A judge in Missouri resigned after wearing an Elvis Presley wig in court, coming after a disciplinary commission determined he failed to maintain order and decorum. What do you think?

“Either wear a full Elvis costume or don’t even bother showing up to work.”

Bjorn Geisler, Systems Analyst

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“Little Richard gave me 25 to life.”

David Baroody, Retired Volunteer

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“Yet in England they’re required.”

Katie Priest, Lottery Participant

The post Judge Resigns After Wearing Elvis Wig In Court appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—Touting his latest executive order as a historic win for the U.S. economy, President Donald Trump announced Friday that he was mandating a 5,000% increase in all numbers nationwide. “Effective immediately, 100 will now be 5,100 and—I’m reading off the official statistics from my people—500 will be 25,500,” said Trump, speaking from the Oval Office as he told reporters the move would shift decimals “many places” to the right for wages, stock prices, job numbers, gross domestic product, and other vital economic indicators. “Say your net worth is about $20,000. In that case, you’re now a millionaire. And we don’t have to worry about fertility anymore, because this country now has about 17 billion people. These are really tremendous increases that should have gone into effect years ago.” Trump added that if the executive order was as successful as he expected it to be, he might soon shift to increasing some letters.

The post Trump Announces 5,000% Increase In All Numbers appeared first on The Onion.

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Rosalía’s fourth studio album, Lux, has been met with critical acclaim, cracking the Billboard top 10 for the first time in the Spanish pop star’s career. The Onion shares everything you need to know about the artist.

Genre: Música

Musical Influences: Traditional Spanish TikToks

Who She’s Beefing With: B-flat

Frequent Collaborator: King Ferdinand V

Controversies: Making Spanish-language music, despite being from Spain

Often Mistaken For: Woody Guthrie

pH Level: 9

The post Artist Profile: Rosalía appeared first on The Onion.

HILLIARD, OH—Reluctantly admitting to the table that she might have been too quick to judge, local mother Janet Greenbaum told family members Thursday that she was actually quite impressed by the manners of their tattooed restaurant server. “When she first came over to give us our menus, I thought she was in some kind of biker gang, but she turned out to be really polite,” said the 63-year-old mother of two, who remarked that the North Side Grill waitress seemed very smart and well-spoken despite having ruined her “cute little arms” with body art that resembled a “half lady, half skull thing” and a “devil-looking guy.” “Between the tattoos, that haircut, and all those hideous piercings, she looks pretty scary, but underneath, she’s sweet as can be. I’m starting to think she’s never even been to prison!” Greenbaum added that she was also impressed to see a wedding ring on the woman’s finger, although she shuddered to think what kind of man “would marry such a thing.” 

The post Mom Impressed By Tattooed Person’s Manners appeared first on The Onion.

It's Christmas time again, and if you're a megachurch pastor (or one of the 38 members of the pastoral staff), you know that a few robes and cardboard cut-outs of animals won't cut it. You have to take it up a notch. Or a hundred notches.

SPRINGFIELD, VA — As the Department of Homeland Security sought to tighten security across the board for travelers around the country, the Transportation Security Administration announced that anyone who doesn't acquire a Real ID by the appointed deadline will be sent to a screening line manned by Creepy Kevin.

BLOOMINGTON, IN — Local mother Sheila Dunn was reportedly treated to a spontaneous deep-tissue back massage when her five-year-old kid began kicking her back in the middle of the night.

U.S. — In addition to preventing people from entering the United States from various nations around the world, the White House revealed on Tuesday that Minnesota had been added to President Trump's third-world travel ban.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Newly released results of a medical exam proved what many had suspected for years, as an MRI confirmed that President Donald Trump suffers from incurable advanced-stage patriotism.

Get ready for a seriously heartwarming story about a kid planning to show her mom just how much she means to her: This fourth grader is having a bake sale to raise money to get her mom an upper bleph.

Aww! This is seriously so sweet!

