US trade deal will require UK to accept horrible American food

The Government is edging closer to a trade deal with the US. The UK has accepted, in principle, that it will have to receive imports of various disgusting American food items.  It has also accepted that many UK citizens will probably ‘snarf them down’ like proper Yanks, with all that means for their health and hospital waiting lists.

One area of heated discussion has been soft drinks.  The US has insisted that the UK accepts a tenfold increase in imports of Dr Pepper, a disgustingly flavoured soft drink with no apparent merits whatsoever. The UK has said that it could accept this if the US, in return, accepts consignments of Irn-Bru and Vimto.   A stand-off over imports of Mountain Dew was resolved once the US team explained that it was spelt with a D, not a J.

Another difficult area has been chocolate.  The US is refusing to accept imports of Cadbury’s chocolate, which is made in Poland by an American company, on the grounds that it ‘tastes disgusting’.  The UK is refusing to accept imports of Hershey’s chocolate for exactly the same reason.  The US team was briefly interested in buying Creme Eggs, until they worked out that they were not an acceptable substitute for (increasingly scarce and expensive) hens eggs.

The US is also keen to send millions of American snack cakes to the UK – Twinkies and the like.   The UK is suspicious of any so-called food item that contains unnaturally white sludge in the middle, which raises concerns that they might have been chlorine washed, or irradiated.  And also any foods consisting entirely of glucose/fructose corn syrup and E numbers.   The UK is considering if exporting Mr Kipling’s exceedingly stodgy cakes to the US would be a suitable countermeasure.

However, all differences are expected to be settled soon, and the UK seems likely to accept whatever horrible food that the US can come up with.  This is because the UK government cannot be seen to influence what people eat, as this will be seen as the nanny state gone mad.  UK citizens have freedom of speech and the freedom to ruin their health with bad food choices.   Why else would we have the NHS?

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

23andMe to offer 'What percentage Elon Musk?' option

Elon Musk’s stated determination to have more children, on top of the 14 he has already, raises the possibility that in the future, all living human beings will have at least some Elon Musk in their DNA. 

With this in mind, genealogy company 23andMe has said it plans to offer customers the option of knowing what percentage Elon Musk they are. 

'Of course, this won’t be compulsory,' said the company. 'If you’d rather not know, we can just put it down as ‘South African heritage’.'

As this option isn’t available yet, we have produced this handy guide to determining whether you might be one of Musk’s offspring.

1) Do you have a ridiculous name? If your name is Techno Mechanicus, Seldon Lycurgus, Exa Dark Sideræl or X Æ A-Xii, it’s highly likely you are a child of Musk. However, this test is not considered conclusive, as you may also be a Geldof. 

2) Do you find yourself paying court to vile people, pretending to be impressed by them just because they have power?

3) Do you often fire people for no reason, then frantically rehire them when you realise they were doing something important?

4) Do you spend a fortune building spacecraft which invariably blow up when you try to launch them?

5) Have you designed a road vehicle so ugly, it actually looks better after it’s been vandalised?

6) Is Amber Heard trying to sleep with you? (NB This only applies if you’ve inherited a lot of Elon’s money.)

7) Do you have a freakishly large puppet head?

8) Are you creepy as hell?

Image by amorimbiotec from Pixabay

Newspaper editors get ready for Donald Trump's pharma tariffs

President Trump says he will announce new tariffs on pharmaceutical goods soon, and will probably describe them as a shot in the arm for US drug companies, or healthy competition, or something.

This advance notice from President Trump gives newspaper editors time to polish up some medical puns for their headlines.

‘Strong medicine’ would be a suitable short, but slightly lazy headline. More sophisticated efforts might include ‘stop taking the tablets’ or ‘fly in the ointment’. More desperate efforts could include ‘anti-buy-otics’, ‘tariffs on depression meds are a real downer’, ‘medicine balls’, ‘now you’ll just have to make do with sex and rock’n’roll’ and ‘now it’s harder to get Viagra’.

You can expect Donald Trump to be referred to as a drug lord or medicine man and his tariffs as ‘a drug on the market’ and/or ‘an ill wind’. Or how about 'Trump calls in sick'. Or 'Trump's prescription'? In comparison, British invalids, and the workshy, will be 'worried sick'.

You can expect plenty of pill references – bitter pill, poison pill, no sugaring the pill, for example. Unhappy pills, perhaps. ‘Trump imposes tariffs on suppositories by the backdoor’ is a possibility. Not really what you’d want to read at breakfast time. But hey! - if it sells newspapers....

Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay