The Metropolitan Police's crack team of highly trained experts in tongue in cheek humour and satire are overstretched due to the high level of potential terror threats posted on social networking sites over the last few weeks.
'It takes years of experience to differentiate between someone having a bit of a giggle, and a full scale threat to national security,' Commented Chief Superintendent Richard Simpson, Head of Sarcasm Detection, 'most members of the force have no sense of irony at all so it takes a very special individual make these distinctions. The sheer volume of tweets has inevitably meant that we may have been unable to pursue the those with more sinister intentions, such as Dara O'Briain.'
The Twitter phenomenon has not gone unnoticed by Al Quaeda who are feared to be using the confusion to organise their movements. Twitter itself has informed the Unit of increasing activity of a member named only as Osamarama whose latest post reads 'Death to all infidels LOL :-D, see you all at my cave 6pm for some serious plotting ;-)' Simpson explained that at first glance the use of smilies may have distracted the overworked officers from the real content of the message.
'It's a real worry,' claimed Simpson 'We can only hope that over time the nation loses it's sense of humour, or the authorities gain one'.