When 10-year-old Sarah Watkins noticed that her 52-year-old mom’s upper eyelids were sagging, she wasn’t sure what to do: her mom didn’t just look bad, she looked her age. Fortunately, after learning that the hideous excess skin drooping toward her mom’s eyes is reversible with an upper blepharoplasty procedure—upper bleph for short—Sarah immediately got to work baking the cookies, brownies, and cupcakes to raise the $6,000 her mom will need for the elective surgery.

The best part is that Sarah has yet to even tell her mom about the surprise. As far as her mom knows, Sarah will be raising money for the local food pantry, so you can imagine how delighted Sarah’s mom will be when she hears that her daughter will be paying for the removal of all her ugly redundant eyelid skin.

Hooray!!

According to Sarah, as soon as her mom recovers from the upper bleph, she’s going to start babysitting her younger cousin so she can raise enough money for her mom’s lower bleph, too. After all, what good is the upper bleph if the undereye bags are still there? 

Though Sarah’s mom sadly has way too much skin around her eyes, she clearly did a great job raising such a kindhearted, generous, and hardworking daughter. You go, Sarah!

A shocking revelation has just come to light that proves once and for all that we never really know the people who are close to us: Your otherwise normal friend is very active on LinkedIn.

Absolutely shocking. It’s baffling that someone in your inner circle has been able to live a double life for so long.

According to numerous media sources and eyewitness accounts, the person you’ve known for almost a full decade, the one who seemed like a well-adjusted and productive member of society, is also shadowing as a person who writes long posts on LinkedIn talking about things like maximizing client engagement and how to nail job interviews at marketing firms. It’s like your friend is secretly a completely different person—an alter ego who has completely immersed herself in the bizarre and alien social ecosystem of LinkedIn.

It really is always the people you least expect! This whole thing must be making you rethink everything you knew not just about your friend, but about reality itself.

One of the most surprising things about this Earth-shattering discovery is that when you talk to your friend in real life, there’s absolutely no evidence that she even thinks about LinkedIn at all. You’d never think for a second that the same person with whom you’ve been carrying on regular human conversations for years also goes online to say things like, “Q3 is truly the forgotten quarter, but ignore it at your peril!” and, “AI is totally changing the SEO game…for the better!” We’ll give you a minute to adjust to this news, but we figured it was important for you to know.

It’s almost like your friend has split herself into two entirely different people. One is just an average woman who relates to her fellow humans on a meaningful emotional level, who’s active in her community and is always kind to her friends and family. The other is, according to her LinkedIn profile, a “Client-Oriented Content Specialist And Strategic Storyteller” who “is deeply passionate about building communication solution platforms from the ground up as part of a mission-driven and results-forward team.” It’s really amazing that she was able to hide this part of herself from you, but hopefully you’ll be able to rebuild some of the trust that might have been lost here.

The truly scary thing about your friend’s double life as a LinkedIn super-poster is that it raises all sorts of questions about who else in your community might be logging on to LinkedIn when you’re not around to congratulate strangers on completing three years as a junior copywriter at an advertising firm that writes branded Instagram posts for a cold brew brand that nobody has ever seen in stores and might not actually exist. Anybody you pass on the street could be on their way home to write a 500-word post about cover letter hacks. For all we know, you could be extremely active on LinkedIn. The entire world is built on an edifice of lies and deception, and we all play our sick little roles in keeping the grotesque facade going forever!

Sometimes you see an achievement so impressive you’ve just got to stop and acknowledge how incredible it is, and what we have here is a perfect example: This online fashion retailer finally got this woman to buy a cute $38 top after serving her $2,500 worth of targeted ads on Instagram. 

Victory! Let us all bathe in the glory of this remarkable triumph!

When online boutique Malibu Street Provisions Co first served a targeted ad showcasing their viral Lucia Cotton Racerback to 28-year-old wedding photographer Sandra LaBelle, they had no idea the battle that lay ahead of them. While the cute top in its Dusty Blue colorway definitely caught Sandra’s eye when she saw it for the first time in between her brother’s Instagram story about a weird bug he saw in Mexico and her childhood best friend’s Instagram story showcasing a clip of her Pilates routine, she was parked as a stop light and didn’t want to click through. 

