Man who looks older than his age did have tough paper round

A criminal whose unflattering photo appeared on Facebook alongside a news story about his latest drug-dealing offence has confirmed that yes, he did actually have a really tough paper round when he was a teenager.

Michael Doyle, 40 was given a 3 year jail term for supplying class A drugs, according to the local news story, with the general consensus in the Facebook comments being that he should do the time for his crime, but also that he had clearly been prematurely aged by the severity of a casual job he must have had delivering newspapers as a child.

‘Listen, yes, it’s true, I did have a particularly brutal paper round in 1998-1999 in the Squires Gate area of Blackpool when I was about 13 - thanks to all those who have commented and recognised this and who obviously empathise with my plight’.

‘I only delivered papers at the weekend - those broadsheet papers had about 10 different sections. Remember the Culture section in the Sunday Times in the 1990s? It weighed about a kilo on its own. Imagine lugging 20 of those around the Squires Gate area up past the pleasure beach - it was a a bloody backbreaker.’

‘Even just lifting a copy of the News of the World was a feat of strength. Those were the phone tapping and Fake Sheikh days and they took up about 30 pages every Sunday along with the usual mildly xenophobic stories’.

‘I was diagnosed with rheumatism at 30 and have had carpal tunnel problems and posture problems since my 20s. I must look about 65 in that police mug shot where I’m staring vacantly into the distance, as hundreds of people have kindly pointed out. Certainly wouldn’t use that one on my Insta profile. lol’

image from pixabay

Newspaper editors get ready for Donald Trump's pharma tariffs

President Trump says he will announce new tariffs on pharmaceutical goods soon, and will probably describe them as a shot in the arm for US drug companies, or healthy competition, or something.

This advance notice from President Trump gives newspaper editors time to polish up some medical puns for their headlines.

‘Strong medicine’ would be a suitable short, but slightly lazy headline. More sophisticated efforts might include ‘stop taking the tablets’ or ‘fly in the ointment’. More desperate efforts could include ‘anti-buy-otics’, ‘tariffs on depression meds are a real downer’, ‘medicine balls’, ‘now you’ll just have to make do with sex and rock’n’roll’ and ‘now it’s harder to get Viagra’.

You can expect Donald Trump to be referred to as a drug lord or medicine man and his tariffs as ‘a drug on the market’ and/or ‘an ill wind’. Or how about 'Trump calls in sick'. Or 'Trump's prescription'? In comparison, British invalids, and the workshy, will be 'worried sick'.

You can expect plenty of pill references – bitter pill, poison pill, no sugaring the pill, for example. Unhappy pills, perhaps. ‘Trump imposes tariffs on suppositories by the backdoor’ is a possibility. Not really what you’d want to read at breakfast time. But hey! - if it sells newspapers....

Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Editor admits: Being fair to Starmer was a moment of madness

'There is no justification for my comments,' admitted a tearful Clive Haw-Haw, speaking after his shock resignation as editor-in-chief of The Daily Schweinhund.

'What I said was reckless, damaging and morally indefensible. I probably don't deserve to go on living.'

'We're still in disbelief,' said the Schweinhund's senior reporter. 'We were in the morning meeting, planning to do a totally true story about how 10,000 people in Basildon had contracted Aids and herpes after casting their votes for Labour, and the publisher asked whether there were any more totally true stories we could fabricate to make Starmer's life a misery.

'Then we heard the editor murmur: 'I don't know. Maybe we should give him a chance.'

'Well, we had to act fast. We hustled him out of the newsroom and straight down to the Newspaper Editors Guild, where we sat him down in front of his peers on the Horst Wessel Committee of Dementedly Right-Wing Papers.

'They stripped him of his job, along with his John Major memorial underpants, and his signed photo of Alan Clark doing a secretary. Then they turfed him out, naked and penniless, onto the streets of Labour's Britain - since he seemed to like it so much.'

'After this disgrace, I will retreat from the rat race,' said Mr Haw-Haw. 'I will wander the face of the Earth, devoting myself to Bad Works. I'll kick pensioners' sticks away and steal candyfloss from kids at fairs in the hope that eventually Britain's leading Tories will accept me back as one of their own - a thorough-going, unmitigated schweinhund.'

Image by Hanne Hasu from Pixabay