A Walk On The Portadown Side

Taking its satirical cue from our old pal, The Onion, The Portadown News is the perfect antidote to all the bilious nonsense that’s been coming out of Norn Iron recently.

An equal opportunities piss taker, the weekly organ strives to offend both communities with headlines like “Queen & Pope Appeal For Violence.”

“Queen Elizabeth and Pope John Paul have both appealed for violence at this year’s Drumcree Parade,” reports Will March. “’The politics of the 16th century remain close to our heart’, said Queen Elizabeth in a statement yesterday. ‘We urge all our loyal subjects in Portadown to remember their history by endlessly repeating it as violently as possible.’

Meanwhile the Pope has offered a personal message of support to Garvaghy Road Residents’ spokesman Brendan McKenna. ‘As far as this issue is concerned,’ said the ailing pontiff yesterday, ‘Christ’s message is ‘bomb your neighbour’.”

Inside we’re treated to a spoof interview with RUC Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan, in which he describes the Drumcree dispute as “a second Christmas” for his officers.

“As Orangemen like to point out, everyone in the RUC just loves the chance to make an extra few hundred pounds at this time of year,” Sir Ronnie doesn’t actually say. “Obviously there’s the small matter of risking your life, your family’s life, possibly losing your home, suffering incredible stress, witnessing appalling violence and sinking into hopeless depression as the country you’ve sworn to serve spirals needlessly into anarchy. But if that’s what it takes to pay off the sofa, then who really gives a fuck, eh?”

You can read more at http://www.portadownnews.fsnet.co.uk

If it’s unabashed silliness you’re after, browse no further than http://www.newsgrounds.com/portal/view.php?id=19257

which is home to a nifty little vid called ‘Do The Mario’. We won’t spoil the surprise, suffice it to say that we found it just as funny as our receptionist who, obviously, would never dream of surfing the net during work hours. Honest.

The last Caught In The Net finished with an appeal for “anyone who knows what the fuck’s going on at http://user.tinet.se/~prv247p/hat/hatten.sw”

to get in touch with us. The first —well, actually the only – person to answer our call was Mick McLynskey who says: “This page was doing the rounds here in the office (European Parliament, Luxembourg) amongst my Swedish colleagues a few months ago. It’s an Arabic song, the lyrics of which a Swede has tried to interpret and subtitled accordingly. You can get the English translation at http://www.geocities.com/pommesrotweissx”

Thank you, sir.