From there, the grueling uphill battle to convert Sandra’s mild interest in the cute top into a sale was on. Malibu Street fired a volley of targeted stories and reels her way, each costing them between 20 and 40 cents, stopping at nothing to get Sandra’s $38 into their PayPal account. From sponsored posts from influencers to free shipping offers, Malibu Street showed Sandra no mercy when it came to feeding her more and more paid advertising. But she held strong. At one point, an offer of a 15% off coupon was enough to get Sandra to click through to the site and sign up for emails and texts in order to receive the discount code, but she quickly lost interest after she discovered that the cute top was sold out in her size. 

But with $1,800 already invested in targeted ads, there was no way Malibu Street was stopping then. Finally, the one-two punch of spending another $700 on ads and restocking the cute top in Sandra’s size gave the result this dedicated retailer had so desperately visualized and hoped for over the past 18 months: Sandra finally ordered the top while on the toilet of her favorite restaurant after a few glasses of wine. 

Yes! May we all revel in this conquest for the ages. 

Let this epic tale of perseverance echo forever in the halls of glory alongside legendary battlefield victories and sports wins. It takes heart, grit, and $2,500 to pull off a win like this, and it’s a triumph we can all share in, even if Sandra ended up returning the top because the color looked nothing like it did in the 1,200 photos she’d seen and the material felt cheap. Hail victory!

No one ever said being the best would come easy. Whether you want to win in the octagon or on the street, toughness and skill aren’t given, they’re earned! It’s time to train! To that end, here are six capybara petting zoos where they’ll look the other way if you want to use one of the capybaras to practice your Brazilian jiu-jitsu holds. 

1. Capybara Acres

The capybaras at Capybara Acres in Pigeon Forge, TN, are healthy and well cared for, but the owners are known to turn a blind eye to visitors roughhousing with their animals. Capybaras barely have any neck at all, which makes them the perfect sparring partners for practicing your rear naked chokes in preparation for the real deal. Plus, the $12 entry fee is good for a full day at Capybara Acres, which is a much better deal than paying double the price for just an hour with a human sparring partner. 

2. Cuddly Capys 

You can give the word “cuddling” an all-new meaning at Cuddly Capys in upstate New York, because the owners there don’t give TWO SHITS if their capybaras are pinned to the ground by aspiring mixed martial artists. With capybara farms as lax as Cuddly Capys, you’ve simply got zero reasons not to get out there and become a champion. 

3. Dave’s Petting Zoo

While some reports state that Dave might ask you to take it easy on his capybaras if he catches you doing guillotines on his giant rodents, others say that a five-spot will help change his mind. If you aren’t afraid of greasing a few capybara wrangler palms, Dave’s could probably replace your regular training gym. 

4. Mr. Capybara’s

Some say that the secret is out and Mr. Capybara’s is now so inundated with fighters that you can’t find a single capybara there who’s not being worked over by a young MMA hopeful. But if you’re willing to show up at the ass crack of dawn, you can still find a rodent to roll with. 

5. (Unnamed Capybara farm, Polaris, MT) 

This little hole-in-the wall is very liberal when it comes to wrangling and wrestling their collection of world class ‘baras. Do you have what it takes to pin all 17 in one day?

6. Capybara World

Yes, despite being the most mainstream capybara petting zoo in the entire nation, the “Disney World of capybara petting zoos” will still let guests get rough-and-tumble with their impressive collection of capybaras of all shapes and sizes, no questions asked. While training with capybaras should always be supplemented with cardio and weight training, there’s no reason you couldn’t replace a traditional gym membership with a Capybara World season pass and spend the majority of your workout time in the pens, just messing around with capybaras. It’s THAT good.

If you like to smile, get ready to throw your computer in the garbage, because this story is one of the saddest things you will ever read: It’s clear that this man’s parrot does not respect him.

How incredibly depressing. Our hearts go out to this man and his tragic situation.

