Football “still definitely newsworthy” – BBC

It was a resounding victory for journalism today, after football, rugby, cricket, tennis – as well as many other sports codes including but not limited to curling, archery, bowling, darts, pool, rowing and professional tiddlywinks – were reaffirmed as “still definitely newsworthy and important journalism” by a BBC-funded study.

“For years now our screens have been filled with hundreds and thousands of hours of slow-motion replays, critical analysis and up-to-the-minute updates on everything sports-related, like match scores, financial transfers, or even who is fucking whose wife in the national team,” said a spokesperson for the BBC. “Today, we are pleased to announce that these events are still as important as ever, and deserve their hours-long slots just after international affairs and current events.”

The study has irrefutably proven that football – along with all sport – is still on par with disease, war, political scandals and the myriad other important current events that define our generation and necessitate ceaseless coverage and debate.

“Although football was first started as a social experiment in the 1960s to see how much a human being can be paid for doing as little and as inconsequential, meaningless-in-the-grand-scope-of-the-universe work as possible, it quickly blossomed into something as important as Ebola killing white people, or famine killing brown people, or war,” said the study. “Hence the dozens of channels dedicated to every goddamn fart Lionel Messi makes.”

The study has since been welcomed and applauded by leading institutes of journalism and media studies.

“People misunderstand sport,” said professor Rum Rogeny of the Rhodes School of Journalism and Media Studies. “It’s not an opium of the people designed to distract them with irrelevant and endless arguments about who has the better team or the most trophies and titles or who beat who in the umpteenth iteration of a packet-of-air-kicking-contest between two groups of millionaires. Soccer is relevant. It's the only time God ever does anything on Earth. It’s politics but with a ball. It’s war, but with better hair and fake injuries."

In spite of mounting criticism from dissenting critical voices who steadfastly claim (in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, of course) that sport is a form of ‘soft politics’ that allows you to pretend to take part in pseudo-political arguments without any of the reprisals or repercussions of holding a real political view – much like a child walking around in his father’s oversized shoes in imaginary games of ‘play-play’ – many thousands of normal people around the world have welcomed the study.

“Football is super important,” said a man counting an imaginary list with his fingers. “It has kicking. It has passing. It has tackles – some of these tackles are illegal. Some are in a grey area. These are important debates. Debates which the news tries to distract us from with news like which country is invading which country, or new about stupid so-called ‘mass protests’ in Mexico City.”

The study also definitely ruled out the possibility of think topics, debates, art exhibitions or any kind of cultural thing as ‘news’.

“Even things like massive scientific accomplishments – like a ten-year project to land a tiny satellite on a comet one hundred million miles away – are fucking definitely not news. The thing is, how many people really understand science enough to make an opinion on it? There just isn’t any controversy around these events. How are we supposed to get ceaseless heated debates, long, angry blogposts and opinion columns, pages and pages of incensed comments defiantly touting their entrenched viewpoint, and metres of print responding not just to the story, but also responding to responses - and therefore endless pageviews and unfathomable advertising revenue – out of that boring crap? That’s why we make it more about the little things. Like sexist shirts. Now THAT is news.”

Muse and Abuse would like to invite any reader who didn't understand this to form a very angry opinion about it and write their own blog on why we're a bunch of morons.

Mega videogame conglomeration announce super AAA game

BoD 12: UBTRBC-Fp1 is set to be the biggest game
since Watch Dogs and Destiny.

Following an in-depth study of videogame consumer patterns, development giants Ubisoft and Electronic Arts have today announced their decision to merge with other triple-A videogame developers to bring you the game you’ve always wanted.

“After years of development, and titles like FIFA 2014, Sims 4 and a thousand Call of Duty games, we’ve come to a very simple conclusion,” said head of the development Carl Pipayste. “Innovation and creativity just aren’t what people want. You want sequels, prequels, remakes, spin-offs. As such, we are pleased to announce the greatest videogame of all time: Borderlands of Duty 12: Uncharted Battlefield Tomb-Raiding Brotherhood’s Creed – Dynasty Fallout part 1.

