Is everyone here for the editorial meeting? Ok, good. Heavy news week this week, so only the best stories are going to get space. We'll start with Cheddar Headlines. Ten words max, and the headline can be self-explanatory as in 'The Independent', or horrendously convoluted, as in, erm, The Cheesy Headline Game. Once the headline is finished, I'd like a few words containing the story in a news style, please. Subs, clear your desks, and let's get the presses rolling. Spike it once we reach the usual back page move.
The Campaign for Plain Text announced today that it was "offended" by the latest development in text messaging: the ability to send messages using multiple fonts, sizes, styles, and colours. A spokesman said, "This is just a ploy to get people to replace their phones more often by offering new, glitzy features that no-one really needs. If your message is worth sending at all, it doesn't need jazzed up with dingbats and Star Wars fonts. Children should be taught proper texting in school, and not be encouraged to do the equivalent of scrawling a letter in crayons."
Uganda's Ministry of Wildlife today announced the alarming news that the rare subspecies of wildebeest Connochaetus boombamii which is found only in that nation's most remote Meanamin National Park is close to extinction. Ministry spokesperson Idono Nathan said that global warming is the likely cause. This wildebeest variety has a unique built-in mechanism of controlling its own population (as do lemmings), in that aged animals who can no longer digest the native grasses adequately build up vast quantities of methane gas in their abdomens which cause them to explode in the midday heat. But now due to global warming, another grass species had proliferated in the park, which when grazed, builds up vast amounts of methane in the abdomens of even young animals, causing them to explode prematurely. This has led to the unfortunate decimation of the population of this lovely animal. The World Wildlife Fund is expected to announce a grassroots campaign to save this unique species of wildebeest.