This is a past issue of ParanoiaPost. Read the latest issue here.

Issue 3 - 29th November 2000

Businesses Cash In On Moon Advertising Space

A top secret plan was recently smuggled out of the Pentagon (Corporatism division). It appears that since the United States laid claim to the Moon, they have been selling advertising space on the surface to fund their drug plantations and alien spaceship development.

The first stage of the plan will be completed by 2005, and involves marking out the paying companies' logo boundaries with nuclear explosions making dotted lines. Missiles will be built at and deployed from the new International Space Station. This will be followed, over the next few years, with a continual volley of nuclear warheads enclosed in large missiles filled with coloured paint. These will be strategically aimed and will, over time, together build up the required logos and pictures.

Rumours suggest that McDonalds are even considering an animated advert. This will be achieved by using several varieties of special reflective paint, which will become visible when a certain light is shined on them from geostationary moon-orbiting satellites. Different frequencies of light will be cycled, creating a crude but effective animated picture.

The adverts will be more or less placed in the fashion shown in the picture. The US government are still in negotiations with Gap, the clothing label; it appears that they wish to include a minor expletive in their advert, which may have to be blanked out from 7 AM to 8 PM.

Mark Moxon Exposed As 'Freak Of Nature'

Reporters attending the popular annual h2g2 Christmas Meetup convention claim to have exposed Mark Moxon, the head Editor of h2g2, as an inhuman being.

Suspicions were first aroused when he ate a chip off his plate using only his long lizard-like tongue, but according to witnesses, the final proof was when he not only raised his eyebrows independantly, but could also wiggle his ears.

'I've never seen anything like it!' commented one witness, who wish to remain unnamed. 'I mean, like, no human could achieve that dexterity. Seeing his ears flip back and forth was totally surreal, man. It was like he was sort of some kind of freaky alien morphing being from Red Dwarf.'

A hidden camera managed to catch Mr 'E.T.' Moxon momentarily touching his nose with his tongue (shown left); the ParanoiaPost medical team have confirmed that there are no records of a human being capable of such a feat.

A delegation of scientists have camped out overnight near to Mr Moxon's residence, hoping to catch him 'doing some kind of freaky alien thing' with the latest technology, including wall-piercing X-Ray telescopes and probing optic fibre cameras. They have been joined by bunches of unshaven students, smoking suspicious substances and variously carrying placards with such messages as 'Go Home, Wierdo Alien Thing' or 'We Welcome You As Our All-Powerful Leader, O Moxon.'

Dutch Researchers Are Destroying h2g2 Culture With Alcohol Poisoning

Vast numbers of Dutch h2g2 researchers have been swarming into the United Kingdom recently, claiming to enjoy the 'social life' and 'nice weather'. However, ParanoiaPost can exclusively reveal that their aim is solely to destroy British researchers, and British morale on h2g2, by poisoning them with vast amounts of alcohol.

The visiting Dutch seem friendly and generous on the outside, but really they are secret agents deployed by a worried Dutch government who fears that British researchers on h2g2 are planning a mass invasion of Amsterdam. Each Dutch researcher is equipped with a special filter implanted in their throats, which removes all traces of alcohol and allows them to drink as much as they like - and encourage others to drink - without harming themselves.

The agents are trained at a special Dutch military base disguised as a brewery, before being sent to Britain under the pretext that they are visiting the h2g2 Meetups. Once here they entice their British counterparts to drink specially prepared beer which is laced with large quantities of pure alcohol.

The researchers that survive this poisoning are then invited to visit the Dutch base; once there they mysteriously disappear, and are replaced with robotic look-alikes. This may have already happened to the h2g2 editorial team, who visited Holland last year.

Columns

Technology Review, with Mavis Thornbury

BT Cellnet Siemens C35 WAP phone

Oooh how loverly a telephone. Smashing. Where's it plug in? It's got lots of funny buttons on it, it's this innovation thing, buttons all over the place instead of a dial. Very convenient you might say but what if you can't find your glasses? The old dials were much easier, you really knew when you'd dialed a number, it would click nicely. I'd better get my grandson to help me with this one.

Well well well, he's got it to do all kinds of amazing things. Rather fascinating. He spent almost half an hour crouched over it, and eventually announced that he'd found out the time of the next train leaving from our local station to Nottingham. Very clever I suppose, but I've got a timetable in the bottom drawer left of the stove in the kitchen, which is hard to read but much more straightforward, and if I don't understand it I can always ring up our Stephen at the station, he's a nice lad and terribly polite, offered to carry my bag only last week, but I'm rambling, I'm meant to be talking about this Sellnet Seamen Warp telephone aren't I.

Well I can't make head or tail of it, and when my grandson tried ringing me on it, I couldn't hear what he was saying on it for anything, no matter how loudly I shouted into it. Funny little thing really. It slips nicely into your handbag but of course there's the bother of finding it again, among all my keys and hankies and that strange pink plastic thing that I can't remember what it is.

Still this technology business always confounds me, I'd love to learn more about it nowadays, all those numbers and things flying round all over the place, and computers.

So, to sum up: This Beet Sellnet Semen Seefire telephone is terribly confusing. And it costs an arm and a leg too, the editor said it was around eighty pounds, that's an awful lot when you think about it. The nice man who delivered it made it sound terribly nice and useful, and apparently it makes you safer, and convinced me to sign for one anyway, just a couple of year's contract, I think it might be worth it after all, but I'll probably never figure out how to use it.

This issue sponsored by: