism without the terror.

Eviction Request

Dear sir/madam,

I have written to you several times in the past regarding my neighbours living at number 26, but I have yet to hear a response. I am sending you this third letter in the vain hope that you can find the time in between your fourth tea round and brunch to take action against the Doom family and their unsociable behaviour.

Even though I've found your council to be as affective as a porcupine's prophylactic in the past, I still hold a belief that, if presented with enough evidence, you will consider moving these unscrupulous individuals into some other hell hole. I have been keeping meticulous records of disturbances emanating from their property, so please find below a list of events that have occurred in the short space of time since I sent my last letter:

• 9th Feb - 8.44PM: Deafening noises begin in Mr Doom's garage, and continue for at least the next two hours. Under careful observation, I detected copious amounts of radioactive material being transported into the premises by Mr Doom's eldest son. At around 10:31PM, black smog begins to billow from underneath the garage door. The next morning, my prize winning sunflowers along the border of their property have begun to shine in an unearthly manner, and also appear to whisper death threats as I pass by.

• 11th Feb - 08:15AM: A gigantic satellite dish is positioned on the roof of their house which seems to be beaming information into the cosmos, casting a huge shadow across my vegetable patch. As this is putting my cabbages at risk, I demand that you force them to remove the offending item.

• 11th Feb - 07:12PM: After investigating a curious tapping noise on my roof, I find Mr Doom laying telephone cable that was connected to my house back onto his own property. After confronting him and informing him that I needed to make some important complaints by telephone the next morning, he pulled out a firearm which bathed me in a mysterious green light. I awoke the next morning stripped naked on the lawn, being licked in sensitive areas by a friendly squirrel.

• 12th Feb - 08:35AM: The very same squirrel is posted through my letterbox, minus head and skin. I assume this as a threat. From now on I shall not be confronting Mr Doom directly, and demand the local authorities take immediate action to guarantee the safety of the neighbourhood.

• 14th Feb - 09:10PM: Mr and Mrs Doom are spotted having a romantic evening by flying around the estate with jetpacks on. Bobbing around my upstairs window in the pale moonlight is an invasion of my privacy, but the situation became more disturbing when they decided to make love in my apple tree.

• 16th Feb - 03:03AM: A vortex is opened above Mr Doom's house, releasing hells fiendish minions across suburbia. The process sets off several car alarms, which I'm sure would have woken the children of the neighbourhood.

• 17th Feb - 07:30PM: A vast array of doomsday vehicles including mole cars, Apache helicopters, and teleportation devices park illegally all over the street, blocking off driveways and dropped curbs. It appears that Mr Doom is hosting some sort of dinner party for evil geniuses and his driveway is filled with hideous gargantuan henchmen. As I was supposed to be hosting an annual general meeting of the curtain-twitching society that evening, many people failed to find appropriate parking and had to leave.

• 19th Feb - 09:41AM: After checking the asphalt on my driveway, I discover a large simmering hole. Since I witnessed several disturbances the night before as a rugged young man was seen running away from the property with a scantily clad maiden under a heavy amount of artillery, I can only assume that Mr Doom's plasma turrets had misfired and ruined my crazy paving.

As I'm sure you'll agree, Mr Doom's behaviour is hardly conducive to a harmonious neighbourhood, and I demand that the council relocates his family as soon as possible. My property value plummets daily with the constant tremors caused by his incessant burrowing into the Earth's crust, and his curious habit of harvesting the power of molten lava. This used to be such a wonderful area, with only a couple of stabbings every few months. Nowadays, I dare not venture beyond my own boundaries lest I be melted by a heat ray, or sexually assaulted by a lumbering genetic hybrid henchman.

I Love The Tennies

Bong thang, peeps! Can you remember a time when people used a keyboard and mouse to use their computer? What about an age when people weren't ironically homosexual, and some people were serious about bumming men?! That's right, we're delving into a revealing retrospective of a decade that was instrumental in shaping the society of 2046 that we know today. We're going to be studying The Tennies!

Many influential events fell into that 10 year bracket between 2010 and 2020. Who could forget the re-renaissance, the day Ray Mears finally went feral, or the man who drop kicked a prize winning poodle at Crufts? Let's have a look at some of the best bits:

The Information Age Came To An End

With the influx of social media, microblogging, and link sharing lightspeed activity, the Internet finally reached critical mass during 2013. After Betty Marshall, a stay at home 34 year old cat wrangler, signed up to her broadband package and immediately tried to upload Thundercats fan fiction, the whole grid collapsed. In what experts observed to be a "Negative Reality Inversion", many people found themselves unable to get on the Internet as it had ran out of IP addresses.

