Buenos Aires aims to hit the UK where it hurts the most: in the stomach. Argentina’s Minister of Corned Beef, Xavier Juarez-Juarez, today re-opened long-running diplomatic hostilities with the UK over ‘Las Malvinas’. ‘The British are major buyers of our delicious tinned meat.  What could be more frustrating than to find that the key used to open the specially-designed tins is missing?’ ‘From next month, all tins of corned beef exported to the UK will have their keys removed before shipping.  We know that using a traditional tin opener instead is almost completely...

   Opinion polls are now part-and-parcel of everyday life.  But none have systematically assessed the views of people who are…  pissed.  Until now. ‘We have a fundamental problem in conducting polls’ said a spokesman for the British Polling Council (BPC).  ‘Some people – quite understandably – feel obliged to give the reply that they think the interviewer wants to hear, or that they feel is more socially acceptable’. ‘The most obvious example is in election polling, where there is a tendency for some respondents to avoid saying they support the...

The legendary Scottish actor scores ‘nul points’ in James Bond impression contest. Sean Connery suffered a crushing defeat yesterday – in a competition to find Britain’s best Sean Connery impersonator. Using a false name, he entered the charity radio phone-in, in which real James Bond actors competed anonymously against members of the public. Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig and George Lazenby all comfortably won their respective rounds, and went through to the sudden death final. But Connery came last in his heat, in which Derek Mulgyre (a welder from...

Veteran Newsnight frontman Jeremy Paxman has confided that the BBC2 motoring show would have been ‘a perfect fit’ for his irascible talents.  With his disdain for mainstream politics a long-known open secret, Paxman has revealed that he pitched the idea of joining Top Gear to BBC bosses. ‘It would have meant that May and Hammond could still have said “Jeremy” – and I think it’s about time that in-car SatNavs are held to account for all the misleading information they give.  If I am told to “turn right at the next junction” I am quite prepared to...

UK Airport VAT Scam Garners a Wealth of Sensitive Data. Last year’s row over ‘airside’ boarding pass checks on shoppers at UK airports has had a big payoff for the intelligence services. As a retired MI5 officer explained: ‘Most passengers assumed that showing their boarding pass when buying, say, a bottle of water at WHSmith was some kind of security check.  In fact it was simply a ruse to allow the shops to reclaim tax on items sold to those travelling outside the EU.’ ‘However, in the process a huge amount of data has been amassed on which products are going...