2017, eh? 2017, EH? What an absolute year of a year - loadsa stuff happened, didn’t it? Like, lots of bad things (you know, all the Trump stuff), but also some good things (I discovered, six years late, the video of Mike Parry doing the cinnamon challenge and my life has forever been altered for the better - I mean, I watch it at least twice every single day now, it has become an obsession, and I will never stop).
As such, and to swerve the risk of making this a very depressing article, I shall be focusing on the fun stuff - the dumb, the preposterous, the heinous, but most definitely the fun stuff. So without further spittle spraying forth from my big nonsense mouth, so very fond it is of preamble, let’s get down to it: here are the 19 most ridiculous news stories of 2017.
1."Catch him Derry!"
Do you know what is funny? What is pure, unbridled comedy in its simplest form? What that is, is: an Irish family fighting a bat in their kitchen. A loud Irish man barking directions at another man, called Derry (the most Irish name you’ve heard, actually), in an attempt to catch a bat that is flying, terrified, about their kitchen.
What is funny, is: two men helplessly throwing a towel at a bat that has invaded their house, while a lady called Maureen presses her face up against some frosted glass from behind a door.
A funny thing, is: a dog pissing in a kitchen because two frightened men are screaming at a bat.
The above video is all of those things - the best bat video on the internet, an Irish triumph, a dog-pissing masterpiece. I love it.
2.The Tinder Poo Girl
I’m sure you’ve had your fair share of bad dates - most people have - but have you ever had someone throw a big lump of their own shit in between the frames of your bathroom window? Has that ever happened? Did they then, regretting their decision, try and climb in to retrieve it, before getting so stuck, so unbelievable stuck, that the fire service had to cut them out? Did that thing happen? DIDTHEY POO IN YOUR WINDOW SO MUCH THAT YOU HAD TO CALL 999?
No they didn’t, did they, because it is a story so stupid, so ridiculous, that it can only have happened once, and will never happen again. As such, chances are you were not involved in this story. But Tinder Poo Girl was, upside down, piece of excrement by her head, making an indelible skid-mark on the internet for eternity.
3.Stupid idiot hamster goes to the vet
Hamsters, I reckon, are pretty dumb in the grand scheme of things. Thick-headed little idiots, I rate. Stupid furry punks driven by motor impulses, tiny, puny brains entirely devoid of logic or reasoning. Little halfwits, the lot of them.
So yeah, it’s no surprise that one of these loser animals got involved in a viral story directly relating to its stupidity. To cut a long story short, a girl took her bumbleheaded wack-ass rodent to the vet because it hadn’t moved for three days - it was just sat against the same railing of its cage, not eating or drinking anything.
Turns out, *sigh*, he’d just swallowed a fridge magnet and it’d stuck him to the metal. What an unthinking witless case of trash, that hamster is. Could’ve died! Could’ve died a thin-cheeked death against the cage, all because it sucked a magnet. Hamsters are the Insane Clown Posse of half-baked pets. I hate them.
4.GPS super burglar
If you are going to burgle some houses on a night out - each to their own - then my suggestion is that you try and come up with some sort of method for not getting caught. Like, you don’t want anyone to know what you’re doing, otherwise it becomes very difficult to burgle, and also you might get sent to jail. So, I don’t know, just one tip: don’t wear a GPS bracelet that shows the literal police where you are while you’re doing burglaries.
But hey, some people do things that sit nicely out of the comprehension of you or I - like Stuart Campbell, who’d had a GPS ankle bracelet fitted following his release from prison. Then, what he did with the device beaming out his exact location at all times, was go for a quick burglary. Or five of them. Five burglaries, all nicely pinpointed with location and time data. Then back to jail, as it happens, because nobody has ever been more guilty of something in the history of the world.
5."Put your hands on the car and get ready to die"
Just a punt, here, but you’ve never actually seen anyone that angry, have you? Not even your dad when he dropped his pint at your cousin’s wedding this summer. The man in the video above is so angry that I think, if you look closely, you can see actual steam coming out of his ears. Nobody’s face has ever been redder, no temple-vein has ever throbbed so, nobody’s finger has ever been straighter.
