The opening paragraphs from two articles, one from The BBC and one from The Daily Mash – the question is, which is which?

Article A :

SKY viewers on unemployment benefits will only be allowed to watch documentaries, according to new guidelines.

As part of a radical government overhaul of televised entertainment, those out of work will be only be permitted informative satellite channels.

Article B :

A German student “mooned” a group of Hell’s Angels and hurled a puppy at them before escaping on a stolen bulldozer, police have said.

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OK so I may have made it slightly harder than necessary by choosing a sane Mash article (A if you are still wondering) but this BBC article is certainly up there with some of The Mash’s finest :

A German student “mooned” a group of Hell’s Angels and hurled a puppy at them before escaping on a stolen bulldozer, police have said.

The man drove up to a Hell’s Angels clubhouse near Munich, wearing only a pair of shorts and carrying a puppy.

He dropped his shorts and threw the dog, escaping on a bulldozer from a nearby building site.

He was arrested later at home by police. The 26-year-old is said to have stopped taking depression medication.

After making his getaway on the bulldozer, he had driven so slowly that a 5km tailback built up behind him on the motorway.

After driving about 1km, he had abandoned the bulldozer in the middle of the motorway, near Allershausen. He continued his journey by hitchhiking.

“What motivated him to throw a puppy at the Hell’s Angels is currently unclear,” a police spokesman said.

The puppy is now being cared for in an animal shelter.

You just wonder what on earth motivated him to consider that course of action, especially the bulldozer to escape a bike gang.

Anyway, whilst on the subject of Germany and animals, here is The Daily Mash treatment of the German ban on animal sex which came into effect on January 1st :

THOUSANDS of Germans last night grabbed the nearest available animal and had sex with it.

As the country’s lawmakers moved to outlaw bestiality, zoos, farms and pet shops were inundated with people offering money for one final bout of inter-species coitus.

Hans Schmelling, an architect from Dusseldorf, spoke of his relief after finding a last-minute non-human sex partner.

He said: “I can now tell my children that in 2012 I was one the last Germans to legally penetrate a goose.”

The last line there being one of the most amusing I have read in a long time.

If you doubt the veracity of The Daily Mash, how about their near stablemate, The Daily Mail :

Germany is poised to reinstate an old law forbidding sex with animals after a sharp rise in incidents of bestiality along with websites promoting it.

Parliament begins debating changes to the national Animal Protection Code this week with the agricultural committee of the Bundestag pledging fines of up to £20,000 for a first offence.

Time for me to go and read something sensible I think before I have strange dreams …