The game, they say, will embracing new digital technologies and contain all the beloved features of other AAA titles.

“Gone are the days where you’d have to walk all the way down to the store to buy the game and actually have to deal with the inconvenience of a game disc and box,” he said. “Now, at a special pre-order price of only $1000, you can buy any one of our eight different collector’s editions, each with their own special, exclusive content. It couldn’t be easier: just pay and we’ll email you a code to redeem a voucher to obtain a product number to activate a digital key to download a special distribution platform to start the download process. Once you’ve done this, just sit back and relax as the game downloads the launcher that downloads the installer that downloads the verification software that downloads the disc image. It’s that simple.”

The move comes just after Electronic Arts celebrated its 20-year-anniversary of releasing the same game again and again.

The two-company conglomerate now say that the always online game (which uses anti-pre-used and limited-multiple-install-DRM) has already scooped massive acclaim and awards from sites like IGN and Gamespot, which have given it a precursory 198 out of 4.

According to reviewers, BoD 12: UBTRBC-Fp1 is the emotive tale of Eric Blake, a white, American male protagonist who wears really big armour and guns down various shades of brown foes whilst wooing the obligatory defenceless, vulnerable female NPC character.

“Some people ask us, ‘but what’s the story? What series of global meltdowns have created a society in which I am forced to mow down ceaseless screaming waves of various thick-accented ethnicities?’” said Pipayste. “We like to think that irrelevant things like ‘narrative’, ‘plot’ and ‘character development’ just get in the way of all the really big guns and really pretty graphics the game brings. For the first time, we’re running a game that looks real. Hell, even I thought I was in the desert mowing down rag-heads with my M249 heavy machine gun.”

"Besides," he added, "it's got incredible graphics and all kinds of cinematic Quick Time Events and tonnes of Downloadable Content and in-game purchases. What more could you want?"

Fans can grab a copy at their nearest gamestore before the sequel comes out next year.

EA celebrates 20th anniversary of releasing the same game

EA Games – Challenge everything (except the core gameplay mechanics and central ideas)

Following the successful launch of their 2014 edition of their FIFA World Cup football game on as many different videogame consoles as profit-makingly possible, videogames giant Electronic Arts (EA) have today celebrated their massive 20-year anniversary of releasing the same sports game.

“We’re just so happy,” said EA CEO Ian Ishals. “It’s taken years of perseverance, of stifling creative thought and internally repressing the resurgence of innovative concepts or new takes on the tired and over-done format of sports games, but we’ve done it.”

FIFA World Cup 2014 Brazil (which was originally penned to be released under the title FIFA Football Game Number 39) is the latest version of their original 2001 gameplay mechanics and basic coding – but the company is already hard at work updating the player names of this game to be released under the title FIFA World Cup Quatar 2022.

“We used to think that making inventive, breathtaking leaps in gameplay or never-before-seen concepts was necessary to make an impact on gaming culture – kind of like the massive change from ICO into Shadow of the Colossus or like they did with Borderlands, seamlessly combining elements of disparate gaming genres into one amazing product,” said head of the FIFA game design team, Cody Haxx, “but then we remembered we make sports and car games. So we just changed the names, shifted some stats, slapped a new coat of graphics on it, and bam! There you go!”

EA, which has been hard at work mastering how to release the same game with the illusion of novelty enough to dupe consumers, first found success in their global franchise The Sims, which has seen enough editions, versions, expansions, sequels and DLC-addons to last a lifetime and is entering its 2,758th instalment.

“What we’ve accomplished with that game is phenomenal,” they said. “You’d think consumers would notice our offering the same DLC pack each time we release a sequel – like we did with that IKEA furniture content pack – but no. They love it so much, they keep coming back for more.”

Fans are ecstatic.

“Taking the ladder out the pool, building a house with no doors to watch your Sims piss themselves, pass out and eventually die… these things never get old!” said 28-year-old gamer Creed Eitkard.

This anniversary celebration comes just one year after the Electronic Arts made history for winning the International Ecological Responsibility Award, for being so utterly dedicated to recycling trash.

