The news in brief 23rd, 24th, 25th and 26th March 2015

The news in brief:

Holy shit – we take a few sick days and the world goes to hell in a hand cart.

First, another plane falls out of the sky and it’s starting to look as if the co-pilot may have done it on purpose. There’s absolutely nothing funny about that and as always The news in brief extends its thoughts and prayers to the families.

If there’s any cold comfort in this tragedy, it’s that flying hasn’t become something new to fear. If it was the co-pilot, then there was no breakdown or mechanical failure that makes us question the safety of air travel. We have no reason to believe that aeroplanes are going to start dropping out of the sky left, right and centre, and that, as we said, is at least some cold comfort.

Then we have a building falling down in New York. There’s shit all funny about that either. Maybe if it were elsewhere in the world we’d find a way to squeeze out a wisecrack or two, but buildings falling down in New York will forever more be associated with the day that thousands of innocents were snuffed out for no god-damned reason. When I saw the headline, my mind went straight to 9/11 and for a heart-stopping second I was terrified it had happened again. And that’s coming from a fat, comfy Brit living thousands of miles away…

In other news: gross misconduct policy applied correctly

General public doesn’t seem to agree that Duty of Care still applies if you’re really, really popular

One Direction reduced to 0.8 Direction

Budget supermarket knows where it’s at

Road eats bus

Man’s inhumanity to man continues apace

Turns out success doesn’t equal happiness

Old dead guy finally gets buried

Religion’s bodycount continues to mount

Common sense: 1, bureaucracy: 0

Amazon and Facebook unleash their drone armadas!

Attention-seeking hyper-bitch strikes again

Relax; the giant space rock will totally miss us  

£30, 000 fuck up

Science is fucking awesome: sonic cannon that puts out fires

Study states the obvious: breakups are painful (but you’ll live)   

Midwives prepare for Fifty Shades backlash

Nudes in brief: Blac Chyna

And finally: Scotched Crème Egg. That is all.  

Reading the news, so you don’t have to…

For the Americans in the audience, a Scotched Egg is a boiled hen’s egg, wrapped in sausage meat, wrapped in breadcrumbs and then deep fried. They are delicious, frightfully bad for you and an essential part of any picnic (and require tomato ketchup to be fully appreciated)

A Crème Egg is a chocolate egg, about the size of a hen’s egg, piped full of sweet white goo, with a sweet yellow goo centre, simulating the yolk and albumen of a soft boiled egg.

A Scotched Crème Egg would be a Creme Egg, wrapped in sausage meat, wrapped in breadcrumbs and deep fried. Clearly the work of a deranged evil genius.