‘For the first time, Crab 2.0 comes with the ability to move forwards and backwards rather than sideways,’ said the Almighty, speaking in a stentorian voice and wearing his trademark turtleneck halo. ‘In the old version you never knew if the crab was coming or going, so this is a considerable breakthrough for crustacean technology. However, we have had to compromise the design with a rear-view mirror so they can get used to new methods of navigation.’

God admitted that the DNA evolution software He had fitted to all living creatures at the beginning of creation had proved to be rather unreliable, so He had been forced to abandon other projects and stepped in to improve the design attributes of several creatures. But He refused to apologise for the delay in upgrading the crab.

‘It takes time to get these things right,’ He said. ‘We have to remember what happened to the unicorn. We rushed the release of the new version and, thanks to a glitch in the DNA programming, it evolved into the rhinoceros.’

As well as rolling out the new crab, God took the opportunity to launch improvements to several other products with a much welcomed fourth toe for the three-toed sloth, a more varied diet for the anteater and a software patch for the canine which improves its reproductive functions by stopping it shagging people’s legs. There were gasps from the assembled throng when He announced the breakdancing horse which He described as ‘perhaps the ultimate in equine development’.

God closed His address by warning that He would continue to be ruthless in protecting his design rights. ‘There are rumours that Serpent Enterprises are about to launch a Zebra in white with black stripes. This is no more than a minor cosmetic alteration from my original black with white stripes patent, so if they go ahead with this product they should be warned that they’re heading for a good smiting.’

The Gong of Fur (hat-tip to ianslat)

British and Swiss geneticists had spent £8m on the pointless project and unveiled the complicated and unintelligible results at a stilted press conference in Geneva on Tuesday. But it soon became apparent that none of the journalists present neither knew nor cared what the mouse genome was, nor what it was for.

‘Now we come to think about it, we realise that this is pretty uninteresting stuff,’ said geeky, white-coated project leader Dr Martin Jackson of Suffolk University. ‘We thought that maybe the journalists were just particularly ignorant but it turns out that the general public doesn’t give a toss about any of the weird DNA crap we’ve been doing either. We’ve just been wasting our lives.’

Sequencing the mouse genome, says Dr Jackson, might possibly allow scientists to do nerdy stuff like curing Alzheimer’s disease ‘and shit like that’. But polls suggest that fewer than 6% of people take any interest in genome sequencing technology, although that did rise to 11% among people who thought that genomes were garden ornaments. ‘I really enjoyed the work when I began doing it,’ Dr Jackson admitted. ‘But now I’m starting to think I should have ditched the white coat and goatee and spent more time chasing women. Mouse genome? What a bloody waste of time.’

However Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was adamant last night that warthogs’ DNA will remain on the list for at least the next 12 years.  Speaking to reporters, the Home Secretary explained that the Metropolitan Police have requested permission to keep the samples, as officers frequently report that they ‘sometimes behave a bit suspiciously’ when called in for questioning. ‘Besides’ added Ms Smith ‘there’s something about them I just don’t trust.’

Posted: May 7th 2009 by Vandella

Shaking with emotion, and choking back tears, he read a short speech  to the assembled aggrievance of journalists: ‘Hopefully, this test will end all speculation, and I can put this dreadful episode behind me and get on with my life,’ said the devil, AKA The Devil.