Apparently "this little pig will stay at home - for fear that nobody will buy a walking bacon sandwich with the face of a monkey." It's touching to see that the Mirror are "doing their bit" for fighting prejudice by affectionately dubbing the monkey pig (no relation to Spider Pig) a "freak piglet". My enduring hope is that this poor creature develops a thick skin and fast (what can one more "alternative" bodily feature hurt?) ...Oh and that it never communicates with its family, given that the pig allegedly "scares the family to even look at it." Sorry, but since when have pigs been a beacon of beauty, possessing the right to assign the dividing line between normal and "beastly"? These animals bathe in mud to cool themselves down. And I don't recall the term "swine" ever being applied to a nice individual.
You see? It's very easy to get carried away with a story that's buried at the back of the newspaper... or showcased on page 3 of the Metro. It's so refreshing to finally find a publication that has its priorities sorted:
"There've been some suicide bombs in Baghdad."
"Right. Big news, eh?"
"You'd be forgiven for thinking that, Gerald."
"Oh, because people are bored of Iraq now, you mean?"
"Sort of. We need an interesting angle. We need some edge, for we're the kooky spit-out-your-coffee-all-over-other-commuters-in-disbelief Metro."
"Right. Well this is fairly outrageous given that over a hundred people were injured."
"But were the bombers human?"
"Sorry?"
"Were there any armed hyenas at the scene?"
"Er…"
“How about irate snails?"
"I don’t think so… no.”
"You don't THINK so? You need to check these things out, Gerald."
"Right. I'll make some... calls?"
"It's my kind of enquiring mind and quality of research that differentiates us from the Times and all those other "proper" papers."
"Yes, sir."
"It's a monkey pig-eat-monkey pig world out there, Gerald. It's up to us to set Britain straight. Well, us and the London Paper.”
I first started keeping my eye on "other news" pieces and local stories after finishing a two-week internship at my own local paper - The Watford Observer. After a few days of subbing, I was finally unleashed onto the fine roads of Watford - following two reporters on a top local story. According to some new ground-breaking research, Watford men are the geographical group least likely (nationally) to change their underwear on a daily basis.
I can still hear the "kerching" sound of a scoop ringing in my ears. Having lived near Watford for most of my life, I could darn well believe it. But the ball-busting editorial team felt they needed hard evidence, and so sent us out to gain some ethnographic insight. To cut a long underwear story short, when local individuals were asked how often they don fresh pants, most felt the need to present their bare backsides to us. I wish I could tell you that I'm joking. Five years and many a disturbing dream later, I still wish to god that I could tell you I'm kidding. Unfortunately, the editors, in their apparent wisdom, wouldn't allow us to communicate the sights (and sounds) we experienced to Observer readers.
Since then, I've been hooked. Hooked on ludicrous stories that some lucky/poor sod has to go away and research - and maybe even conduct interviews on. "Tell me. This monkey pig. What do his family and friends think of him?"
You simply couldn't make it up.
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