The angry man, the one whose head looks fit to absolutely pop, whose eyes are seconds from boinging out on springs, is BBC producer Fergus Beeley, and something to do with cars has happened, so he is literally threatening a family with death, and an 11-year-old child with a citizen’s arrest. He is an adult, but he is saying that he is going to kill a man (who also happens to be the calmest human on the planet, in the face of this screeching behemoth) like a child says. Children say “Get ready to die” when they’re in the playground, don’t they? This large, definitely adult man is saying it in a car park off the M27.
6.Bagelgate
I have just watched this video again, and look, I still don’t know what’s going on in it, but holy hell, do I still love it. So many things are happening - so many different fights, chants, bagel-disposings, it’s a Southern Rail rollercoaster.
Watch it again, do yourself a favour - embrace the fact that you shall be none the wiser after it finishes, but you will be some the happier, that’s for sure. A lot the happier.
7.Greggs replace Jesus with a sausage roll
Large fan of Greggs, me. Like a sausage roll, love a chicken tikka baguette, would absolutely pin a steak bake, there’s no asking me twice. So when Greggs brought out their own version of the Nativity and swapped out the little baby Jesus, born to die; for you and me he came to suffer and die, with a big sausage roll with a bite taken out of it, I was on board.
Turns out, not everyone else was though, cos I guess Jesus wasn’t allowed pork, what with him being Jewish. Greggs apologised, but I don’t think they needed to - me and two mates trekking across the country to kneel down before a sausage roll is far more plausible than going to meet some baby, and an illegitimate one to boot. Not for me.
8.Andy Murray's sausage baby
Look, while we’re on the subject of sausage babies, I thought it best to clump another one in before you lose interest in newborn children made out of ham.
For some reason - a reason I shall never understand, nor want to - a butcher celebrated the birth of Andy and Kim Murray’s child by making a weird foetus out of pork meat and then accompanying it with a caption that makes it appear as though that is the actual child the Murrays had. Somehow, this famous couple actually gave birth to a tiny skinless sausage child, not at a hospital, but at a small family butchers, and then stuck it in a baking tray.
Many questions need being answered here, but of course the most important one, the only one I have any interest in, is: when is it ready for consumption? WHEN CAN I EAT THE GREASY MEAT CHILD?
9.Reality TV contestants have their show cancelled while they're still on it
Can you actually imagine going on a reality TV show for a whole year, a full year of your life spent in the middle of nowhere up in Scotland, and then when you finally got to the end, ready for a welcoming fanfare, you found out that they’d just fucked it off and packed it all in, not even halfway through your tenure? You’ve wasted a whole year on a TV show that wasn’t even on. They didn’t even show it!
No club openings, no opportunities to star on Dancing on Ice, no protein shake deals - just a year in the cold with zero reward. Eden? Nope, ain’t heard of it, sorry. You were on it? Eeeeden? Eden? Naa, you must be thinking of something else. You were on something else, not Eden, because Eden doesn’t exist, never heard of Eden in my life. Eden is not a thing, I’m afraid. Anyway, that’ll be five quid, please, enjoy your meal.
10.Carter gets his nuggs
A year’s supply of chicken nuggets, and all you had to do was get the most retweeted tweet of all time. A) Why didn’t I think of that, and B) Why did he ask for only a year’s worth? He’s done it now, no going back - you achieved the impossible and all you’ve got is 365 days worth of thanks for the pleasure. Could have got a lifetime’s worth, easily. Stupid old Carter, undervaluing himself once again.
As I’ve always said and will also have engraved on my tombstone: Don’t ever get out of bed for less than a lifetime’s worth of free nuggets, I ain’t no punk.
11.Callum's Lidl odyssey
A few years back, small, private adventures had by normal people would often go unnoticed, but now in the 2017th year of this planet, we have Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and all that jazz to offer us a glimpse into the lives of others.
Callum Ruane, who you don’t know, and nor do I, went on such an adventure this year, and because of the internet, we all got to hear about it. We got to watch his stupid odyssey unfold in real time, thanks to the magic of social media. So we watched it, we laughed, and he was briefly famous for a bit. A modern day success story, and something we can all aspire to experience for ourselves. The genre of old-people’s home-visits after buying bread in Lidl is not done yet, and I intend to keep it alive.
12.The curious incident with the naked man and the mum
Waking up naked in strange places is funny, isn’t it? Sign of a good night, I’d say - in some strange bed, with a big skeleton face plastered on your skin. You’ve also been nicely tucked in by a lady who is not, in fact, your mum, but somebody else’s entirely. A lady who assumed you were her son.