As soon as you start spending time with 35-year-old Sean McNair and his 15-year-old sulphur-crested cockatoo Aristotle it becomes completely obvious that this bird views his human owner with absolute disdain and contempt. The parrot spends most of the day shrieking and knocking over items in Sean’s house with his beak. Whenever Sean tries to pick up the items that Aristotle has knocked over, the parrot starts squawking trying to bite Sean until he agrees to leave the items on the floor. 

Completely devastating. It’s honestly pretty astonishing that any bird feels comfortable displaying this much disrespect to any human.

In every aspect of his life, Aristotle strives to make it known that he has no regard whatsoever for Sean’s dignity or wellbeing. The parrot will occasionally land on Sean’s head and peck at it, then shriek the words “bastard boy” before swooping down the hallway to knock a framed photograph of Sean’s family off the wall. When Sean asks him to stop, Aristotle yells back, “Fat! Fat! Fat! Telephone! Hello! Fat!” and continues his rampage through the house. It’s readily apparent that he puts no stock in anything Sean has to say.

As if this whole situation weren’t already pathetic enough, Sean tries to laugh it off and pretend that his parrot doesn’t treat him like dirt. He’ll say things like, “Aristotle’s got a big personality” when the parrot shits on the floor while squawking the words “bastard” and “telephone” and “mud boy” over and over. And when Aristotle wakes him up in the middle of the night by biting his fingers and screaming “Hello! Fat! Hello! Telephone! Fat!” Sean just explains it away by calling the bird “high maintenance.” The poor guy is in complete denial that his parrot considers him an inferior life form, and it’s honestly heartbreaking to see.

There’s no way to sugarcoat this. This is the saddest thing that has happened in the 21st century and if you disagree you should not be welcome in restaurants or on television. This man’s parrot spends all day denigrating and debasing him, and he just sits there and takes it. Sean continues to provide Aristotle with food, water, and shelter while the parrot trashes his house and calls him “mud boy” and “telephone bastard.” If you’re not openly weeping right now, you officially have no soul!

THE PENTAGON — Following newly established legal precedent, the Pentagon announced today it is recalling Secretary of Defense (and also War) Pete Hegseth to active duty to face charges of violating nearly the entire Uniform Code of Military Justice.

“Secretary Hegseth has made accountability his watchword,” said General Counsel Earl Matthews. “And as he frequently reminds us in staff meetings, he is not above the law. So, based on overwhelming evidence that he has flouted the UCMJ in virtually every waking moment since he hit puberty, we are reinstating his prior rank of tabless bitch Major so he can be appropriately court-martialed.”

The decision followed a legal precedent set last week when the Department publicly condemned Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired Navy captain, for the radical act of suggesting that service members should not follow illegal orders.

“Look, it’s not my place to say that the secretary’s belief that ‘orders are presumed to be lawful’ didn’t exactly fly at Nuremberg,” said Matthews. “But if we're applying the UCMJ retroactively to veterans, it only makes sense to start with the guy live-tweeting war crimes.”

Deputy General Counsel Charles Young confirmed that Hegseth’s service — from active duty to IRR to National Guard from 2003 to 2024 — was now fully open for legal review under the newly established Twitter Doctrine.

“And we’re starting time now,” promised Young. “Technically we started about five seconds after the Department announced an investigation of Senator Kelly on Twitter — social media being, as everyone knows, where all ironclad legal proceedings begin."

"The instant Hegseth tagged Kelly as one of the Seditious Six, I was like ‘sure, let’s start with wrongful interference with an adverse administrative proceeding' (Article 131g). Maybe you’ve never imposed unlawful command influence via tweet, but then, you’re no Pete Hegseth.”

Young rattled off a sampling of charges, noting they barely scratched the surface:

“Those flight hours wasted cosplaying with Top Gun and Special Operations Forces, his bloated security details, giving his cabinet buddies military housing — all slam dunk cases of wrongful disposition of military property (Article 108). Texting war plans to his wife and a journalist over compromised channels? That’s an easy failure to obey a regulation (Article 92), misbehavior before the enemy (Article 99), aiding the enemy (Article 103b), endangerment (Article 114), and offenses concerning government computers (Article 123).

