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Headline o' the day

Thursday, August 26, 2010
As spotted and tweeted by Ed West at the 'graph, and I'm taking it to a narrower audience as A - it is amusing, and B - proof that I still live and breathe:

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posted by Croydonian

Headline o' the day. Maybe even o' the month

Friday, March 12, 2010
 Passed to me by Dizzy, who found it on Twitter, so maybe you've all seen it already:


Bet the subs just loved having that opportunity.

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posted by Croydonian

DPRK headline o' the day

Thursday, February 25, 2010
Absolutely no apologies for revisiting the Hermit Kingdom again:

 


Turns out that the North Korean hacks are not going to be undergoing re-education in brass instrument playing, but rather the comment is figurative:

"Kim Jong Il's message to the participants of the meeting titled "Journalists and Other Media Persons Are Buglers Sounding Advance in Dynamic Drive for Building a Great Prosperous and Powerful Nation" serves as a great programme to be upheld by the media in the DPRK in the era of a great surge as it indicates the way for remarkably augmenting the might of Juche-oriented media and a great banner encouraging the journalists and other media persons in their efforts to perform their missions and tasks as buglers taking the lead in the on-going general advance".

One can't help but think that buglers, or come to that, pipers, are among the first to get shot at by the enemy...

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posted by Croydonian

Headline o' the day. Maybe even o' the week

Tuesday, February 09, 2010
 From Turkish daily Hurriyet:



Ataturk's been dead since 1938, and Gandhi since 1948, and I believe there was rather less airborne activity 62 years ago, let alone 72 years ago, than today  

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posted by Croydonian

Headline o' the day, or let's shoot the messenger

Wednesday, December 09, 2009
This, from the Moscow Times:



The text of the article has Mayor Luzhkov, for it is he, moaning about forecasting abilities of Muscovite meteorologists rather than their snowmaking prowess.  Twas too good to pass over though.  

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posted by Croydonian

Great headlines of our time

Monday, November 30, 2009
Should serve to give everyone a good laugh too:


Yeah, right.

And there's more:

The advantages and vitality of socialism have been clearly proved by the reality in the DPRK which has brought about in a short span of historical time great socio-economic changes. It is impossible for capitalism to do so even though they would have taken it hundreds of years.

The South Korean economy weighs in at $929 billion (nominal) and that of the DPRK at $26.2 billion...  


And because I feel like it, a Daktoritang of DPRK odds and ends:


"General Secretary Kim Jong Il provided field guidance to the Taedonggang Combined Fruit Farm newly built by the Ministry of People's Security....Feasting his eyes on a vast expanse of fields under fruit trees standing in good order and roads stretching between orchards and modern structures, he expressed great satisfaction over the fact that soldier-builders built a modern large-scale fruit producer of world standard in a matter of a few months out of patriotism".

I would have thought bricks and mortar would have been a better choice.  


And the old villain really has been getting out and about:


General Secretary Kim Jong Il provided field guidance to the newly-built Sokjong Pig Farm and the Sokjong Factory for Producing Sliced Vegetables Preserved in Soy Sauce.

Snappy name.

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posted by Croydonian

Opening line o' the day

Tuesday, September 29, 2009
From the Gray Lady herself, the New York Times:

"A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Socialism’s slow collapse".

Cheering, no?

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posted by Croydonian

The things they make in Pyongyang, or headline o' the day

Friday, July 31, 2009
From the usual place:



Wonder which fabric they use?

Meanwhile, the international economic order has been denounced:

"The present unfair international economic order is a product of colonialism pursued by imperialism and a lever for making the Western monopolies corpulent".

Great mixed metaphor there.

And "The "liberalization" of trade and "globalization" of economy touted by the Western powers are nothing but a cynical ploy to turn developing countries into neo-colonies in a bid to maintain and strengthen the present old and unfair international economic order".

Uh-huh. Just think how badly the DPRK's sharer of the Korean pensinsula has done out of it...

Inverted commas are all the rage at the KCNA today:

"The Japanese imperialists launched "punitive" operations on a large scale in an attempt to put down the newly established Chechangzi guerilla zone and, at the same time, "sealed off" the zone to starve the people to death".

