“Sex festival in Tunbridge Wells sparks concerns about parking.”
If anyone can top that (and I don’t insist on the headline being from this week), oh please do write in.
“Sex festival in Tunbridge Wells sparks concerns about parking.”
If anyone can top that (and I don’t insist on the headline being from this week), oh please do write in.
Reminds me of the mythical Irish headline ‘Cork Man Drowns!’ 😂
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Wonderful. Someone published a book of headlines like that a decade or three back called Red tape holds up bridge. One of my favorites was “British left waffles on Falklands War.” It took me long minutes of thinking, Waffles? Syrup? What? before I managed to make sense out of it.
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So what sense did you make??
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I thought someone had left waffles (as in breakfast) instead of the political left waffling (as in being uncertain). In other words, I mistook the noun left for the identical verb. It struck me as a strange way to conduct a war, but what do I know?
Somehow it’s not as funny after all that.
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Ahhh I see!
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I’ve now got this image of waffles on the Falklands ‘cos, with my current state of brain (one in which ‘not enough sleep last night’ plays a large part) I thought the same as you did. And, y’know, it’s quite a lovely image. Waffles on the Falklands. (But they’d be pretty cold, methinks.)
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I don’t think you have to be sleep deprived to read it that way–that’s why the headline got into the book: because you and I weren’t the only people who saw the deeper meaning in it. I expect by now they’re not only cold but covered in ants–especially if the British poured syrup on them before they left them.
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Kinksters and ravers and fetishists… oh my! Will you be attending? Or at least spying so we can get some firsthand blogging updates…
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Um, actually, no. I’m much too–. Okay, I’m not sure what word in our language covers this. Sex as a group activity just doesn’t do it for me. Although it could make a great blog post.
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No festival. Just an ordinary reminder of bonking time.
Sally will miss Big Ben’s Big Bonks.
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There’s no accounting for what turns people on, is there?
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Over here in ‘Murica, the concerns about parking usually come BEFORE the sex festival.
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Or instead of?
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alrighty. the only one that I want to see is “Trump Resigns!”
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That would be welcome. Failing that, “Trump impeached” would be nice.
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I snorted coffee out of my nose upon reading this. Geeze Louise…………they are worried about PARKING????? Seriously?? LOL
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Exactly the reaction I was hoping for. Sorry about your coffee. And your nose.
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no worries..it cleared all my sinus problems……..rofl
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Maybe we can patent it.
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That’s just nasty. Mr. Trump was a far better choice by Americans than Socialist Hillary Klintonista.
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We’re going to have to agree to disagree on that–although I would much rather seen Bernie in office than either of them.
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Can you still vote, Ellen? Just curious…
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Yup. Dual citizenship. I can vote for national offices but not local ones.
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I don’t think anything can top that one!
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Possibly not, but let’s keep looking because won’t it be fun if we find it.
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Oh yes 😊😊
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Great headline now we need the rest of the story. We want details, specifics, photos, workshops… You do win the prize!
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Sorry, your intrepid reporter’s staying home.
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C’est la vie! Sometimes, home is the best place to be. :)
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Sorry, I was hoping you would realize that I was being factitious.
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And my apologies in turn. I did figure you were on a flight of fancy. I just thought I’d go along with it.
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There is nothing to apologize for. Such a wise woman you are!
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Oh, hell yes. Wise enough (although only just barely) to laugh at that as well.
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Thank you Ellen, the grin goes from one ear to the other.
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And–defying biology–reaches mine.
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:)
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Chuckling. Wow. We know how to do the relatively – miffed- British – person – about – something – somewhat – bothersome – headline, don’t we?
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Oh, indeed. And isn’t miffed the perfect word for it?
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Yep! Love that word! 😂
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It’s not as funny as yours, and it’s over four years old, but I’ve got a befuddling headline:
‘Muswell Hill family shell-shocked as tortoise who defied Hitler comes back from the dead.’
The claim that he defied Hitler is disappointingly overstated. All he did was survive German bombing. In honour of this proud achievement, the family renamed him – wait for it – Adolf.
I’m sure he was very proud to be named after the man who was responsible for the genocide of millions of innocent people, and who, moreover, was the evil genius behind the plot to destroy him.
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That’s such a ridiculous headline (I’m not even going to get into the story itself) that I can’t help wanting to add to it: …wearing butterfly wings, maybe. Or …eating a peanut butter sandwich. …and recites multiplication tables.
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You could create a whole story around a headline like that; one far more interesting than the truth.
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Indeed you could. It’s yours if you want it.
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I’m not feeling silly enough at the moment, but who knows – maybe next week the mania will return.
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Our local store’s out of mania this week as well.
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Must be a national shortage – which is unusual for the UK.
