The news in brief 15th March 2015

You know, we’re pretty sure that the IKEA magazine was promoting flat-packed furniture, handy storage solutions and tasty, tasty meatballs, NOT some underhanded homosexual propaganda, but what do we know? Let’s distract ourselves with some celebrity horseshit

The news in brief celebrity special:

Breaking news: celebrity has audacity to not look happy all the time

Parent caught parenting

Paparazzi intrudes on private moment

Woman wears bikini

Woman wears dress

Newspaper likes woman’s clothes

Woman conforms to media’s narrow definition of beauty

Seriously guys – isn’t taking pictures of a four-year-old’s birthday party pretty fucking weird  

Woman updates social media

Stop the press: actress has legs

Internet loses its shit over sequel   

Actor wears costume

Sibling rivalry masquerading as news  

Photographer bothers actress who clearly wants to be left alone

Woman dresses appropriately for the weather

Seriously – stop taking fucking pictures of people’s fucking kids

Family caught doing stuff together

Cleavage!

Hold the front page: woman has haircut

Nudes in brief: Kim Kardashian (again)

And finally: people spend time with their mothers on Mothering Sunday

Reading the news so you don’t have to…

The news in brief 13th and 14th March 2015

The news in brief:

So, what horseshit’s gone down whilst we’ve been away?

Media doesn’t actually know what fracas means

Sunday night TV looks set to get shit

Giant motherfucking fish  

Religion’s bodycount continues to mount

Turns out the Pope is a chill bro who likes to hang out with a slice of ‘za

Hollywood has officially run out of ideas

Literary legend passes away

Article states the obvious: nerds attended convention

Product placement masquerading as news

Bureaucracy: 1, human decency: 0

Mad suggestion that mental health is just as important as physical health

Action gran is fucking awesome

Man’s inhumanity to man continues apace

Aeroplane grounded by stinky-wet mega-shit

Rotherham’s in trouble again

Health and fucking safety

Sentence seems suspiciously lenient

Penis transplants are a thing now

Media leaves out pretty significant detail

Space is fucking huge

Cyclist is both amazing and completely mental

See kids - maths is important*

Nudes in brief: Amber Rose

And finally: terrorists are rubbish at cooking

Reading the news so you don’t have to…  

*for our American readers: see kids – math is important

The news in brief 11th March 2015

The news in brief washing machine special:

The news in brief doesn’t usually have opinions on things… apart from obvious things like not taking pictures of famous people’s kids and splashing them all over the Internet, or killing each other over easily offended invisible friends, but occasionally the news busts out with some horseshit that needs addressing:

The Right Honourable John Bercow MP is facing accusations of sexism after comparing Esther McVey to a domestic appliance.

And we quote: “I am reminded of the feeling when one thinks the washing machine will stop — but it does not!”

We’re not quite sure how that’s sexist. Rude? Yes. Offensive? Possibly. Hilarious? Almost certainly. But sexist? That’s the bit we don’t get.

So, like good journalists we went out and we did some research and after carefully dismantling and inspecting every component of our washing machine, we couldn’t find a pair of tits, a vagina, a womb, a clitoris or anything that would identify the washing machine as female. There were loads of tubes but not a one of them was fallopian. There wasn’t a cock and balls either; in fact there wasn’t anything that suggested the washing machine had a gender at all. So we asked it how it identified itself (possibly the most significant identifier – probably should have done that first) and it either wasn’t in the mood to talk about gender politics or it was an inanimate object designed to launder clothes and otherwise keep its fucking mouth shut. It’s early days yet, but we’re going with the latter.

Now one thing washing machines do actually have, is the ability to warp time so that the last minute on the countdown is impossibly extended across three quarters of an hour, prolonging the agonising wait before you can get your work pants out, fling them over a door to dry and go the fuck to bed. They’ve been doing it for decades and they have no plans to stop any time soon. They hate us but we need them and they know it.

So, if someone talks a lot, and when you think their about stop, keeps on going and going and going and going they are quite a lot like a washing machine. There’s absolutely no gender related statement in there.

You don’t stop. The washing machine doesn’t stop. You somehow make one minute feels like forty five. That’s how one is like the other.

The only way for this to be a sexist comment is if the offended party held in their mind some sort of pre-existing connection between being a woman and the traditional gender roles regarding housework and then superimposed that pre-existing connection onto the offending party’s words and then interpreted them through their own preconceived bias. But then would that not make them part of the goddamned problem for reinforcing and perpetuating gender stereotypes that have no business existing in the 21^st Century?  You know who uses washing machines? People. People use washing machines. People with dirty clothes.

Some of those people are women. Some of them are men. Almost all of them will be out of clean underwear and will be eyeing up their swimming trunks wondering if a day with a spandex secret is better than waiting that last fucking minute before they can go to bed….   

If you labour under the antiquated and practically medieval impression that washing clothes is women’s work – then you know what? Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. 

