The Poplar Tree was unavailable for comment.

Ever have one of those days when you’re feeling really good, in fact rather too good? Usually I’d recommend a good session of watching Jersey Shore or My Super Sweet Sixteen to bring your cynicism levels up to just shy of a simmering rage, but you’ll be relieved to know that there’s another alternative. Simply look at the Daily Mail website.

Yesterday a 13 year old named Sophie Howard was unfortunately fatally injured when a branch fell from a tree as she sat on a park bench. She was taken to hospital but later died from her injuries. It’s an unfortunate story, yet a simple one. It’s been handled with great sympathy and care by all of the major news outlets, all bar one. The fucking Daily Mail.

Their headline (which has been changed now, spineless knee-jerk journalism fans) reads “Girl, 13, crushed to death by a falling branch as she sat on park bench because her teachers were out on strike”.

Take a moment for that to sink in. Read it again if you can’t believe it. You’re beginning to forget that it’s Friday and oh-so-nearly the weekend aren’t you? That good mood you were in? Evaporating like dog piss in a shaft of sunlight. That warm sensation you’re getting? That’s not the gorgeous sunshine beaming down – that’s your blood beginning to boil.

They even perform the famous journalistic act of backing this up with the opinion of a random somebody who can express exactly the point the Mail were trying to make (if the headline isn’t obvious enough) – in this case an “angry parent” who “wrote on Twitter afterwards” (I.e. some copy made up by the journalist in question knowing full well it’ll be next to impossible to actually validate the statement).

“She should have been safe at school, she was just sat on a bench talking with friends....it could have been my daughter.”



A different broken branch.  Not the broken branch from
the report, but an innocent bystander.

 The article proves that it’s now scientifically possible to blame anything on absolutely anybody. They may as well blame God for his basically flawed Poplar design with its aesthetically pleasing but essentially easily-removed branches, or the designer of the park for being fucking stupid enough for the completely outlandish and maverick design idea of placing a park bench under a tree. In fact, sod it, let’s blame God for it. If he hadn't made it a glorious sunny day then Sophie Howard would have been safe inside. In fact fuck it - let's hold him solely responsible for inventing trees in the first place. Evil, evil trees. Sponging off the state and giving us nothing in return, except producing lovely breathable oxygen.

In typical Daily Mail style lets expect some striking revelations over the next few days; It’ll turn out the Poplar tree in question arrived here as a seed on the wind from Eastern Europe and has been happily claiming benefits for the past thirty years for himself, his wife and their twelve young saplings. Or that a neighboring Oak Tree will remark how “The Poplar tree was very quiet. Always kept himself to himself. Never would have expected he turned out to be a murderer” or possibly “I’m sure I heard him cry Allahu Akbah before he did the deed”.

But I jest. That’d be fucking stupid. As stupid as blaming strike action on the unfortunate death of a teenager.

Addendum: The ever astute Holly has noticed the Daily Mails excellent selection of photographs to accompany the piece. Look at the article on the Mail on the link above to see what she means. Look at them. LOOK AT THEM. There. Your weekend is ruined.

Liz Jones: An Appeal for leniency

Liz Jones isn’t like you and me. She has a purpose. Much like Uatu the Watcher from the Marvel Universe, Liz isn’t so much a participant in this crazy game we call life – she’s more of an observer. When she received her 30 pieces of Silver from the Daily Mail several years back, something very magical happened – she achieved something very few of us ever achieve, apart from Zen Monks with a Serenity level of 86 (+3 meditation bonus) – she ascended to a higher plane of existence. Along with Richard Littlejohn (“The Bile of a Thousand Diseased Spleens”, as he’s referred to in the arcane forbidden texts) she’s the closest that we mere mortals have to a God.

You know the feeling you get when you’re in a plane and gawp mawkishly out the drool-encrusted window and say “Ooh, the people look just like ants” as though you’re the first person to ever say it and even when the words are coming out of your mouth, you know they’re going to sound idiotic and clichéd? That’s how Liz Jones sees us all. Waking or sleeping, breathing or dying – She views us all as little more than chaotic firing neurons crudely housed in bags of tissue and water.

Her writings may appear thoughtless and heartless to some, controversial to others. But let’s not be so quick to point the finger of accusation – Liz would love to write like she did before “the transformation”. Many lovingly remember her touching articles about her horse, or how Exmoor helped her forget about her dead husband – beautifully written and elegant pieces, I’m sure you’ll agree. But those days are long behind her now. Her ascendance to a higher plane has made her a better human being than any of us, and she struggles on a daily basis to remember quite what she was before. Indeed, with every passing day, she loses a little more humanity. We should pity her for this, not hate her.

Her journey to a higher level of existence was not without disappointment; Far from being transformed into a glorious creature of light and joy, her physical frame remained unaltered. The fact that even with her higher powers she still resembles Dorian Green from Birds of a Feather with a wasting disease must be a source of constant grief to her.Let’s take the recent controversial story about Joanna Yates. At first glance it appears to be the ramblings of a self-obsessed over-paid completely-out-of-touch-with-reality journalist with terrible writing skills, but I ask, nay implore you, look at it from the perspective of Liz Jones.

With the superior intellect that comes with her new found powers, how can she be expected to empathize with the species she once belonged to? With her ever-increasing lack of humanity, how can we blame her for equating not having enough money for a toll-booth to the murder of a young girl? What are 50 pence pieces to a God? What are ANY of us?  Is it really evil, with the lack of humanity of Liz, to wish that Joanna Yates had had her last night at a better establishment, and perhaps even a decent veggie burger?

So, please read these words. We must not hate Liz Jones. We must pity her.  If only for the fact that with her new-found powers she could destroy you with but a single thought.