Amazing tales from Planet Tabloid

This week, an X-rated jelly baby, a world class correction, and our pun-writing competition. But first...

Q. Are British men useless lovers? A Canadian woman says they are.

A. Depends who you ask, daddio. And it depends whether you think a sense of irony is more important than picking up the tab. Or vice versa.

Of course, if you stumbled on the Express this week you may think that talk of irony and tabs is way off beam. What matters, it revealed, is what a man looks like with his top off.

Cop a loada this!

It was possibly a post-modern attempt at righting the tabloid imbalance. Or it was possibly a gratuitous exercise, as questionable in its way as decades of Page 3.

Either way, we cannot ourselves repeat it because a) taste and decency prevents it, and b) we could only find pics of Ian Thorpe in a wetsuit.

Unswayed by the Thorpedo's honed charms, the panel of experts placed him fourth behind beautiful Beckham, luscious Lennox and, in first place, Colin Jackson - described by one expert as "the ultimate example of a short-distance hurdler" and another as "wowee!".

Celebrating those occasions when you couldn't make it up. This week, the Sun reveals that a mum tucking into a packet of jelly babies found one sweet shaped like a man clutching his bits.

"I'm divorced and have been celibate for three years," said Kim Bailey, of West Yorkshire. "Just my luck that the first naked man I find has the consistency of jelly."

Sadly - for the headline writers at least - the makers said that it was not a new line but a production line prank. Just one question remains - who modelled for the rude red sweet? The Sun thinks he has a lot to smile about.

With phasers set to pun, detect which of these headlines didn't actually appear in Her Majesty's Loyal and Obedient Press this week.

a) Dud's Army
b) Down Undie
c) Jordan's doing her breast
d) It's Torvill and Queen

If you're really interested, the answer is c).

And while we're on puns, last week we asked you to you submit a tortuous pun for the story about the newly-devised onion that you will be able to eat like an apple, and which won't give you bad breath.

"On-yum," said Steve. "A-peel-ing onion won't kick up a stink," said Rick. "Don't cry for me, onion-eater" said Chris Charles. "French kissing is not that bad after all," said Chris Christopholus, who needs to get out more.

But now it's your turn - using your skill and judgment, please construct a pun for the story about the booming population of rats, sparked by dirty Brits discarding their fast-food wrappers.

Your caption



Your name


Results next week. Tips to competitors: You may like to incorporate some or all of the words 'dirty', 'you' and 'rat in your entry. But if you do, you will also be disqualified.

All of which neatly segues into our update on the animal kingdom. Regular readers know by now never fully to trust those cute critters. For non-regulars, we believe they are stealthily staging a take-over.

It seems others share our views. "Giant squids are taking over the planet," said some scientists. "Dogs can count," said other scientists. "A deer's been wrecking my suburban garden," said disgruntled home owner. "My barn owl can skateboard," said oddball bird fancier.

Believe us, gentle readers, all these are connected. We just don't yet know how.

Everyone makes mistakes. But not everyone has the honesty and candour to point them out to the world, and in the process show themselves up. So this is a new occasional feature illustrating that the tabloids aren't the only ones having fun.

From The Guardian, Tuesday:

"Remedial maths: in a correction to the Etcetera column (Corrections and clarifications, page 21, July 27) we said an original calculation in which an object swelled "to 600% (or six times its size)" was wrong. We went on to say that if something grows by that amount it has increased seven times. In fact, both statements are correct. It is the difference in the meanings of the prepositions "to" and "by" that counts. Imagine it another way: if something shrinks by 25% that is significantly different to it shrinking to 25% of its former self. We also said the original article appeared on July 7. It was published on July 23."

Bravo to all concerned.

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Keep your eyes peeled for strange happenings on Planet Tabloid. Inform the authorities by submitting them with the form below.

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