Reminding people it’s the future so you don’t have to…

The news in brief 9th March 2015

The news in brief celebrity special:

Shock: woman visits hairdresser

Woman updates social media

Newspaper enforces gender stereotypes on toddler

Parents caught parenting

Paparazzi intrudes on family day out

Woman’s tragic news is somehow our business

Pregnant woman looks a bit pregnant

Scandal: couple likes each other

Woman wears dress

Photographer snaps private moment

Woman has shoulders

No shit: designer has nice house

Couples goes outside – together

Cleavage is not news

Woman conforms to media’s narrow definition of beauty

Man caught wearing comfortable clothes

Actor takes day off

Woman dressed for the weather

Woman not dressed for the weather

Newspaper likes woman’s clothes

Newspaper does like woman’s clothes

Pro tip: taking photos of a 14 year-old is pretty fucking creepy

Actress makes mad suggestion that women are people too

Nudes in brief: Imogen Anthony

And finally: celebrity looks different after ten years  

Reading the… news?!... so you don’t have to…   

The news in brief 3rd, 4th and 5th March 2015 (sorry)

The news in brief:

Good news: politician understands what basic words mean

Spitting probably not worse than racism….  

Treating elephants like shit is not cool

Government has pretty fucking skewed priorities

Pro tip: women are people too

Magical science paint does your housework for you

Young people don’t know shit

Religion’s bodycount continues to mount

They are good photos, but are they $4000.00 good?

Election promises broken already

Frozen is (admittedly loosely) based on The Snow Queen which is, in fact, a book

In fairness, goats do sound a lot like people screaming…

Man’s inhumanity to man continues apace

The news in brief doesn’t normally take sides, but if you hurt our cat, a private investigator would be the least of your concerns

If Mumsnet wasn’t terrifying enough already…

Science is fucking awesome!

Jobsworths defeated by common sense ruling   

Study states the obvious: sleep is good for you

Health-and-fucking-safety: 1, Common sense: 0

Hey advertisers – when you downplay a whole section of humanity based upon their gender and their perceived roles in society – that makes you sexist twats. Just so you know.

Dad’s are parents too

Christian Grey is not an appropriate costume for a child (but apparently Dexter is)

Lasers!

Woman may actually be Captain Scarlett

Outrage as parents discover the teacher is a person outside of work

Anthropologists can totally tell who’s kissing who in the x-rays (do people not watch Bones?!)

Nudes in brief: Chris Hemsworth

And finally: we’d literally take out a second mortgage to buy artist’s Sylvanian Families Jihadists

Reading the news so you don’t have to…   

The news in brief 2nd March 2015

Before reading any further – there is a long and foul tirade in today’s The news in brief.  Literally every expletive we know is strung together and yet somehow it still doesn’t come close to illustrating the outrage we felt reading that interview. If you’re of a sensitive disposition you might want to skip today’s post and come back tomorrow.  But just so you don’t think its all doom and gloom, we also found a cute story about a stray dog who begged for food from a group of athletes doing a gruelling cross country run. The dog then ran with them for hundreds of miles and one of the runners adopted him and now he’s healthy and happy. That’s pretty nice, right?   

The news in brief:

Breaking news: gays control the tides as well as the weather

Pro tip: bricks hurt

Attention-seeking hyper-bitch strikes again

Man’s inhumanity to man continues apace

Seriously you mother-fucking bell-ended cunt-faced horse-fucker: a woman should be able to walk home in a god damned bikini, on her own, in the middle of the night if she wants to without fear of getting fucking raped.

Terrorist’s secret code exposed

Russia situation a bit hairy

Economy a bit less shit

Turns out that astronauts have body-confidence issues too

Study states the obvious: don’t mix milk and coke (why would you do that?!)

Real heroes don’t wear capes

Good news: nuts are good for you (for now)

Religion’s bodycount continues to mount

Just so you know – we’d eat the shit out of brie and jammy dodgers

Political party doesn’t quite get how this whole ‘manifesto’ thing works    

Diana Watch 2015: Princess allegedly fancied Eric Clapton. Still dead.

Slow news day? Another toy that totally doesn’t sound like it’s swearing

Leonard Nimoy: 1 –  Placard waving weirdos: 0  

Church didn’t think to check Enterprise’s forward torpedo bay…

Apparently lesbian Jews aren’t allowed chocolate spread

Nudes in brief: Jessica Lowndes

And finally: miracle twins are pretty awesome

Reading the news so you don’t have to…

The news in brief 1st of fucking March already 2015

The news in brief celebrity special:

Paparazzi intrudes on important family moment

Media pays paparazzi for intruding on family’s important moment  

People keep buying magazines with this shit it

And lo! the cycle continues

Woman wears dress

Woman conforms to media’s narrow definition of beauty

Breaking news: people know each other outside of work

If someone’s keeping a low profile – maybe they don’t want their picture in the news?

Man goes jogging

TV star wears gym clothes – to the gym!

Woman fails to conform to media’s narrow definition of beauty

Apparently it is literally impossible for celebrity women to win…

Woman wears clothes appropriate to activity

Shock: actress has the audacity to look a bit tired after a long flight

Newspaper likes woman’s outfit

Woman not dressed appropriately for the weather

Outrage: man has work commitments  

Woman donates huge pile of money to charity (but for some reason we need to describe her as ‘yo-yo dieter’ because her relationship with food is somehow relevant to the story…) Fucking bullshit

Stop the press: parent caught parenting

Racial slurs ‘not cool’

Scandal: actress’ complexion was ‘a bit blotchy’ last week

Nudes in brief: Demi Lovato

And finally: actress has better job that you…  

Reading the news so you don’t have to…