The Tate Modern: a new definition of “Art”

A Guest Arts and Culture Review by Doctor Anthony Beauregard Peabody (BA Arts, MA Fine Arts, PhD Feminist Brush Theory)

Walking through the twist and turns of this hallowed gallery, you might be tempted to look around, regard the ingenious shapes and striking blobs of colour and bits of string, and loudly proclaim “are you serious, mate?”

If you’re a troglodyte, that is. But, however, you’re not some moaning, murping, whingey, artless, illiterate, soulless, blind, uneducated, lower-middle-class scum, just as I am not. And so you – just like me – would be refreshed and invigorated by the breath-taking display of modern art pieces in this fine curation: a bold and daring redefinition of what “art” really means.

Jean Helion (1904 – 1987)

My review begins - as all great reviews of timeless work do – at the beginning, with French abstractist Helion’s Abstract Composition. Skillfully thrown together in 1934 using bold oils, contrasting schemes and shapes etched using a wonky ruler, the piece is as challenging as it is beautiful. Far from the photo-realistic oil paints of a bygone era, Helion focuses his brush to devastating effect in a neo-performative critique of the Marxo-social feminine ideal. Using his mother as a model and sniffing deeply of the turpentine, Helion’s simplistic shapes remind us of a childhood era of peace, innocence, and fucking around in MSPaint drawing ovals and filling them in with that paintcan thingy. Marvellous, isn’t it?

Piet Mondrian (1872-1944)

Following Helion’s genius is Mondrian’s 1935 seminal chef d’oeuvre, Compostion B. While the name might be lacking in sophistication and hidden meanings, the painting itself is not: he uses white. He uses black. He uses squares. He uses lines. To the untrained eye, it might appear a lacklustre effort – something painted when the crackpipe is empty and you have nothing to eat but dry pasta and butter. But its mastery lies in the white space. We’ll get onto white space in a bit, but rest assured that this is just the first gobsmacking example of artistic brilliance.

Joseph Beuys (1921-1986)

A too-often-heard criticism of art is the requirement for colour, innovation, technique, and “making it at least nice to look at”. However, Beuy’s impromptu oeuvre in 1974, the infamous For the lecture: ‘The Social Organism: a Work of Art’ does away with such retrogressive limitations. A frenzy of chalk and animal-like, kinda-looks-like-a-person-I-guess shapes are drawn together with furious zeal, outlining the social construction of the world and man and beasts places within that ever-shifting, complex web. It’s, like, deep.

Beuy’s profound discontentment with the limitations of conventional art – such as being able to just draw a horse that looks like a goddamn horse – are not capped at his bestial designs: his obliteration of basic writing and spelling that makes your doctor’s script look like calligraphy cement the movement’s deep revolution away from the restriction of the Old Masters.

Unknown author

This next piece is awe defined. While abstractists and modern art turns away from the sour conventions of old, this piece turns that discontentment on itself. Welding and silver-washing steel into a centrepiece, the artist scatters recreations of excrement around it. However, in a galling and audacious shunning of contemporary modern technique, the scat is not, in fact, made from his own faeces. Rather, he makes the puzzling choice of bronze. Why a modern artist would use metalwork when there is a perfectly good belly of shit inside him, ready at any moment to be couched and splattered in a glorious, counter-contemporary cascade into an oily, thick puddle of brilliance, or smeared with his own hands - perhaps mixing it with the period blood of his wife - onto a canvas, is beyond me – but his efforts are, indeed, commendable.

Ceal Floyer (1968)

Simplistic pieces that leave the audience reeling and gawping at the wall are this exhibition's forte, and no piece is no different. Since its creation in a Sainsbury’s in Holborn in June of 2009, Monochrome Till Slip has been leaving audiences gobsmacked. Using just 49 all-white items that cost about 55 pounds sterling, this 30 000-pound masterpiece challenges the viewers conception of not just colour, but value. “What is colour?” he muses; “Is white a colour?” he ponders; “Jesus, have I been binning 30 000 pounds every time I go shopping?” he queries.

Various Authors – white spaces

This aforementioned concept is a central theme in modern art. Indeed, just as famed masters of old were celebrated for producing spectacular work filled with vibrant colours, awe-inspiring figures, and bold techniques, so too do the new masters do exact the same thing just with none of that. Ellsworth Kelly’s (1923-2015) provoking 1974 creation White Curve is just one of these, but the gallery is bedecked with them: a moving tribute to the nothing. For after all, without nothing, how could there be anything? With no paint, no brush, no frame, no material, no content, is art defined in and of itself, or defined as a contrast to purity, to a null, blank nothingness? All technique can only be identified in the absence of such; and all art can only be identified in the absence of art. But then, is this now art? Does a nothing that defines a something make it, indeed, a something itself? I’m very smart. I hope you’re following.

