Fitness instructors revealed as liars

There was astonishment at a local gym today, as it emerged that fitness instructors knowingly misled customers about the number of reps they had left to perform.

Fledgling gym-goer, Jennifer Flanders, said "Rachel seems like a nice person, you know, beneath all the yelling and hauteur. However there seems to be a problem with her memory. Often's the time she tells me "Just one more rep!", yet having completed said rep, she'll follow it with something like "That's it. Keep going!", almost like she can't remember her first sentence at all."

High Intensity Interval Trainer, Katy Adderall, explained, "You may argue it's semantic, but I have never in all my six years on the job lied. When I say "just one more!" that's what I mean. And then one more, and then one more, and so on... Frankly I don't see where the confusion is."

Gym-veteran, James Miles, 32, told us the revelation wouldn't have any impact on his workout routine. "As an ardent masochist on a budget you can't find better value than a circuits & abs class. Of course you have to find the right instructor; one who'll really put you through your paces, but when you do it's like an hour of S&M virtually for free; plus my arms get bigger."

The effectiveness of the technique has caused moral philosophers to revise previously held opinions on the value of truth. Professor Dean, Head of Ethics, Moxbridge University, said  "John Mill once wrote that the truth of something is an integral part of its utility. Well, my resting BPM is 42, and I'm dating someone less than half my age. Hedonically calculate that."

Your appearance when you first look in the mirror is how you appear to others

The hopes of mirror-viewers nationwide took a knock today, as it emerged that your appearance when you first look in the mirror is how you invariably appear to others.

Research shows that mirror-viewers will often modify their hair and tilt their faces to cast themselves  in the best possible light. However, it also shows that within moments most people’s faces will have moved to a new position relative to the light source, and their hair will have reverted to its previous state of unbecoming disarray.

Clive Jones, 27, told us “This news comes as a real shock to me. I’d always thought that once I’d primped my hair and hit the town no-one would detect my grimly receded hairline. It seems I was wrong."

Meanwhile, Michael Oliver, 29, explained, ”Despite my advanced years I’ve always gone for the windswept, laid-back, indie look. If I’m honest I can’t say any girl’s ever gone for it, at least, not since my freshers year of uni. But I swear to you that in those precious, fleeting seconds in the gent’s before I head back to my depressingly male-dominated corner booth, I look like peak bloody Zach Effron. No study's taking that away from me."

Labour leadership hopefuls express desire to win leadership contest

The Labour leadership race today took an unexpected turn, with the chasing pack of contenders – all trying to catch runaway front-runner, Jeremy Corbyn - saying that Corbyn wouldn’t make as good a leader as them. This marks a departure from previous contests, in which candidates made lengthy speeches explicating how their opponents exceed them by all meaningful measures, and ending with an apology for wasting everyone’s time.

Liz Kendall, currently last in the polls, said, “It’s remarkable that so unelectable a candidate as Jeremy should garner so much support from the electorate. Labour needs to pick a real potential next prime-minister, or risk fading into insignificance. Someone less popular, that is.”

“My campaign is this. It’s vital that we engage with the 30% of the electorate who didn’t vote in the last election, particularly young people. That’s why we’re going to spray them with sewage and tell them to fuck off. Politics is closed, shit-heads.”

Girls like birthdays more than men

Research unveiled today shows the average woman makes a bigger deal of her birthday than the average man does of his.

After data-mining social media for several months, a team of scientists from Moxbridge university found that females are twenty four times more likely to create an event entitled "Birthday drinks!!! :D", and a staggering one hundred and twelve times more likely to post a "Birthday Selfie."

Birthday girl, Catherine Howard, 24, told us, "I love birthdays. I don't get why anyone wouldn't celebrate theirs! It's a great excuse to get everyone together, have a few drinks, and most importantly, just have a laugh!!"

Michael Hughes, 26, however, offered a different perspective. "Cat does this every year. Gets us all to dress up so we can go to some moderately trendy bar, where we sit around unable to hear each other for a couple of hours. That's before going to some equally unbearable night club, where social protocol obliges us to "dance", the excruciating awkwardness of it being broken like clockwork every twenty minutes by "DRINK??", loudly mimed by Cat or one of her henchmen. Then we'll stand in the queue to pay £30 a round for drinks we all silently pray will never come, because it signals the restarting of the whole ghastly cycle."

Henry Milgram, leading the Moxbridge project, said, "There are manifold reasons that women tend to make a bigger fuss of their birthdays than men. But basically we reckon girls like to feel a bit special. Same as weddings."

Meanwhile, office-drone, Tom Davis, said, "So the other Saturday I got up and checked my Facebook. To my surprise I had 29 notifications. It seems that over the course of the previous night I had had a "Birth-Day", which apparently is something good, because loads of people have congratulated me. Well well... who knew?"