South Africans excited for their one day they can afford at Arts fest

South Africans across the country have expressed their unmitigated excitement this morning, saying they cannot wait to travel halfway across the country to enjoy the one day that can spend at this year’s National Festival of the Arts without declaring bankruptcy.

“I’m very excited,” said one Johannesburg resident. “There are hundreds of shows, dozens of food stalls, and a whole range of different clothing stores and other outlets selling stuff that is quite blatantly overpriced. I’m having difficulty deciding which three things I can afford to do.”

Much fervour and hype has met this year’s Festival, with many leading art critics saying that this one is going to be “the fucking weirdest one yet.”

“We know that in the past we’ve had guys in glass boxes sweating blue paint while music plays in the background, and we’ve had contemporary interpretive dance pieces that make you think ‘okay, what the fuck did I just watch?’," said a critic working at Art Times magazine. "Not to mention we've seen in the past a whole bunch of higher-concept plays and theatrical performances that went right over your head, after which you had to pretend to have understood their underlying postmodern and postcolonial thematic bases and socioeconomic critique to not look like a moron in front of your educated friends - but this year is set to make all of that look like a bunch of Leon Schuster films.”

Grahamstown and her inhabitants are now up in a flurry of preparations to get everything ready for the yearly fun and festivity of the NFA.

“I’ve filled up all my bottles and water tanks at the spring, I’ve bought candles and petrol for my generator for when the power goes out, and I’ve made sure I have enough basic foodstuffs in the fridge and pantry before Pick ‘n Pay invariably ups the price of bread, milk and other necessities by 28% each,” said one Grahamstonian who has also moved out of her own bedroom to rent it out to strangers so that she can afford to eat during the NAF week.

“I think everything is ready for just another typical festival week.”

"I'm actually a total pussy" admits man in Tap Out shirt

Following increasing feelings of guilt and shame, Johannesburg resident, Blue Bulls fan and training supplement addict Johannes Berger admitted to reporters that this morning that, despite his 3-sizes-too-small Tap Out gym shirt, totally schweet pecs, seeming violent disposition and tribal barbed-wire tattoos on both arms, he was, in fact, "a total pussy."

"Laaike, you maaight think that I'm laaike this lank angry oke, bru," he said in a statement yesterday morning, "but actually I'm a cowardly , homophobic-and-yet-strangely-homoerotic guy who hides behind the image of a boet you don't mess with. Brutha."

He pushed through his wretched sobs to explain how his social image and the corresponding peer pressure of his screaming-in-the-gym friend circles were forcing him to live a lie.

"The other night at the bar where I go to not enjoy myself and try to start fights, this oke's eyes momentarily passed over my chick and I was forced to do that whole 'what the flip are you flippen' looking at, china? You checkin' my chick, bra? You should chew a brick 'cos you'll lose less teeth that way, guy.' It almost turned into a fight, which I definitely would have lost, even though he was a head shorter than me, much smaller than me and was by himself thereby making him the perfect fighting target for me an my eight friends."

Berger, who has no formal training or experience in boxing, self-defence, fighting or any form of martial arts, including that TapOut MMA crap, said it was only the 'hold me back, okes, or i'll klap this flippen boet' that prevented him from getting the utter crap beated out of him.

"It was a close call," he said. "I've never even been in a fight before, even though I own a small country's GDP worth of Affliction and TapOut Tees."

Berger went on to say that although he has been keeping up a very convincing facade for almost 23 years now, it is only a matter of time before his friends discover how much of a gutless yellow-bellied sack of shit he really is.

"I've already got the crap tattoos, too-taaight kiff gym vest and schweet biceps - there isn't anything more, unless I buy an orange-magged Subaru that is strangely too small for me." he said. "I can't do anything more to prove my boytjiehood. One small slipup and I'm done for."

His friends could not be reached for comment, as they were all too busy screaming at each other by the benchpress section for "one more, boych, come on, push it!".

