Outlook better still be down on Monday fume office workers

'I was going to blame this outage for the fact I haven't done any work for most of the last 6 months.' said office worker Gary Grimthwaite, who loathes his job, both privately and publicly.

'I bet those dweebs will be in at the weekend fixing it too, so on Monday morning I'll be able to work as normal. I wonder how long I could claim it still isn't working for me. I reckon I could buy at least a day. There's a Bergerac double bill later.'

IT Manager Amy Armstrong said, 'It's a worldwide problem, so I can't do anything about it. Apart from claiming the overtime for supposedly working on a solution. And the credit for turning our servers off and on again.'

CEO Clementine Carruthers fumed, 'This just proves that working from home is morally wrong. The plebs should be in an office where I can secretly monitor them on CCTV from my yacht in international waters. What is Outlook anyway? I do all my communication on the Dark Web. Nothing dodgy.'

Carruthers' PA sighed, 'I changed the background colour of her laptop to black and told her it was the Dark Web. And she's definitely going to jail.'

Picture credit: Wix AI

Police to be replaced by email autoresponder

In a new cost-cutting measure, it was announced today that the police service will be disbanded and replaced by an email autoresponder. 

'We’ve been paving the way for this for years,” said a spokesman today. “You report a burglary via a website, you get an email giving you a crime number, and then literally nothing else happens. By now, no one in their wildest dreams imagines a copper will actually come to their house to take a statement or dust for fingerprints, let alone that their property will ever be recovered.

'The email will include a link to Victim Support, though obviously it’ll be provided by AI rather than an actual person. You’ll be asked how much the crime has upset you on a scale of 1-10, then the system will respond with the appropriate level of transparently fake sympathy.'

However, some have objected that while this might be OK for trivial crimes like burglary and assault, it’s entirely inappropriate for serious crimes like sexist language and refusing to respect someone’s preferred pronouns.

You’ve Got Mail 2: History Repeats Itself

The romantic comedy movie You’ve Got Mail is getting a sequel, after almost thirty years. The original film is much loved and is still frequently viewed on streaming services.

In the 1998 film a small bookshop, run by Meg Ryan, is put out of business by an all consuming chain of book superstores run by Tom Hanks. The message of the film is to accept change and move with the times. Meg Ryan is forced to close her bookshop and, after being comprehensively catfished by Tom Hanks over email, finally accepts her fate, and hooks up with him.

Tom Hanks has been offered a role in the sequel and is said to be considering it. But Meg Ryan is out of the running and industry insiders say that Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg could take the role of the villain this time.

In the remake, Tom Hanks’ superstore chain Fox Books is put out of business by the all consuming internet, run by Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg. The message of the film is to accept change and move with the times, blah blah blah.

Critics worry that the romantic tension of the original film could easily be lost in the remake, with some believing that neither Jeff Bezos nor Mark Zuckerberg are 'hot enough' for the role.

Image: geralt - Pixabay