It doesn’t end with Kelly, however: blank canvases bring negative space screaming into fruition. In one example, three blank canvasses hang side-by-side, a stunning riposte to the outmoded ideals of what constitutes a “body of works” or “portfolio”. Are they all just the same blank canvas? Or are they reinterpreted and their meanings recodeified with each subjective appraisal, “um”, “ah”, and “what the fuck is this bullshit”? These works are exquisite: a communico-performative social reconstruction that uses both negativeness and audience to reframe art as a conceptulisational referencing Jurgenialist non-adaptive recreation.

In some cases, it was just a blank wall, with a blanked-out explanation box. Bold. Simple. Beautiful. Genius.

Art as trash; trash as art

By now, many criticisms have been offered as to the value of this art. Not its literal value, as that has been established by art houses and taxpayers, but its value as an artistic project. “This is garbage,” some may cry, from their places at the trough. But this is the exact, surgeon-like accuracy of the artistic project: to challenge the hegemonic conventions of art by using a Thingymajigian approach to High-Balderdashian Obfuscationalism so as to instill an anti-traditionalist critique of the problematic oversimplification of art as “something that’s nice to look at” or “that makes us feel something”.

And they are right. Oft-times, the art is garbage. Crafted from the detritus of society and pulled from council tips, these recreations make us ask “is this really an old blanket?” and “is this really just a dirty bucket squeezed between a milk carton and a Styrofoam brick, a combination that uses elitist posturing and jargon to alienate those who don’t see the Emperor’s New Clothes?”

“What is waste, and what is wasted?” we must question. Regard this following piece:

The material is a bold choice. Flimsy and tacked together at the last minute – just like its premise – it makes the audience wonder ‘wire-we looking at this?’. Of course, the exhibit doesn’t stop there, as it is a cornerstone of modern art is to stray from cliché materials to recreate a new art.

Untitled (toilet paper, wooden floor) is one such offering. This piece, by an unknown author stops you dead in your tracks. Situated not on a wall or in a demarcated area, it breaks the boundaries of the limiting gallery context, a space beleaguered with rules and restrictions. Where you cannot touch other pieces, this sturdy construction from simple toilet paper and the artists excrement is not beset by such limitations. You can even, if you want, touch it, or rub it against your cheek – as I did, several times. A sublime challenge to demoded conventions.

This simple creation is just a fraction of a larger setpiece. Hidden in a smaller tiled exhibition space demarcated merely by traditional signs for males, females, and disabled persons, a series of miniature sculptures in porcelain, paper and steel carry this anti-conventional message to powerful new heights. By drawing on real life gender divisions in society, enforcing them on the audience, and creating a performative space that critiques human waste creation, it makes for truly puissant art.

You see, that is the Tate Modern’s true success. Walking out, the audience is left perplexed and deeply unsettled, questioning the very definition of art itself. Alas, I must admit that this is a feeling that is muted and spoiled by the curators decision to ruin the unilateral, message-laden exhibition with lackluster works by Degas, Monet and that plebiscite's abstractist, Picasso. What is this, the fucking Louvre?

9/10 stars except for the floor for Georgia O'Keeffe

So you want a cock-tale dress?

Can't find the news you're looking for? We'll make it up for you! - Muse and Abuse

We need Free Education now - or we are all screwed

The Issue of Free Education has swept like a blaze - both literally and figuratively - across our nation's campuses. Citing the high cost of education in South Africa, students have taken to the streets with placards to demand that universities be open and free - but these protests often spark riotous outburst, shocking violence, and massive damage to our tertiary institutes. Here, Guest Writer Johan Van Eksteen puts forward a powerful and unconventional argument in favour of delivering every single one of the protesters demands. We think you'll agree.

The past few months on South African campuses have been tumultuous indeed. From Wits and UKZN to Rhodes and UCT, students have flocked en masse to the streets and lecture halls, demanding one simple thing: Free Education.

And yet, many of you (my Dear Readers) are vehemently opposed to this! You flock to social media and huddle in your racist echo chambers muttering trite things about the economy and having meaningless discussions about things as trivial as “long-term sustainability”, “limited funding” and “where the hell is this massive amount of money going to come from?”

However, my dear friends, I believe that there is a very powerful case to be made for universal, free and open tertiary education. It’s not even a case of “can we even do it without destroying our economy”; it’s a case of we must do it ASAP.

Not to address the historical inequalities of our country or deliver on the vague promises of ’94, ’07, ’09 and ’13. Not to restore dignity and parity and to give the poorest an opportunity to improve their lives. And no, not even to create an educated, progressive society that will one day contribute heavily in graduation tax and higher personal taxes (à la Denmark et Germany et Sweden et al) to others who want to benefit from the same free education they did.