Man wins coveted Fest award

pic by Richie Diesterheft, Flickr

A 42-year-old man has won the coveted Stranded Bank Standing Ovation award at the Grahamstown National Festival of the Arts this weekend, after wowing audiences with his stunning portrayal of everyday life in South Africa.

The four-day immersion-performance play, which was hosted on a very much appropriate venue (the corner of Debonairs) and had several edge-of-your-seat, heart-gripping acts, such as Being Ignored By Rich People, Reeling Drunk, Passed Out and Getting Forcibly Removed By The Police, has reportedly wowed audiences with its true-to-life depiction of the ordeals poverty-stricken people in South Africa face every day.

According to award selection officials, the in-depth production values were just the first impressive point of the performance.

"Fantastic costumes, and the production values were amazing!" said Jake Manders, one of the selection committee members. "The make up was SO real. The sores on his legs and arms were so lifelike, they even appeared to pustulate with some sort of fake blood. Even the clothing appeared to be really worn in, as if he had worn that shirt for months on end without being able to afford a different one to wear."

"No detail was too small," praised the committee in their evaluation. "Even the smell of unwashed body and untreated tuberculosis was a level of verisimilitude not seen in modern theatre," they said. "Even his stomach grumbled realistically. We just don't know how he does it."

According to sources who knew the performer, the man had starved himself for almost a year and a half for the role.

After manufacturing a detailed and heartbreaking backstory (which involved childhood poverty, no education, and being kicked out of his small shack in Fingo), he went on to eat almost as little as once a day - and even then only small, insubstantial foodstuffs.

"His dedication to the act is mind-blowing," said the committee. "We haven't seen performance art be more lifelike. This borders on the insane method acting prep of Christian Bale and Heath Ledger."

The once-off performance ended yesterday afternoon with the tragic and heart-wrenching finale, in which the man passed away.

"It was very lifelike," said one festival goer. "He moaned a little, held out his hands at the audience members as if for alms, and then... his eyes just went blank. The police came and did a very good job of acting the removal of the body, caution tape and all. I felt like I was watching a real person die."

The man, whose name is not yet known, is set to receive his award (which, in unrelated news, cannot be given posthumously) next week.

B&B wins Fest ovation award

pic from FreeFoto

In what is being described as a shock development in the Arts industry, the local bed and breakfast houses and hotels of Grahamstown have been awarded the coveted Bandard Stank Standing Ovation Award for the 2013 National Arts Festival.

According to the prize selection committee, comprising some of the greatest known art, film and music critics in South Africa, the Grahamstonian accommodation industry's portrayal of housing prices was incredibly, mind-blowingly, stunningly and tautologically incredible.

"Usually it's about R700 per person per night," said famed art critic Preeten Shus. "When we saw their bold, stunning and stone-faced presentations of some R1000 per person per night excluding catering, we were blown away."

This bold performance of such crazy themes of insanity and imagination gone wild, said Shus, was an immediate shoe-in for the award.

"The last time we saw the depiction of such science fiction and what would normally be considered ridiculous was early postmodern Absurdism during the 60s," he said.

Some artists have been angered by this development saying that it denigrates the arts industry.

However, many more have resignedly accepted it.

"We took a look at our bill for the weekend of staying here and performing, and we've really got to hand it to them," said Contemporary Dancer Spinan Twist. "They've done a sterling job of making the absurd a reality."

Runner-ups included the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Rhodes University, who pretended that Tuesday's Braised Club Steak is real meat.

"The DFA had a wonderfully ridiculous claim that they'd take a harder line on diplomacy with our African neighbours, such as Zimbabwe during the elections, but those themes have been kind of done to death by their original director, Thabo Mbeki," said Shus.

"As for the Braised Steak thing, that's just a little to incredulous for our tastes."

Fest-goer admits: "I didn't get it."

Pic: http://cashflow-software.net/
images/ConfusedMan.png

Twenty-seven-year-old Hank Middler, an accountant and part-time blogger from Johannesburg, this morning admitted to reporters from Muse and Abuse that he "just didn't understand anything at all about that play, man."

