Can you spot what's fishy in this news?

Miles Kington
Sunday 26 September 2004 19:00 EDT
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I think it's time to test you on your knowledge of the news again. If you are a regular participant in these quizzes, you will know I bring you a few stories from the last week's news, warning you that one of them is made up by me. All you have to do is spot it. All right? Let's go, then!

I think it's time to test you on your knowledge of the news again. If you are a regular participant in these quizzes, you will know I bring you a few stories from the last week's news, warning you that one of them is made up by me. All you have to do is spot it. All right? Let's go, then!

1. The countryside protest against the ban on hunting has taken a new form. Furious that hunting is to be banned on the grounds of cruelty, while the equally cruel sport of angling has been left alone, fishing saboteurs have started to disrupt angling competitions.

Mounted on horseback, bands of the FFF (Foxmen For Fish) appear in the middle of proceedings, gallop terrifyingly among the anglers, dismount and pitch all their equipment in the canal or river.

"We believe pulling a fish out of the river by its mouth, tearing a gap in it with a hook and returning it to the water to heal and then be tortured again, is way more cruel than catching one fox and putting it out of its misery," says a supporter. "And now fishermen are demanding cormorants be shot to preserve their nasty little sport! I don't remember hunters ever demanding the killing of fellow hunters in the animal kingdom."

2. The world's first underground wind farm may soon be built.

Plans are afoot to bore vertical holes in some of Britain's tallest mountains. The difference in air pressure between top and bottom would mean there would be a steady stream of air passing from the high pressure at the bottom to the thinner air at the top. This would be enough to keep turbines moving whether there was any wind or not.

"Only a little energy would be created in each hole," says an expert, "but build enough and our needs would be satisfied. And it would all be out of sight! No eyesore!"

3. Censorship has reached new heights in a small county of Carolina, in the USA. Concerned about the spread of swearing and the use of four-letter words, the folk of Jefferson County enacted an ordinance two years ago to ban the F-word in public. Now they have enacted a further regulation, to ban the use of the term "F-word" to describe that particular word.

"When people say the word 'F-word', we all unconsciously think of the word itself," says local legislator Edgar Chivers jr. "So having banned the word itself, we are now taking the logical step of banning the euphemism."

4. Scientists in the South Seas have discovered a new phenomenon in the world of migration: trees that migrate.

"We knew about birds and insects that migrate," says Australian biologist Peter Kirkwood, "but trees? A tree can't move! Well, yes and no. We have found that the Samoan pseudo-mango tree, which grows at the water's edge, will deliberately loosen its roots if it is being flooded or left high and dry, and float out to sea. Sooner or later, it will hope to hit land elsewhere and reroot and grow there. Pseudo-mango has taken hold in plenty of islands."

5. Behind-the-scenes work is going on to alter the law to ban hunting. Since it bans all hunting with dogs, it would also make illegal any police activity chasing runaway suspects or escaped prisoners with police dogs.

"The last thing we want is for one half of a police force to be arresting the other half for illegal hunting with dogs," says a Home Office spokesman. "By the time the Act reappears, it will have been subtly changed."

Well, did you spot that there wasn't a word of truth in the story about underground wind farms? Or in any of the others?

Honestly - you don't know who to trust these days, do you?

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