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I defied Hitler by not being born.
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Um. Wait. I need to give this some thought.
I need to give this a bit more thought.
My brain just exploded, so never mind waiting. Just go on with whatever you were doing–if you exist.
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That’s right! Come here for the hard hitting, deep and analytical exposees! :D
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That was a cunning move.
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He he! All brains me! :D :D
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I can’t top this one but each winter, I’m amused by the stock headline run by local press “Road Maintenance Services Surprised by Snow”. It’s idiotic because where I live, it snows each winter. So where’s the surprise?
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And in December, they run one that says, “Santa Claus surprised by Christmas,” right?
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I’m sure that would be the case, alas, it’s Baby Jesus here who brings the presents (seriously).
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Okay. “Baby Jesus surprised by Christmas”?
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Haha, works for me :D
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Here’s one: “Missippi’s Literacy Program Shows Improuvment”….good grief!
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Oh, holy shit. That’s a classic.
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He he! Like it!
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as a resident of Tunbridge Wells (I have to admit!) we have had a lot of fun this week – no, stop, let me finish! – playing around with these headlines and the reactions from various other residents.
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I bet you did!
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That’s a humdinger.
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I will refrain from bad puns and double entendres.
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I’m so glad you got the gist.
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It pains me to say that I did.
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Ha!
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If there’s a Pulitzer equivalent for daft, punny, or double entendre laden headlines, this one has to be a contender. My husband texted me a link to that story because his parents used to live in Tunbridge Wells. Part of me thinks they are deliberately planting this story in the press to try and slough off some of their “disgusted” reputation.
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You think whatever the British equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce is deliberately invited the festival?
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You never know. 😀
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This is more interesting than the standard conspiracy theory.
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I laughed until I coughed. Fortunately I wasn’t eating or drinking at the time, although I am having breakfast.
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So glad I caught you between bites/sips.
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Me too.
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Sadly, it turned out not to be a laughing matter http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-41011598.
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Good lord. It really isn’t a laughing matter, but I can’t help thinking it sounds like a plot from Midsomer Murders.
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I don’t think they’ve done a caravanning plot. I’m pretty sure they’ve done the outdoors sex thing.
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Okay, it’s time for me to confess that I haven’t followed it. I watched a few, way back when, then wandered away to see what was in the refrigerator and never remembered to come back. So I haven’t kept track of what’s been done and have to disqualify myself.
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I haven’t watched any since John Nettles left and I was a bit lukewarm before that. I just loved thinking about a small corner of rural England with a murder rate higher than urban America, yet people still carried on as if it were paradise. Better yet, the local police force was about five people, of whom it only ever took two to solve a murder.
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Murder She Wrote had the same problem: They’d killed off enough people to wipe out any small town in rural Maine. They did, after a while, and I think it was out of embarrassment, send their main character traveling so they could kill a few more people without having to worry about depopulation.
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I think Midsomer realised they had a problem and they invented villages with increasingly unlikely names. Badgers Drift and Midsomer Parva are ones that lodged themselves in my brain, although Parva is a perfectly respectable descriptor for an English village.
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Is it? It cross-circuited with pavlova and I thought it sounded like a dessert.
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Meanwhile, in Australia; “best man left bleeding after being hit in the head by flying dildo”…
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Okay, that’s, um, memorable. What are they making dildos out of these days? Lead?
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Hahaha, well, we’re a tough breed down here.
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I only wish I could
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I sense the sheer desperation for a story of any sort in some of the local news when the Devonlive website currently has “Exeter Mum accuses salon of leaving her daughters hair in a mess” but I was left wondering which animals weren’t ummm… horny (?) enough for “Man admits having porn covering ‘a fair swathe of the animal kingdom’ “
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What, there’s no real news in the world??
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That is SUCH a British headline *sniffle* makes one proud to be British.
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I can offer “Barred: they treated water voles better than us” photo available on request.
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Water voles?
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Maybe they are concerned about who is parking what where?…..
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Possibly, but I can’t help thinking it’ll be relatively short-term parking, so why worry?
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The really famous headline dates from WW II at the time of the North African campaign by the Allies under Montgomery against the German Army under Rommel:
“Eighth army push bottles up Germans”
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Ouch.
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.
I need to give this a bit more thought.
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Private Eye used to do these by the score. My favourite from PE was “Man found dead in graveyard”
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I spent some time thinking about that before I found any actual sense in it. Two longstanding favorites of mine are “British left waffles on Falkland Islands” and “Red tape holds up bridge.”
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I just noticed that I already mentioned both headlines in my earlier comments. It’s been a while. So I can only hope you didn’t read them all. That way I’ll sound casual and clever and very much like someone who doesn’t repeat herself.
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Hahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!
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