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Palestine Action Man to be removed from shelves

This summer's hit new toy, Palestine Action Man, is being removed from sale across the UK following a Home Office ban.


The plastic figure was modelled on an Oxbridge arts graduate with a trust fund, called Tristan, and came with accessories such as:


- ornamental keffiyeh and pretentious nom de guerre (Abu Saladin)

- wire cutters, for breaking into air force bases to spray paint on planes (Black September would have blown them up)

- opposable thumbs, for posting anti-Israel tweets with rat emojis

- eagle-eyes, for reading articles by leading left wing journalist Owen Jones


Also banned is Palestine Action Woman, a stockbroker's daughter figure from Chalfont St Giles called Poppy, who the toymakers designed to stand outside the BBC in London every day dressed in combat fatigues and banging a drum.


"There'll be no Palestine Action Man and Palestine Action Woman dolls on our shelves," said the owner of a toyshop in Hampstead.


"That's because the ones we had in stock were snapped up immediately by all the terribly earnest Guardian-reading parents who live around here."



Adrian Chiles column about tight jar lid leaked



In a profound embarrassment for the Guardian newspaper, a forthcoming column by Adrian Chiles about having trouble getting a tight lid off a jar has been leaked in advance. “I felt like a cheese and pickle sandwich, as you do,” runs the leaked column. “And at first I couldn’t find the pickle anywhere. I thought to myself, surely we haven’t run out? I thought we had loads left!


“But then I finally found it - the missus had put it in the fridge, even though I’ve told her a million times there’s no need. Tsk, women eh? But then, just as I thought my problems were over, I couldn’t get the lid off! Honestly, it never rains but it pours, eh? I tried gripping it using a tea towel, but even that didn’t help. And the funny thing is, I saw one of those gadgets for getting the lids off jars in Sainsbury’s the other day, and I didn’t buy it. I wish I had now!”


Chiles’ regular columns for the Guardian have often been described as odd bedfellows for that newspaper’s usual fare of furious invective and withering sarcasm on political subjects, but the paper’s editor defended them as “a gentle look at the lighter side of life, the kind of thing we all need to read sometimes after a difficult day, and definitely not just published because he’s my husband.”


The Scott Trust, owners of the newspaper, said it was highly embarrassing his article had been leaked in advance, though frankly no more so than the ones published at the right time.





The Grauniad Christmas Appeal



This Christmas, we are appealing for money for a very important and most deserving cause.  It is a cause that we know is close to our readers hearts.


All around the world democracy is under threat from dictators, despots and desperadoes who spread their lies, half-lies and half-truths using dodgy social media sites, spam email and partisan, corrupt and biased media. There are broadcasters and newspapers controlled by shadowy conspiracy theorists, right wing think tanks, oligarchs, monopolists, fascists, misogynists, capitalists and nihilists.  But there is some good news.  This Christmas, YOU can help to stop the madness.


This Christmas, YOU can help to secure an impartial, independent and free press.  Please send your cheques, large or small, to The Guardian Christmas Appeal For The Guardian.


If you are considering leaving us a gift in your will, then please don't, unless you're already quite ill.  We can't wait for you to croak to get the money.


A gift of three pounds can buy a weekday copy of The Guardian to help wean someone off GB News.  Five pounds can pay to recycle a 'Save The Observer' placard.  Ten pounds can provide a journalist with software to check spellings.   Fifty pounds can subsidise a place at a Guardian lunch for a retired university vice chancellor.  And five million pounds could help to pay off the loans we took out for the printing press we bought to print The Guardian in that weird European Berliner size.


Your generosity can help teachers, civil servants, professors, local government workers, academics, social workers and lecturers everywhere, by providing a warm, fuzzy, left wing echo chamber for these marginalised groups.


Please help. A free press isn't free, so please give genetically. Thank you.


The Guardian



*The Guardian is registered as a charity and is regulated by the Charity Commission. The Guardian complies with the Fundraising Regulator’s code of practice on begging.



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