Snooze nixed by 6!
by Micky Hamil
A sudden flurry of activity on the pitch caught the attention of bleary-eyed spectators at Lord's,
yesterday. The unexpected hyper-sprint down wicket by 2nd batsman Greg Botham caused even the usually
motionless umpires to stir and scan the tranquil grounds. A minor program glitch proved to be
responsible for the disturbance, and apologetic techies, who promised the sleepy crowds would not be
woken again, swiftly rectified this.
sorry to wake you...boredom will be resumed in
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Real people have not played "cricket" - that English originated practice of standing still
in the noonday sun, so beloved of Australians and excelled at by West Indian teams - at the
professional level for nearly 5 years. Now a favoured cure for insomnia, only the internationally
famous Lord's playing field remains in regular use (operated by the European Institute of Sleep and
Lucid Dream Studies) for this peculiar game, where robot sides re-enact 'classic' Test matches of the
previous century.
Chronic insomniacs from all over the world come here, and submit themselves to gruelling 3-day
ordeals, locked into cruelly darkened stands and firmly strapped into comfy seats, sufferers are
gently lulled off to the land of nod by a combination of Arlot commentaries and the desperately
boring spectacle of a typical summer day's play. With nothing else whatsoever to do but watch the
game, without any sensory distractions, all but the most severely troubled cases of sleeplessness are
eventually soothed into happy unconsciousness.
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Dead ringers
by Remy Giraud
Barcelona
The relentless tide of VR filth and holo-vision nasties sweeping across much of Western Europe has
now been traced back to its makers here in sunny Barcelona. The Spanish entertainment industry has
always been just a little bit suspect; their favoured bloodthirsty, public bullfighting practices,
and contributions to the previous century's low-budget horror video market, have upset animal rights
organisations and caused headaches for media censors around the world.
Now the furore has begun all over again. Nationally, cloned humans have no legal rights, even though
the doppelganger industry is 1 of Spain's most lucrative exports.
A "pharmaceutical produce classification" renders clones open to grossly commercial
exploitation, even by so-called 'snuff moviemakers', who use them as victims in their grisly 3D
pictures. Spain has teetered on the brink of economic ruin since the country's tourist industry
collapsed, following the capital's virulent anti-Euro protests. Now, with the growing international
prestige of the Sitges Media Festival - a major event of the Spanish cultural calendar despite its
current emphasis on sleaze and violence - authorities are reluctant to force any changes on what they
see as perhaps the only real profit-making business they have left.
The European Commission for Human and Related-Species Rights, have campaigned long and hard for
reforms to existing Spanish law under pressure from various western media-stars, whose illicit clone
doubles have appeared in Spanish media, and remain open to grim exploitation.
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