WASHINGTON — Secretary of Defense and also War Pete Hegseth released a memo urging female service members to assume every order from a male superior is "absolutely, unquestionably" lawful, sources confirmed today.

The memo, titled "Trust, Obey, NDA" and addressed to all "deployment 8’s and above," clarified that female troops do not have a right to question orders from male authority figures. 

“It is your sacred duty to follow orders, even when they involve hotel room keycards, burner phones, or suspiciously specific swimsuit contests,” the memo read. “You are a warfighter, not a question-asker.”

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has confirmed what many service members have long feared: “You and your entire generation” indeed missed out on the best time to have served in the military, according to a massive 50-year longitudinal study conducted by retired E-7s with clipboards.

According to the study, which sampled thousands of veterans, respondents gave several reasons why they had served at the best time and everything after they separated was inferior.

“I served in the real Corps,” said Marine veteran Jude O’Farran, who served in the Marine Corps from 2014 to 2019. “Back in my day, we were fighters and brothers. This DEI nonsense would have never flown in my Marine Corps! We solved diversity the right way — by hazing everyone equally.”

“We also pulled out of the ‘Stan- like, how can you be a warrior without a war? That’s like being a glazier with no donuts or whatever,” O’Farran explained, while subtly showing off his right arm’s full sleeve tattoo of a Marine private in dress blues kissing the Statue of Liberty (wearing pasties and a g-string) next to a rendering of a freshly-slain Osama Bin Laden. The sleeve also shows a tiger with diamond eyes, for some reason.

“We had ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ back then which meant I always had a back up plan if someone pissed me off,” said former Navy sailor Jordan Cheng (1993 to 2013) before quickly clarifying, “No, I was definitely not going to tell on someone else but you better believe I had that threat in my back pocket, just in case. I knew all the Friends of Dorothy!”

Cheng and her wife, also a veteran, now live on a small ranch in Oregon and raise golden retrievers.

WASHINGTON — In a stunning display of bureaucratic agility, the Department of Defense announced today that it would immediately begin recouping millions of dollars in pay and benefits from thousands of National Guard troops, following a federal court ruling that their month-long deployment to the nation’s capital was "unlawful."

The ruling, handed down by U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb on Thursday, found that the deployment of over 2,000 troops to Washington, D.C. in August 2025 exceeded statutory authority. While legal scholars debate the constitutional implications of the decision, officials at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) have reached a much simpler conclusion: If the mission was illegal, the timesheets are fake.

"It’s a matter of simple arithmetic," DFAS spokesperson Janet 'The Claw' Harkin said while sharpening a red pencil. "Federal law states that soldiers are paid for 'lawful military service.' Judge Cobb ruled this service was unlawful. Therefore, these soldiers were not, legally speaking, 'serving.' They were essentially just 2,000 heavily-armed tourists engaging in unauthorized cosplay on the National Mall. And the government doesn't pay for vacations."

The recoupment effort, dubbed "Operation Indian Giver," aims to claw back base pay, housing allowances, and the $3.50 per day incidental rate paid to troops who have spent the last three months patrolling D.C. streets, taking selfies, and engaging in what court documents described as "beautification activities."

According to a memo leaked to Duffel Blog, the Pentagon has reclassified the operation from "Civil Disturbance Mission" to "Large Group Loitering Event (Armed)." As a result, all issued paychecks have been retroactively designated as "interest-free loans," which are now due immediately along with a 15% "convenience fee" for the inconvenience of having to ask for them back.

"I don't understand," said Spc. Tanner Higgins, a member of the Ohio National Guard currently stationed outside a Potbelly Sandwich Shop near the White House. "I've been sleeping on a cot in a parking garage since August. I missed my daughter's birthday. I bought a 2026 Dodge Charger with a 29% APR based on this income. Now they’re telling me I was actually just 'volunteering'?"

"Technically, you weren't volunteering," corrected Maj. Gen. William Walker (Ret.), a consultant brought in to explain the legal nuances to angry E-4s. "Volunteers are authorized. You were participants in an 'illegitimate executive adventure.' Think of it less like a deployment and more like you were an accomplice to a very long, very boring crime. We should honestly be charging you for the MREs."