Man cultivating failure

 A 26 year old man has today revealed his plans for becoming accomplished at something.

Whereas the mass of the population will simply get things done, Mike Hayes, currently unemployed, has painstakingly amassed a great stockpile of insults and put-downs which will one day soon prove invaluable.

"At first I thought I was just rubbish at life. However, now I see the genius of my unconscious mind. The ceaseless self-sabotage that is but a means to provide me with an ever-growing consortium of people saying that I'm useless; which will soon reach a critical mass,  a tipping-point, when I shall stand for their disapprobation no longer. It is at that point that, when the night is darkest, the dawn of my life shall break."

Mike is confident that, though there is no sign of it yet, change is just around the corner. "I have worked harder than anyone I know to harness the explosive power of the oppressed man, and build the foundations of a life that cries, "I shall not be defeated!" Like Freddie Mercury said, "I've had my share of sand kicked in my face, but I've come through!”

"Admittedly he already had a few platinum albums behind him by the time he wrote that. And obviously he had one of the finest singing voices of the century. But that's just the point isn't it. I don’t have anything, which is going to make mine an even greater success story than his."

Man "just going to the toilet"

Michael Heath, 26, "just has to go to the toilet", it has emerged. Mr Heath made fellow TV viewers aware by way of a surprise announcement, at 8:26 yesterday evening.

"Frankly, we were all a bit shocked", said one source, present at the revelation. "We were just hanging out, watching the match and having some laughs, when there was a lull in the banter. Then Mike, kinda sheepishly, just came out with it. It made us all feel a bit awkward."

Robert James, who hosted the evening, told us "I just assumed whenever anyone left the room it was to adjust the thermostat, or maybe reset the router. But after this I'm not sure I'm going to have people round any more."

Upon reaching Mr Heath, he told us, "If you're going to wander round someone's house unescorted it seems only proper to let them know where you're going. That said, I understand nobody really needs to hear it. Hmm."

Dear Vodafone

I have never written a complaint before, however my experience of Vodafone is so bad I feel morally obliged to report it.

Today I rang up to get a PAC code to leave them. My reasons comprised:

- Flat out, to my face, repeated lying by their sales people.
- Terrible phone signal
- Faulty handset, which they then lost for two months, despite me to go into the local Vodafone shop several times.

So, rang up their helpline, and told them as serenely as can be that I was intending to discontinue my contract, and could they please tell me how to go about that. I realised at that point that I had been cut off.

So I rang them again. This time I got sent round the houses (about 4 or 5 different agents) and was offered a deal. After turning this down I got put through to a call centre, who gave me a direct-line number to call to get my PAC code. I called this, and was greeted by the more or less the same options as I when I first called, except that when I pressed "3" this time, the cheery voice simply said "Goodbye!" and hung up.

So I went online.

Brilliant, brilliant chat with online agent 'AineH'. I wish I could fit the transcript in here but sadly that would be impractical. S/he asked me some unusually extensive security questions, then refused to give me the PAC code until I had listened to an offer (I'd requested it very politely several times).

I accepted on the basis that s/he would give me the PAC code after I had listened to the offer. S/he then asked me a load more questions about my needs, which I answered, before she finally issued an offer. I listened, politely declined, and again requested my PAC code. True to form, it was again demanded of me that I explain why.

I explained that I requested the PAC code because she had promised that she would give me the PAC code. She said it would take a few minutes. I was then told to wait whilst s/he got the manager to see if s/he could change my mind.

At this point I said I would refer him/her to Ofcom. Then I got a load of apologies, and then was told that there was a problem with the PAC code generator.

Meanwhile I rang Vodafone (again), and finally got through to someone who told me that (contrary to what I'd been told before) a PAC code could be generated immediately, and that I didn't have to wait 30 days to cancel my (supposedly rolling) contract after all. I could simply use the PAC code with a new provider, and that would auto-cancel my contract with Vodafone.

During this phone conversation of about 15 minutes, there had been no movement from AineH - who was presumably still  huffing and hand-cranking away at the PAC generator. I told him/her thank you for your help and ended the conversation.

Vodafone, aside from the guy I spoke to online last month who immediately gave me the PAC code - which I was later told was useless because I had to wait 30 days before ending my already expired contract - and the last guy I spoke to on the phone, I truly hate you. By my reckoning your helpful:worse than unhelpful (possibly sadistic) staff, is about 11:1. I must assume that is trained into them, because I refuse to believe that there are so many naturally bad people in the world.

