Drink rats’ milk, Heather?

Heather Mills“Heather Mills says ‘Drink rats’ milk'” – I actually thought that I’d started reading the Onion, rather than a serious news story, when I saw that headline.

It never ceases to amaze me how difficult Heather Mills makes her own life. She’s clearly targeted a little too often by the press, but she doesn’t exactly help herself, does she?

I actually agree that our dependence on cows’ milk is probably too heavy and there is a case for looking for other sources of lactose, but rats!?!?! Is she serious?

Can you imagine the difficulty in milking a rat? They’re fast buggers, I can tell you, so the chances of being able to get the machine attached to their mini udders would be tough enough. Perhaps someone could invent a way of squeezing a rat and catching the milk that runs out.

Heather also handily suggests cats’ milk as an alternative to cows’ milk as well. Hmm, you can imagine the scene in households up and down the country each morning, can’t you?

‘Darling, I fancy a bowl of cornflakes, could you sort out some milk for me?’

Hubby carries Tiddles into the kitchen and hooks her up to the Felimilka, the milk equivalent of an espresso that produces a perfect measurement of warm, cereal-friendly white stuff.

The other thing I find weird is that Ms Mills is encouraging us to all go vegan, yet is still telling us to get milk from other animal sources. Surely that goes against all vegan principles?

Owww, my brain hurts…

The importance of headlines in SEO

There was an interesting feature in today’s Media Guardian about the potential death of the punning headline in the world of tabloid journalism, with the rise of SEO (Search engine optimisation for the non-techies out there).

Basically, headlines such as ‘Gotcha!’ for the sinking of the Belgrano back in 1982 just won’t cut the mustard in the cut-and-thrust of search engines, because, even though the following article will talk about the news event, the headline has no relation to facts.

As someone who works online and also has spent many a year writing shocking puns to go with copy (‘Monet for old rope’ springs to mind on one art-related feature), I find myself torn between the two.

For example, I probably should have called this entry something like “Pun for the money, two for the SEO”, but that wouldn’t have generated any Google traffic at all.

To be honest, the death of puns is a bit of a shame. I totally understand why getting your website high up on Google is important, but given that the Web is about words a lot of the time, it seems farcical that SEO actually constrains, rather than liberates an online journalist.

Places like the Sun and the Mirror will be hardest hit with the pun ban and it will be interesting to see how they respond to the challenges of SEO and whether they change headlines on articles, once they hit the web.

My personal pun headline goes way back to when I worked on the student newspaper in Sheffield. A colleague had written a review of the latest Star Trek movie, which he had thoroughly enjoyed and came up with the following gem: ‘Rapt in Klingon Film’!

Can Fat Teens Hunt?

When I was working on more! magazine, one of the things we did to pass the time was to come up with the most ludicrous headlines or even magazine coverlines and, potentially, see if they could be turned into features.

We’re talking “I ate my hat and almost died” kinda stupid here (which didn’t ever get written, as far as I’m aware).

I imagine that meetings at the ‘we’re so down with the kids’ BBC3 are similar, because tomorrow night they’re broadcasting a programme called Can Fat Teens Hunt?

Yes, this ‘socially-aware’ programme is dropping 10 kids who live on Burger King and Pizza Hut into the Borneo jungle with a tribe that lives on slugs, insects and other such tasty morsels. The teens are then given a bow and arrow and asked to hunt for their food.

Pretty ridiculous, I’m sure you’ll agree, and I say, what a missed opportunity. They could have combined it with one of their SAS-style programmes.

Why didn’t they turn into some Battle Royale style reality show called Can Fat Teens Be Hunted?

Drop them in the same jungle, but have them try to survive off the land, while they were being pursued by a bunch of teen-hating people determined to humiliate them and see the error of their junk-food eating ways.

Not only would you see the teens trying to live off nothing more than the odd piece of rotten fruit, but you could see how they handle living like Andy McNab in enemy territory, where one false bivouac would leave them open to mortar fire and certain death.

They need people like me in TV, you know!