The situation is particularly dire for troops who were deployed from out of state. Judge Cobb’s ruling noted that the use of non-D.C. Guard units violated the Home Rule Act because the Mayor never requested them. DFAS has seized on this detail to deny all travel reimbursements.

"Since the Mayor didn't ask for you, and the President legally couldn't ask for you, you essentially drove a Humvee from Kentucky to D.C. for personal reasons," Harkin explained. "We are deducting the cost of fuel, wear and tear on the vehicle, and the EZ-Pass tolls you skipped. Also, you’re all being charged for unauthorized use of government property (the uniform)."

WASHINGTON — During a joint press conference where the United States and Saudi Arabia celebrated their shared values of exchanging obscene amounts of money, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman presented a dazzling golden bone saw to President Donald Trump.

“This humble token of our friendship epitomizes what makes our relationship so special,” said bin Salman. “The bone saw symbolizes that no obstacle which our nations face is so great it can’t be viciously torn apart with the right tools.”

“This is amazing,” Trump said, drool slipping down his chin as he ogled the high-quality gold. “You know what? I’m going to give you some F-35s, with the employee discount.” The jovial atmosphere of the press conference was then momentarily interrupted when Trump cut his hand after grabbing the sharp end of the instrument, having never actually handled such a tool.

Prior to this meeting, sources indicated that Saudi officials had worried that they might not be able to come up with the perfect “something special” for the famously gift-loving president.

“Frankly, there’s been a lot of competition in terms of greasing the White House’s palm,” complained one Saudi official. “It’s hard to compete with all these other nations giving planes and golden crowns to Trump. But this saw comes from the heart. And probably goes through it. It's really quite special, you know? Something that says, “this is worth a lot of money.”

The saw, crafted with a hand-carved handle of lapis lazuli, diamond-coated teeth, and an inscription that reads "Keep cutting deals, Mr. President," is capable of “slicing through the most persistent of problems,” said bin Salman, “regardless of who…I mean…what they are.”

“Anything,” the prince repeated, eyeing the media pool.

One reporter seemed to take issue with the saw, and asked Trump about a U.S. intelligence report that placed culpability for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death directly on the highest levels of the Saudi government.

“That’s fake news,” said Trump. “But look at this craftsmanship. It's a beautiful bone saw. Solid gold! And you can’t trust the president who was in charge when the intel losers made that assessment. There are two sides to every story, and things happen.”

Saudi Arabia beheads first female robot citizen

The number of robot citizens in Saudi Arabia was reduced back to zero today after Sophia Robot was beheaded in a public square in Riyadh.

Duffel BlogDuffel Blog Staff

Saudi King marks 9/11 anniversary: ‘We lost many good pilots’

“Sure, we didn’t expect them to return, but I knew some of them quite well.”

Duffel BlogDuffel Blog Staff

Trump calls for Constitutional ban on Gold Star families talking about him

Just one week after a Muslim-American Gold Star family criticized him at the Democratic National Convention, Donald Trump called for a constitutional amendment that would ban families who have lost a child to combat from talking about him.

Duffel BlogDuffel Blog Staff

Hegseth announces Pentagon will stop fighting wars, focus on lethality

Department of Defense to rebrand as Also War Department

Duffel BlogDark Laughter

Trump orders Pentagon to conduct military parade and make North Korea pay for it

Trump has ordered planning a massive military parade to be held in downtown Washington, which he promised he would make North Korea pay for

Duffel BlogDuffel Blog Staff

A NEW fully explicit Paddington live erotic cabaret in the West End has been acclaimed by critics. 

The show, in which the nude-under-a-coat bear arrives in London and f**ks his way through the capital, uses animatronic technology to bring Paddington to the stage for the first time and to perform a wide variety of sexual acts, also for the first time.

Critic Thomas Logan, writing for the Evening Standard, said: “It’s not just the stare that’s hard.

“Finally we’re seeing the Paddington the films couldn’t show. The bear who enters not just the Brown’s lives but their bedroom. The bear whose long tongue doesn’t just lick out marmalade pots.

