News from the BBC today that UK Border Agency staff can actually read long words. OK, I may be being overly sarcastic but that is the gist of the story.

On Monday this week, Postman Twat (Alan Johnson, Home Secretary, Labour) banned the import of mephedrone – the latest tabloid drug obsession. Today, the UK Border Agency seized 103kg of the stuff posted from India to the UK – i.e. posted before it was banned. Hardly surprising then that the package came complete with customs documentation giving the exact contents :

They were clearly marked “Methylaminopropan-1-one” – known commonly as methylone – one of the banned compounds.

The BBC breathlessly titles the story as follows :

Suspected mephedrone-type compound seized at airport

Which is the sort of thing you read in the Daily Mail.

Unfortunately, the real truth of the story is then revealed :

The UK Border Agency said the exporter made no attempt to conceal the contents of the seized packages.

They were clearly marked “Methylaminopropan-1-one” – known commonly as methylone – one of the banned compounds.

The agency’s Brodie Clark praised officers for making the “substantial seizure”.

“The UK Border Agency is determined to stop harmful drugs reaching our streets. They devastate communities and destroy lives,” he added.

Basically, the officers are being praised for reading the long chemical sounding words in the customs documentation of an article that had been made illegal to import while it was in transit. Hardly a major story but all dressed up as a major seizure of evil evil drugs of course.

Finally, for some slight amusement from the story, I also noticed the following rather unfortunate conjunction of paragraph title and line :

‘Paranoia’

Ministers say it has been linked to a number of deaths and can caused hallucinations, blood circulation problems, paranoia, fits and delusions.

Paranoia indeed – paranoid Ministers believing that The Daily Mail will not shut up until everything is banned. Which then reminded me of a Daily Mash quote from an earlier Waspsnest post :

Julian Cook, professor of public policy at Reading University, said: “The public is often caught between highly trained experts who have studied a subject in depth and actually know what they are talking about and the bastard, son of a bitch whores we call politicians who spend their entire lives with the throbbing penis of the editor of the Daily Mail lodged firmly inside their filthy, lying mouths.

Enough said I think – filed under S for Shite!