The technology companies already had a strategy in place to resolve the issue, but spent months disagreeing on how to collectively market it. Media conglomerates were clambering to rename the technology, inventing many new buzzwords and marketing speak to describe and sell it. It wasn't until December that year that they finally agreed on "Internet 2".

Domestic Hamsters Became Extinct

In a puzzling phenomenon that still baffles scientists today, the domestic hamster became extinct worldwide by 2018. Sometime during 2015, many hamster owners noticed that they weren't having babies anymore. Gaia theorists believe that Mother Nature made them all infertile as punishment for hoarding precious resources. Recent breakthroughs in scientific study suggest that hamsters used to work as a collective hivemind, and one day decided to stop having sex en masse in protest against their captivity.

Today, wild hamsters are being lured back into domesticity with extra muesli and shorter working hours.

Marmalade Was Declared Illegal For A Week

As the coalition government began to collapse in 2015, marmalade (and other deliciously orangey preserves) was banned from the shelves of many major retaillers. Prime Minister David Cameron, in what has been described as the biggest ever show of political sour grapes, created the new law in retaliation of the public disinterest he was experiencing. The law was quickly reversed after David Beckham assumed control with his de facto celebrity cabinet, which led to the thirty odd years of prosperity we've enjoyed up to this day.

Apple Establishes Own Sovereignty

After health issues in the early Tennies, Steve Jobs began to fear for his legacy. Even though he has several children to continue the bloodline, they were considered too pasty to become legitimate heirs to his empire. As a show of his financial superiority he decided to buy up the Czech Republic and establish his own state. By the end of the decade Mr Job's iOrchard program lead the world in photosynthesised electricity, thus solving global warming and the energy consumption crisis in one fell swoop. Of course, wild birds who tried to perch on them were instantly electrocuted or transformed into thunder-conducting apocalyptic birds of destruction, but this ecological disaster was worth the sacrifice.

Channel 4 Launches "Superchef"

With many of it's culinary stars leaving the network to focus on actually cooking things for a change, Channel 4 was faced with a crisis after Jamie, Gordon, Hugh, and Heston all turned down new contracts. A return of 90's cooking hedgehog Gary Rhodes in 2012 didn't fare very well, and the public turned off in swathes.

After thoroughly searching the departed dressing rooms of their recently departed chefs, Channel 4 managed to scrape together enough genetic material to create "Superchef", a hideous hybrid of cockney, swearing, poshness, and liquid nitrogen which rampaged through the Channel 4 building, freezing it's victims and laying them out extravagantly on a huge dinner plate. The beast was only thwarted when it walked past the canteen and tried to renovate it with red drapes and an exciting new menu. It is claimed that the mutant is still sealed inside the canteen, arguing with itself and fine tuning it's recipes until the end of time.

ConspiracyNet - The Month In Review

Well, it's been a busy start to the year here at ConspiracyNet. First, we discovered that inter dimensional hermaphrodites were responsible for the Holocaust, then we interviewed the postman of the gunman behind the grassy knoll who gave him the idea in the first place, and then we baked a cake in the shape of a UFO.

Our forums have also been bustling, with plenty of you Conspiridudes and dudettes unravelling some of the biggest mysteries. That's why we've decided to put together a Best Of edition and show the world just what our fans are capable of. Please click on the images to see them full size:

Thread Title: What's your favourite type of UFO?



Thread Title: I SAW A MOUSE



Thread Title: My encounter with a ghost



Thread Title: 9/11 DID NOT EVEN HAPPEN



Thread Title: How to spot a UFO



And there you have it. If you want to sign up to ConspiracyNet, simply draw a red circle around a vague wisp of fog in a forest and send it to us.