“It’s just as inclusive as the movies, with London showcased in all its ethnic and erotic diversity as one young bear takes them all on. From darkest Peru to the darkroom at Vault 139, he does the lot. The fur is flying. Five stars. Not for younger children.”

Director Eleanor Shaw said: “We’d never thought it possible, but puppetry is so advanced now that it was finally possible to bring Paddington to the stage as its creator originally intended.

“It’s very heartwarming and makes you feel benevolent to the world. Especially the prison scene.”

TRUMP consistently believes everyone loves his muddled anecdotes and offensive quips, and if you follow his tips this Christmas season so could you! Let the master help:  

Believe their enjoyment is unconnected to you having power over them

Everything I say is met with wild enthusiasm because I’m a genius storyteller, not because they’re sycophants who would lap up my vomit with a smile on their face if I told them to. FBI director Kash Patel can testify to that personally. He particularly enjoyed the gherkin.

Be convinced staring open-mouthed is a sign of approval

It means your interlocutor can’t hear enough. Today I announced I would be replacing the dollar with cryptocurrency, followed by my off-the-cuff thoughts on how slavery was actually very positive for blacks. Everyone enjoyed it so much the gape-jawed silence lasted minutes.

Assume anyone who doesn’t like your anecdotes is low IQ

The only reason someone wouldn’t enjoy my discoursing on topics like magnets and water pressure is a low IQ. That’s when – unlike me – they can’t answer tough questions such as ‘Which of these animals makes the sound “quack”?’ In fact the genius Einstein told me he wished he could IQ as good as me. We met when I studied at Princeton.

Adopt a pompous ‘man of the world’ tone

I always like to sound as if I’m so familiar with any subject I’ve grown weary of it, like when I casually refer to murderous dictators and incredibly brutal drug gangs as ‘bad people’. I’m not saying I know everything. Probably only about 900 per cent.

Be confident in telling the same anecdote again and again

There’s nothing better than a long, misremembered anecdote told for the fifth time. I can tell a story 50 or 100 times and it always gets delighted laughter from people like Pam Bondi, Dr Oz and Pete Hegseth. It’s a shame Pete is a war criminal now for killing those Venezuelans, but that’s what friends are for.

Remember never to take crap from women

Nothing ruins a man’s fascinating stream-of-consciousness anecdote more than a woman, not even pretty, asking a question. Deflect it with a harmless joke like ‘Quiet, piggy!’ Or if you lose your patience, ‘Shut up you dumb f**king bitch!’ is fine. I haven’t said it yet but I will soon.

Avoid Jeffrey Epstein anecdotes

Call it storyteller’s instinct, but people don’t want to hear anecdotes about Jeffrey Epstein. They just don’t! In fact the first time I met Epstein I said, ‘Jeff, you are a very bad person and I am not going to do things with you the Epstein files says I did.’ So you can all stop asking.

EVERYBODY loves Reform, while everybody hates prominent Conservatives who lost their seats at the last election. But are there similarities between the two? 

Jonathan Gullis, new Reform UK member

The same simian member for Stoke-on-Trent North who lost his seat last year? No! This former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party has put his past behind him, found new principles and is unrecognisable! They couldn’t be more different.

Similarities: zero

Chris Green, another new Reform UK member

‘It’s a very common name,’ explains Chris, which is why you might think he was the Conservative MP for Bolton West. In fact he is not somebody who the electorate punished for doing nothing for their deprived area, but someone else.

Similarities: none whatsoever

Lia Nici, also new to Reform

How could anyone be the face of change and an alternative to the Uniparty if they’d previously been parliamentary private secretary to Rishi Sunak? ‘I was only there on work experience, which included being MP for Great Grimsby for five years,’ she clarifies.

Similarities: unrelated, have never met

Danny Kruger, MP for East Wiltshire

Danny, an honest man who would never lie to or mislead his constituents, admits he was once a Tory. ‘But only until I got elected and then I changed sides,’ he says, showing off the breathtaking intellect that makes him such an asset to Reform. ‘I’ve not yet been rejected,’ he adds.

