Lancashire Constabulary to set up "Probe Bureau"

In accordance with editorial guidelines established by local news sources, the Lancashire Constabulary have announced that they will roll up all existing investigative departments into a new dedicated superdepartment, the Probe Bureau.

The new Probe Bureau

The Blackburn Bugle today probed Detective Superintendent Austin James, the officer selected to head this new department. When asked why the change was necessary, James replied: "In the current economic climate, it's important that we look to conserve previous resources, and a recent internal audit concluded that 0.83% of our officers' time is taken up writing or typing the word 'investigation'. Of course, with the additional ink use and keyboard wear this entails, something had to be done. Shortening the term to 'probe' is the ideal solution.

"All officers in the Probe Bureau will now be referred to as 'Probers', and the squad cars are named 'Probemobiles'. All officers will be fitted with a consolidated multipurpose 'Probulator' device, which will serve as a baton, mobile phone, handcuffs, coffee stirrer and toupee clip; all the tools a modern Prober needs in the 21st Century."

Drug crime is of course a perennial issue in Blackburn, and a unit will be set up within the Probe Bureau to deal with this unique problem. Police Alsatians will be equipped with special baseball cap and tracksuit uniforms and retrained as Probe Dogs to blend in with local youth and sniff out those hard to find stashes. Police have dubbed this campaign the "Space Probe".

Probes into large scale financial fraud will be the domain of a special, extremely orderly and meticulous unit of the Probe Bureau in their new purpose built Anal Probe building (pictured above) at Greenbank Business Park, Blackburn. "I'll admit it's an unfortunate name", commented Det. Supt. James, "but we'd already paid for the sign when we noticed the error."

The Flow of News: From Facebook to the International Wire

Back in the bad old days, journalists had to go out into the world hunting for stories, attempting to follow developments by hanging onto the coattails of the people involved, spending time driving from place to place or waiting outside in the cold for hours on end.

But then came Facebook. It is to the journalist what the replicator would be to the caveman hungry for his next gazelle. Reporters now sit for hours in front of their feeds hoping for inspiration to present itself, so they can send off some emails, collect some quotes, and weave together a 300 word human interest story.

Last Tuesday, an amateur tattooist from Blackburn posted a cryptic status update, in capitals, about how she was unwilling to change her appearance for anyone. After friends asked for more details, it transpires that she'd just got back from a visit to Blackburn Job Centre, where a clerk had advised Hayley O'Neil (for it is she) that her cheek and lip piercings and tattoos would put off potential employers. He wasn't very tactful about it and apologised during the interview, as it became clear he'd caused offence.

So far so boring, but Tom Moseley at the Lancashire Telegraph didn't think so, and cobbled together a story on it with plenty of emotive quotes from the mother, the standard don't-judge-a-book-by-its-cover cliché, and a stuffy response from the Department for Work and Pensions about how it's standard procedure to give people advice on their appearance.

However, if Facebook is the go-to source for local journalists, it seems local news is the feed from which to pick national stories. Confounding normal boundaries of newsworthiness, the Telegraph ran an article reusing many of the quotes the LT published the day before, but, crucially, misquoting the job centre guy as having told Hayley to put a bag over her head. Of course, the story then exploded its way onto blogs all over the world, even as far as Indonesia and Vietnam.

Inevitably, the comments sections of every site that deemed to relay the story quickly filled up with support for the DWP's stance on the matter, but when the Lancashire Telegraph got desperate for column inches again on a sleepy Sunday, Sam Chadderton elected to share some messages of support for Hayley from piercing and tattoo parlours advertising their "equal opportunities for freaks" policy, somewhat proving the still unnamed job centre employee's original point.

So yes, point and laugh at the girl with the stuff in her face, but she'll have the last laugh now. Dust clouds are rising across East Lancashire from the herds of reality TV talent scouts rushing through the streets to her door.

Heaven on Earth

Ooh, Heaven is a place on Earth. With shutters.

Swingers! Are you looking for a good time in a relaxed environment? Then come down to Heaven and Earth, St. Peter Street, Blackburn. We're offering special rates for single male or couples membership, and single women even get in free! Relax in our sumptuously decorated Social Area and feel your troubles melt away in our mixed sauna, steam room and jacuzzi. You'll have the swingiest time of your life at Heaven on Earth!

Okay, so that's not how today's article in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph read, but it might as well have been. Mr Dhirubhai Patel, the spokesman for the business, can surely expect a massive influx of eager swingers today from the free advertising provided by the paper.

Even more puzzling than the fact that the venue, in the heart of Blackburn's red light district and proudly signed as a "Mixed Sauna" didn't arouse suspicion earlier in its tenancy, the article seems to focus on the venue's proximity to the Cathedral, and notes the objections of two religious leaders, the Rev Kevin Logan and Anjum Anwar, as if their views on this subject were likely to reflect the moral barometer of 21st Century Blackburn.

Borough Councillor Kate Hollern and local jeweller Phil Ainsworth, the two other interviewees, set forth their OUTRAGE and SPEWED their BILE with the following DEVASTATING CONDEMNATIONS:

"I don’t think it’s appropriate." - Kate Hollern

and

"With the new shopping centre, we are trying to encourage more families into the town, and businesses like this opening up make that awkward." - Phil Ainsworth

Of course, any journalist worth his salt would have joined the club posing as a former prime minister and written a gritty, realist piece on the decay of morality in western civilisation and the tragedy of the midlife crisis. He might even have got off with a granny.