Middler, who asked not to be named for fear of being called a narrow-minded, alliterate prick by his art-loving, hyper-literate, wine-sipping, vegetarian friends, has been at the National Festival of the Arts in Grahamstown for three days now. Having seen seven shows so far, he has reportedly felt the cognitive ennui building up since Friday's showing of a man in woman's clothing hitting a metal pole with an ANC flag.

"At first I watched a naked Swedish man sitting in a glass box dripping blue paint on himself, and then I watched a play in which the actors only barked at each other," he told us with a sigh. "Now this... I just... I just don't get it."

Despite this deep-seated fear of literary inadequacy, psychologists from the Institute of Looking Clever and Profound and Stuff (ILCPS) have said that there are probably hundreds at the Festival suffering the same debilitating mental block.

"What this poor man doesn't realise is that there are many who don't, to quote, 'connect with the innermost themes and central ideas around which the existential critique of modern society is constructed'," said Theatre psychologist Deep Akchopra.

However, he added, there is much festival-goers can do at least look like they did.

"We strongly recommend working on your 'ahs' and 'hmmm' murmurs of agreement or dissent," he said. "Also, you should sagely scratch your philosophical neckstubble. Bonus points if you're a woman with a beard."

Apparently, even what you wear and how you speak can affect it.

"Wear glasses if you can," said the ILCPS. "Pipes and tweed jackets are a plus. if possible, mention "context" or "post-structuralist approaches" and nod sagely whenever someone uses these key words."

The Institute was quick to warn festinos about following their immediate instincts.

"For the love of God, don't say out loud that the art or performance doesn't mean anything and that perhaps people are reading into it a little too deeply."

However, eventually the intertextuality and representation of maternal conflict within the particarchal discourses might become too much, said the Institute. In this case, they should expose themselves to contrasting material.

"Just go watch David Newton or something. That's about as deep as a contact lens."

Guy two rows behind you now officially biggest prick alive

According to sources from an awards selection committee, the guy sitting two rows behind you chattering away incessantly during that theatre production you were trying to enjoy last night has now been dubbed "the biggest prick currently living on planet Earth".

Nominated by his peers and fellow theatre-goers, the praise for his proficiency in this department was heaped on the man within minutes, after the well-attended premier of this play, held at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.

"That f*$#ing son of  bitch, he's honestly the biggest asshole in the world. Couldn't he just shut the hell up for two seconds?" reads one of the first nominations. Other sterling commendations of his superiority in this field include shining words like "prick-faced loudmouth" and "Blackberry-thumbing knobhead".

According to the selection committee from the Institute of Deciding Who, Exactly, Is The Biggest Douchebag On This Planet (IDWEITBDOTP), 28-year-old fitness instructor John "Boet" Bradshaw from Johannesburg was the immediate stand-out candidate. Apparently, the gym-loving loudmouth outdid even Mit Romney and that guy who always smokes in the nonsmoking section of your favourite restaurant for the coveted award.

"His loudmouth, inane commentary with his equally intellectually-challenged significant other, his tendency to not turn off his phone and always chuckle at his BBM messages, and his grating habit of snapping flash-always-on-and-as-bright-as-bloody-possible photographs of the shows you've paid good money to enjoy were all factors that made him on par with some of the biggest contenders for this award since we started giving it," read the Institution's report.

Historic analysts have come forward with a detailed history of the man's achievements, showing his long history of experience in ruining performance art.

"He's been ruining theatre for years now, but this is his first real recognition for all his hard work," said Histaree Boeks, a record keeper. "Ever since his first days as a six-year-old in a beautiful wedding ceremony, in which he constantly and audibly nagged to go pee-pee, he's been destined for greatness."

However, insiders on the committee have admitted that it was a close battle.

"Apparently, it wasn't until he started crinkling endless Sparkles packets to death that he sealed his prize," said the source, whose name we would have misspelled misspellt mispelt mispelled gotten wrong if we'd actually had to write it out.

Bradshaw will be honoured at a ceremony later this week, where he will join other awardees Kanye West, Lil Wayne, and the guy who recently ruined the Great Gatsby for everyone who's ever read the book.