You are awful. Beyond awful. Unspeakably awful. Please, please, please take a long hard look in the mirror, because your business practices are making me lose faith in capitalism.

Yours oh-so-sincerely,

Peter Brown

Dear Dr Gill

Dear Dr Gill,

I used to think I was doing alright. But then I started receiving notifications from Facebook informing me that my profile is a mere 45% complete. Now every day is a  struggle to come to terms with all the time I've wasted, and all that I've left un-done.

I didn’t plan to end up like this, living this half-life. I’m sure you know how it is. You’re young and you think “I’ll give it a miss today; nothing to worry about, I’ll fill out the rest tomorrow.” But the days became weeks, the weeks into months, and the months into years. Every day that passes makes it harder to get going. Now inertia has me in its vice-like grip, which tightens day by day.

Now all I want to do is lie under the sheets listening to “Time” by Pink Floyd, and stare at that taunting, unfilled, “Ryan, where did you go to high school?” box. Where indeed? I don’t even remember anymore.

I feel like I’ve wasted my life. Yes, I have my health, voluntary work, and a job earning 60k a year - which admittedly supports my wife and three kids pretty well. But what’s the point? 45%. That’s the only number that matters.

Ryan, 34

Spring

The UK’s average temperature reached a balmy fourteen degrees today, inducing a state of happy gridlock on the nation’s roads, as blissed-out motorists continue to insist on letting the other car go first.

Warren Sims, 26, zone six resident, told us, “For the past four months I’ve been labouring daily on a series of underground tunnels which will connect the primary locations in which I intent to run down the remaining years of my life; needless to say, work, the pub, and my ground-floor bedsit.”

“You know that scene in Terminator where that little girl is sat, shivering and alone - the only source of warmth or entertainment a tiny fire she’s viewing through a blown-out TV set – manfully awaiting death?  Every night I’d go to bed wishing my life was as good as that. But now it’s even better.”

Another Londoner told us “I’d spent the winter months, mind ablaze with uncharitable thoughts, possibly just to keep itself warm. For example, the bile would rise in my throat each time I’d hear even a single syllable of my ex-girlfriend’s name – which given that one is literally just “a” made life pretty hard.”

“However, now that the sun is shining and a coat is no longer essential survival gear, I can honestly say I want nothing more than to have her and her nice new fiance Gavin round to play Boggle and discuss baby names.”

However, there was a word of warning from narcotics-user Hattie Smiles. “This one time, around 5:30am, I thought I’d been through my ecstasy comedown and emerged, clean as a whistle, on the other side. It was only a few hours later - as I envisioned myself bobbing like a cork on a cold, ocean tide, drifting further and further out to sea - starkly aware of my personhood as contingent on indifferent, soulless factors untold millions of times more powerful than myself - that I realised how tragicomically wrong I’d been.”

Meteorologist, Lyn Davis, confirmed, "March can be a right bitch.”

"Literally" to require licence.

Legislation has today been passed making it illegal for anyone other than registered licence-holders to employ the word “literally”.

Licences will be granted only after a 6-month probationary period has passed, in which a voice-tracking system - implanted in the cheek – has confirmed that use of the word has been restricted to its traditional and actually meaningful meaning.  A rigorously enforced points system - similar to that which applies to motorists – will be used to track the fitness of licence-holders to retain said licence.

However, there are those who feel this new legislation goes against the best traditions of the English language. Figurative/literally-user, Sarah Waters said “To be told that I’m using a word wrongly is absurd.  The English language has no master. It is forever growing and constantly evolving. Just look at Shakespeare. Everyone says how good he was at English and he made up literally ten thousand new words. Literally!”

But Professor Dean, Head of Etymology, Moxbridge University, said  “Such an argument is wrong because - rather than creating something new - a highly particular word for which there are no synonyms, has become synonymous with a word which means its opposite, and for which there are many synonyms.”

“If they had coined, say, “unliterally” the supposed parallel with Shakespeare would be tenable. Instead, it is - allegorically - closer to one of those creeping rainforest plants gradually crawling over some highly valuable, endangered species of plant, and then slowly suffocating it and absorbing its nutrients. Furthermore, have none of you read 1984? The only difference is that in this case The Party doesn’t need to introduce Newspeak because we’re doing it ourselves. Newspeak? No? Nevermind.”

Non-idiot, Jane Leaves said “I do sometimes find the newfangled use of it a bit difficult to keep up with. For example, when someone is telling a lurid anecdote, and they sum up with, “It was so crazy, I literally shit myself!” what is one to assume? Yes one can seek clarification, but wouldn’t it save at least a few social man-hours if they were to substitute the “literally” for, say, “figuratively”, “non-literally”, or even leave it out altogether?”

The debate looks set to continue.