That is, until the lady’s suspicious husband realises that you are not their son, and says to her:
“There’s a naked bloke upstairs.
“And it’s not Stewart.”
And then you must make your excuses and leave, naked man. You must escape, before you outstay your already overdue and mistakenly offered welcome. Put your ‘belongings’ away, and go home, naked man. Naked man, leave this place, I am tired of you.
13.Man loudly declares himself a legend, is immediately rendered not-a-legend
You have to be careful, when shouting “I’M A FUCKING LEGEND”, because you have to immediately follow it by something legendary. And to do something legendary is very hard. If you shout “I’M A FUCKING LEGEND” and then are tasered, your body going all stiff and briefly treading the air before falling over in a big silly T shape, in front of loads of people, then what you shouldn’t have done was shout “I’M A FUCKING LEGEND.”
14.Never sell a golf club on Facebook to someone from East Kilbride
Don’t you hate it when you’re goiny meet some geezer for a new putter, and you wanty do him in and take it off him and then you send a text meant for your pal to the geezer that explicitly reveals that your plan is to do him in and take it off him lol.
15.Nelson Vivas turns into The Hulk after getting sent off
Your role, as a football manager, is to show decency, composure and restraint - you are the mediator, the leader, and you need to keep your cool. As such, it is best not to start screaming, rip your shirt off, start kicking things and storm off, all while on camera.
Main reason being, it’ll be really embarrassing when you realise that your cuffs are too tight, and it’s going to be difficult to pull your sleeves over your hands, even though you’ve fully committed to tearing your entire shirt off. Bit awkward, acting all tough, punching the air in front of you, shouting as loud as you can, and then struggling with your sleeves like a big idiot trying to take his jeans off but getting them caught on his socks. Too late though, everyone’s seen your shirt all bunched up round your wrists - your big, spectacular exit has been dampened by an inside-out shirt getting caught on your watch. The referee’s a wanker!
16.McDonald's runs out of Szechuan sauce
IT IS A SAUCE, YOU CRETINS. A SAUCE.
17.Ted Cruz's 9/11 'me time'
If you are a politician, particularly a prominent one, there are certain things you shouldn’t do. One of those things, in my opinion, is to not publicly fave a porn tweet on 9/11. Just a hunch, but you shouldn’t do that. Don’t alert the world to the fact you are pleasuring yourself on a day of national mourning. Probs don’t do that.
But hey, senator Ted Cruz did that. He faved the porn tweet, and he did it on the anniversary of when ‘them slags’ smashed into the twin towers. What a brazen legend.
18.An escaped cougar terrorises America
One thing you don’t want to find in your garden, is an actual cougar. A giant carnivorous cat that can outrun you, outfight you, and probably wants to eat you, is not in the same league as a garden gnome, in the pantheon of preferable garden inhabitants. So news of an escaped cougar should quite rightly put the goddamn willies up you.
This year, that exact thing happened in Hernando, Mississippi, and Fox News and a plucky reporter were there to monitor the hunt.
AND OH FUCK, THERE’S THE COUGAR RIGHT BEHIND HIM.
Only, no, it’s not, is it, it’s a shit little house cat, looking like the most un-terrifying thing you’ve ever seen. If I saw that cat, instead of fleeing, I would actively approach it and try to touch its belly. I would want that thing in my garden, I’d want it in my living room, and regardless of the owner’s permission, I would want it in my bed. I have forgotten about the cougar, let me kiss the kitty.
19.Piegate
Really, I’m not sure I understand the world anymore. It’s a funny kind of climate when a red-faced man eating a pie that isn’t even a pie on television can lead to actual column inches, actual minutes of news coverage, an actual scandal. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I don’t know much about the inner workings of football or betting, but a large boy eating a fucking pasty with both hands like an otter, and then getting sacked for it, is something that should not have ever been a thing. But it was, and that is why it is 2017, and we are all going to die soon.
***
That’s your lot - I truly hope 2018 brings more of the same, because everything is slowly going to hell, and sometimes you need a little cheering up. And if, at the very least, one of those stories involves a veiny BBC producer screaming threats at an 11-year-old boy, then I am here for it.
(Images: Rex)
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