The BBC has attracted a lot of criticism in recent years. They had to suffer the indignity of seeing their supposedly 'independent' correspondent Barbara Plett cheerfully admitting that she cried during Yasser Arafat's funeral (and not the tears of joy that corrupt villain's demise warranted, either) and the even more damaging revelation that Blue Peter was ripping off its young viewers in phone-in competitions.

But now they have gone too far. During the Beeb's normally sedate and contemplative Thought For The Day, journalist Clifford Longley mused on the subject of Africa.

The problem with the continent was: "African culture has always lacked a developed sense of common humanity," before going on to claim that Africa suffered from a propensity to "turn to massacre and genocide".

Of course, no genocide has ever occurred in Africa. The mass murders in Rwanda, the Congo, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and countless other African countries are actually our fault, and the West must take all the blame.

Quite rightly, such insensitive comments led to the BBC's Black and Asian Forum to complain that the comments were "racist and xenophobic" as well as the usual rot about Longley being insensitive to other people's hurt feelings.

There's just one flaw -- Longley wasn't making these points himself.

He was actually quoting a Nigerian theologian who has long bemoaned the refusal of African countries to take responsibility for their own actions.

Ooops...

CLIMATE CHANGE? A DELUSUION, MATE

Are you worried about climate change? Do you lie awake at night worrying that your carbon footprint might be responsible for penguins getting sunburn? Well, if you don't, you're obviously a monster who should be sent for therapy and mental realignment.

But make sure you don't go to an Australian shrink.

Australian mental health professionals have just diagnosed the first case of 'Climate Change Delusion' in a patient.

Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, the doctors say that this is "a previously undiagnosed phenomenon" which saw the admitted patient: "had also developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own consumption could lead within days to the deaths of millions of people through exhaustion of water supplies".

I guess Al Gore has been working too hard lately and the stress finally got to him.

YET ANOTHER FAB SURVEY. NOT

As we were informed by one of those typically breathless press releases that sashay into our email every day, "Festival season is now upon us!"

The latest bandwagon jumper comes from a bottled water company -- no, we're not going to name them -- who claim to have conducted a survey of who festival-goers would most like to share a tent with.

And, providing picture desks with easy illustration opportunities, they name check a bunch of famous celebs.

Now, if you see the results of this survey in more gullible newspapers, remember this -- when a PR company says they have conducted a poll, it usually means asking the office junior to come up with a list of names.

PR people are evil and not to be trusted.

Believe me -- I am married to one.

IT COULD HAPPEN TO THE BEST OF US

You know how it is -- it's 8am, you're dying for a beer, you can't remember where you left your clothes and you're not even sure of your own name. Yup, those Monday morning blues.

But Las Vegas resident Charles P Sell wasn't going to let such piffling trifles get in the way of a good time.

After stealing beer from a nearby 7-11, our hero legged it -- still in the nip -- from arriving police officers, hopped onto the back of a moving bus, smashed in the window, climbed inside before throwing the driver out the door and driving for another 200 yards before deciding it was time to make his escape.

Frankly, it sounds like the Terminator movie we would all like to see.

Police have pointed that "the man was possibly on drugs at the time".

Wow -- y'all reckon?

Is it morally wrong to have a sneaking admiration for him?

NURSE! SICK BAG! STAT!

Those of a sensitive disposition might want to look away now.

In fact, as I type this I can't even look at the screen, so xkus ne spllng mstks.

While visiting her charming husband Blake Fielder Civil in chokey, Amy Winehouse decided to pull a Midnight Express and flash her husband through the Perspex window.

According to a horrified officer: "She just pressed herself against the screen. Oh God, I've been a prison officer for 25 years and this was the most disturbing thing I have ever seen. I feel violated."

It later emerged that Fedler Wibble is also exchanging steamy letters with a former junkie and has even suggested that they all have a three-way together.

This is worrying, not just because of the obvious aesthetic horror, but on a simple bacteriological level.

Throw him, Winehouse and some junkie skank into the same dumpster together and they would surely create some mutated strain of STD that would put the Andromeda Strain into the halfpenny place.

Stop them before they bonk again.

- Ian O'Doherty