Similarities: so tiny not worth mentioning

Dame Andrea Jenkyns, mayor of Lincolnshire

Always a rebel, especially when she was a staunch backer of prime minister Boris Johnson, Jenkyns is literally a different person to the unpopular politician who Leeds South West and Morley kicked out in 2024. ‘I wear a spangly catsuit and sing songs I wrote myself,’ she explains, ‘and that’s what Britain needs.’

Similarities: superficial

Marco Longhi, Adam Holloway, Sir Jake Berry, Maria Caulfield, Henry Smith, and Sarah Atherton, all Conservative MP who lost their seats last year

Any suggestion of bandwagon jumping is a total lie, these politicians who the public voted out agree. ‘We all had a Damascene conversion and realised Reform was the future,’ they chorus in unison.

Similarities: perhaps 0.000001, if that

Conclusion: everyone can spot the difference between reject Tories and new Reform members, for they are not in any way the same. Remember this at the ballot box.

A FATHER explaining to his sons that he coupled school with 13 hours of twilight manual labour a week has realised in hindsight how bizarre that was. 

Stephen Malley, aged 51, was telling his two disbelieving sons that for much of his teenage years he would rise before dawn, collect a heavy bag, walk empty streets delivering newspapers, then go to school, then do the same again in the evening.

He continued: “I got paid a tenner a week for that. Other kids who couldn’t get paper rounds were well jealous. What the f**k?

“Out in the cold and the pissing rain carrying 12 pounds of newsprint – 24 on a Sunday – traipsing round rough estates where every other house had a massive scary dog hurling itself at the door. Seven mornings a week, six evenings a week. That shit was mental.

“I’d arrive at school exhausted. I’d leave school and go straight to the newsagent. Why exactly did my parents put child labour ahead of GCSEs? To save on pocket money?

“If you found out 14-year-olds were setting alarm clocks to deliver your Amazon parcels at 7am you’d think it was weird, right? Some minor celebrity would go on The One Show and launch a campaign to stamp the practice out.”

Son Kayden said: “I do not believe I should have to work until I am 25, and I do not believe Dad.”

It’s been a great week if you like topical memes – Dozy Donnie Trump napping in the dining room or Baseball Bat Pope – with gripping hands and his own Rosary. It probably wasn’t such a good week if you like the British papers to talk about anything apart from Rachel Reeves. As the holiday […]

The post 25 of the funniest posts we’ve seen on Bluesky this week appeared first on The Poke.

There’s a reason that Consumer Reports rated Tesla 27th out of 28 vehicle manufacturers for reliability, and it isn’t because they’re part of a deep state conspiracy to stop Elon Musk from building a Death Star, or whatever his engineers are working on. There have been so many problems with the Cybertruck that we suspect […]

The post This embarrassing design flaw must have Tesla Cybertruck owners everywhere dreading the arrival of the snow appeared first on The Poke.

Going to the office and having to get through your own tedious workload is bad enough, but when a colleague asks you to do something extra, well, that’s the worst. But how can you say no in a way that does not see you in your line manager’s office for a disciplinary? It’s a tricky […]

The post Somebody asked for a professional way to say ‘Cuz I don’t feel like it’ – 21 tactful methods of saying ‘no bloody chance’ at work appeared first on The Poke.

Arizon Senator Mark Kelly has been under attack by Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump lately. The two doofuses in charge of America’s armed forces are claiming that Kelly has betrayed his country with an act of sedition by *checks notes* reminding members of the U.S. Military that they don’t need to follow unlawful or illegal […]

The post Senator Mark Kelly took down Donald Trump by reading out a facts-only comparison of their career highlights and it’s like an especially gruesome kill on a natural history doc appeared first on The Poke.

Another White House press conference with Donald Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and another afternoon spent decoding her particular brand of double talk. This time the conversation was about the missile attack on an alleged drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean Sea. Leavitt found herself defending the second strike, a second strike that murdered the […]

The post Karoline Leavitt claimed the second deadly Venezuela boat strike was in ‘self defence’ and the internet responded as one appeared first on The Poke.