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posted by Croydonian

Headline o' the year. Almost.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009
From the Miami Herald:

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posted by Croydonian

Great proofreading triumphs of our time

Monday, July 13, 2009
This is from La Tribune, the French equivalent of the FT:


(Yes, I am a bit short of material today. No Commons Hansard...)

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posted by Croydonian

Headline o' the day

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Manly penguins get sniper bodyguard


Doesn't sound very butch to me. Away from the joke opportunities, the poor beasties have been attacked by dogs and / or foxes.

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posted by Croydonian

Wonders will never cease....

Friday, May 22, 2009
From The Times of India. Note the screamer at the end of the opening sentence:



I am not making this up.

I wonder whether it will be chairs or tables next.

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posted by Croydonian

Scarcely credible headline o' the day

Monday, May 18, 2009
From the Miami Herald:


Where, indeed, are the SQL tables of yesteryear?

The tale is actually about the ledger detailing the arrival of Cuban children in the 60s, but the headline does not do the story justice, frankly.

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posted by Croydonian

Headline o' the day revisited

Wednesday, April 15, 2009
I have one to top the earlier 'Socialists against smaller government'.


Their take on the funky chicken, the mashed potato or, come to that, Viennese waltzes is unknown.

As with so many headlines, it flatters only to deceive. The story refers to this: "Two out of three–or about 66 percent–of voting-age Filipinos are against Charter change if the amendments would allow President Gloria Arroyo to stay in office beyond 2010, according to a new nationwide survey".

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posted by Croydonian

Headline o' the day

From Serb daily Blic:


Well knock me down with the integumentary appendage of a columbiforme...

(The detail actually concerns a reduction in the number of ministries, but never mind)

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posted by Croydonian

The G20 summit summed up by Pravda

Sunday, April 05, 2009
"G20 summit members decide to dance to US tune and agree to waste 5 trillion dollars".

Pithy.

Those hoping for the word from Pyongyang will be disappointed that the KCNA takes Sunday off. Doubtless there will be something tomorrow.

In the meantime, Kim Il Sung - chicken fancier:


"One year some officials obtained a rare hen of ornamentation to please the President in his leisure walk. It looked very pretty with colourful long plumes at the heels unlike other fowls.

One day, while strolling in the garden, the President watched the hen for a good time and asked what it was called.

A plume-foot hen was the answer, and he again asked how many eggs it laid a year. He disapproved of the answer that it laid some 80 eggs a year, saying: Even an ordinary hen does lay over 200 ~ 250 eggs a year. So that fowl has no use of breeding however beautiful it looks. I’d like to have the hens more productive, though ugly in appearance, which will provide my people with more eggs. If there are such hens, I’d come and see them every day".


And what if the eggs, or indeed the hen, were bigger, or tastier?

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posted by Croydonian

Headline o' the day

Thursday, April 02, 2009
From the Copenhagen Post, via Greenlandic daily Sermitsiaq:



Absolutely, you would not want to find yourself face to face with the business end of a narwhal's tusk.

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posted by Croydonian

Headline o' the day

Monday, March 23, 2009
From, where else, KCNA:

"Lee Myung Bak's Red Herring Slammed".

Must have made a horrible fishy mess.

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posted by Croydonian

Misleading headline o' the day

Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Or rather sub-heading, is this from Hansard:

TNT: Taxation


Unless they really crank up the VAT on TNT, I can't see it being a particularly useful means of limiting sales.

Anyway, the Q&A:

Roger Berry: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether HM Revenue and Customs has imposed any financial penalty on TNT companies for tax irregularities in the last 10 years. [261347]

Mr. Timms: I am unable to comment on any company’s tax affairs because of the requirement for taxpayer confidentiality.


It looks as though Berry is referring to the Dutch logistics company - which has its eye on the Royal Mail - but the wording is not that clear, is it?

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posted by Croydonian

Pulse-quickening headline o' the day

Monday, February 02, 2009
They know all about media magnets, impact and share of eyeball at the Met's press office, as this demonstrates:

"Met maintains policing services"

Didn't that just make you sit bolt upright and pay attention?

I would think that in terms of surprises, that rates alongside 'sun rises', and 'Traffic plod says to speeding driver "Think you are Lewis 'amilton, do you sir?"'.

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posted by Croydonian