Natural Disasters: The Public's Verdict

Floods, droughts, earthquakes, monsoons, tornadoes, fires and parsnips are just a small selection of the terrifying gifts given to us by mother nature. It seems to be increasingly common for her to throw a curveball into a community that is only just etching an existence in some barren, desolate corner of the globe by trying to drown them in the one thing they crave. But what exactly is the cause of this evil ecological meltdown? As usual, we at Muppets For Justice were too lazy to speculate, so we asked you, the public, instead! Here's a handful of the people on the planet who weren't too preoccupied with rebuilding their shattered homes due to some landslide or other, and their thoughts on extreme weather:



Gemma Driveway - Amateur Film Producer



Notice how all the bad things happen in hot places? Australia, Pakistan, Haiti and Brazil are all situated in warmer climes, so it stands to reason that the best weather is to be found in the Arctic Circle. I am in the process of packing my belongings and you'll find me and my family shuffling along an ice sheet way before Ecogheddon comes calling. I just hope there's a Tesco Metro there.



Alaister Pigeon - Barbecue Salesman




I'm so outraged that the world's governments are not doing enough to contribute to Global Warming. Mother Nature started this arms race, and now she wants to throw in the towel because she's getting a bit hot under the collar? She threw a massive blizzard at Britain a few weeks ago, which is all the ammo we really need to put up a defensive heat shield around our country and take the fight right to that motherbitch! As soon as I saw the snow, I ran outside and started spraying aerosol cans up at the ozone layer. She'll never take me alive!



Barry Shogun - Olympic Cyclist Checker



Our society needs to learn how to live greener and in harmony with nature. Our relentless destruction is causing a mass extinction on a grander scale than anything that has occurred in history, and as a result, the populations of some of the world's most iconic animals are at risk. I mean, when is the last time you saw a Centaur? Exactly! And as for unicorns, well, they've just become another statistic of creatures that are no longer able to walk the Earth.



Stuart Pourer - Beer Tester




Ooooh you poor souls, did the bad weather make you all sweaty?! Here's a newsflash son, the weather isn't getting worse, it's just that you're becoming a massive, skating nancy with arms like tagliatelle. Don't be such a pussy! Man up and shovel that 50 tonnes of dense mud away from your home's foundations, and maybe we'll talk again once your biceps come back from rehab. Honestly, I put all this whining down to modern technology, what with everyone sitting indoors on Flutter and Headbook. No one is used to the outside world any more. If this continues we'll all have the complexion of an albino running naked through a flour mill, and we'll be about as sexually attractive too.



Nicole Papa - Managing Directing Executive Operative



I heard something about rising radiation levels that were causing frogs to mutate and they were growing eyes in their throats. Can you image if that starting happening to our children? My dream of a travelling freak show would finally come to fruition! "Roll up! Come see the boy who can watch his own dinner digest"!



Brian Herbie-White - Senior Seat Dampener



Hey, I don't like dirty hippies telling me how to live my life. I'm a good guy, I go to church, I earn an honest crust, so back off, OK?! If I want to drive a gallon-a-mile freshly waxed SUV past homeless shelters, charity workers and battered women's institutions so that I can sit in a building every Sunday and listen to a guy tell me how to be more like Jesus, then that's my right as an American! I pay my taxes so I don't see any reason why I can't drive what I like and consume whatever I want. Until the day that a golden eagle shits maple syrup onto my pancakes and bacon, I don't give a shit what nature has to offer. God will protect me anyway, so I'm covered whatever happens.



Alison Packard - Paraplegic Baiter




I'm a busy woman who juggles a high-powered career and two children, so I never really gave the whole environment thing much thought. When you have so much on with being a woman and owning kids and a Blackberry that might go off at any minute, you don't tend to have time to think about the way in which you live and how it affects the planet as a whole. Besides, I'm late for Jonnie's football practice. He's so clever when it comes to kicking that ball. He can make it go anywhere he likes. And as for Janine, my little princess, I need to take her shopping so that she can get some glittery lipstick for her graduation from Infants school to Junior school.

What? Was it tested on animals? I don't know, but I'd like to find out. I guess the best way would be to try it on ugly animals first so that you know it works.




Marissa Duracell - Fisherman's Friend



I've filmed several documentaries on this subject and I can tell you, the results are quite harrowing. I don't think people take global warming seriously enough. What would you say if your home town became as hot as Ibiza? You'd be pretty pissed when shirtless Eskimos started coming over for the clubbing scene of Basingstoke, drinking warm seal blood and spending their hard-scraped grit on useless tat. What would you do if an indigenous Greenlander came over and asked you for directions in his own language? This is the reality we face unless we do something about it now!