No. We need to give them free education because, if we don’t, we are all fucked.

Ask yourself, which is more important: not having to pay an extra 15% tax in your business and personal declarations, or bringing enlightenment and critical thinking to someone who has such a puerile, myopic understanding of the economy, budgetary limitations, and finances?

How can you look at campuses - at the burning Jammie buses, the torched buses at Wits, the charred husks of cars at UKZN – and not see that these people need to read a fucking book as quickly as possible? How can you stand there and watch works of art being piled up and incinerated at UCT, read reports of staff, admin and VCs being harassed and held hostage, and browse photos of law libraries, coffee shops, theatres, and IT buildings being burned to the ground, and not realise that we need to get some fucking knowledge into their brains as soon as is humanly feasible?

How do you – Dear Reader – sit there in your mansions of privilege and greed watching Youtube videos showing protestors expelling parents and stakeholders from meetings because of their race - and NOT recognise the need for free, great education for these screaming buffoons?

Time and time again, illegal, illogical or infeasible demands are made by protestors, asking for free food and accommodation, asking that we abandon Western scientific disciplines, or demanding university staff be forced to donate their salaries or that landlords be forced to rent out their properties at a controlled amount, and you want to remain totally blind to the desperate need this country has for education?

How can you sit there on social media, scrolling past the contempt for and silencing of student media on campuses, the pages and pages of cult-like misinformation, propaganda, fear-mongering and hateful paranoia, not once think “I should be there, on the frontline, fighting to get these kids into the best classroom in the world!”?

Of course, it’s so, so easy for you to retort, “But where will the money come from?” This just shows you all the propaganda you’ve been swallowing.

This protest is being led by some of the finest financial and economic minds of our time. There are hundreds of MA and PhD students in those masses, making informed, rational suggestions. Since day one, there has been a clear and reasonable plan to show where all the billions of rand a year will come from – you just haven’t read it because you’re a racist.

Firstly, we’ll increase taxes by 15%. You know, above the tax increments already outlined in the National Budget '17/'18. It’s not like businesses will respond to this by putting up their prices of basic goods and services, thus negating the increases.

We’ll double the National Budget spending on education, up all the way to 100%. The national budget only pays for stupid things anyway, like the military. It’s not as if our national coffers are put towards Public healthcare, grants and welfare, or social services.

Besides this, we’ve all seen the damning financial documents from Rhodes. Not only will providing free internet, free food, free transport, free accommodation, a team of hundreds of admin staff and lecturers, and access to international academic platforms and libraries cost absolutely nothing, but all universities have literally trillions of Rands just lying around.

In any case, you have to ask yourself this frightening thought: what happens if we don’t give them the education they want so badly?

With just a shitty Matric and no other meaningful qualifications (coupled with irrationality and anger) they could easily become a policeman, or a Member of Parliament, or hell, the next President of South Africa. If you think they’re dangerous and destructive now, just imagine them with powers of law, or control over the financial reserves, or responsibility for the running of the country!!!

Next time you’re about to criticise this student movement, just take a moment to look across that crowd and ask yourself: “Do I want one of these people to be the next Hlaudi, the next Motshekga, the next Bheki Cele, or – god forbid – another Jacob Zuma?!”.

We need free education now, or we are all screwed.

Johan is a guest columnist at Muse and Abuse. Widely renowned for his non-nonsense approach to controversial topics, Johan shines a blinding light of truth on subjects like the hideous scourge of immigration, why white people should vote ANC, why Blackface isn't the real racist problem in SA, and how Black Privilege is an ugly truth that no one wants to admit. He also thinks gay marriage should have been outlawed years ago.

I'm taking a stand against this racist, sexist, privileged, problematic page

The bullshittery has gone on long enough.

I’ve known about this website for a while. “Funny”, you might call it, if you think the racist, sexist oppression of minorities and disenfranchised groups - or expressing an opinion that I don't share - is funny. Too long have we let such privilege go unchecked. For years, this site has been allowed to offend. To trigger. Well, no more.

Finally, I decided I’d do something about it. But, halfway through calling the author a "homophobe" and a "racist" on Twitter, using a trendy, clever hashtag that would definitely have changed the world, I thought I’d actually do something.

So I put away my mug of male tears, crawled out of my offense-free safe space ball pit, said twelve "Hail 'Yonces" and hacked his account. I wasn’t even hard. It was the first password I tried: “Ih8womenKillAllMinoritiesKKKstrangleSmallKittens69”.

Who am I? I’m Angie Davison. I’m a diasexual, brynxagender, polymorphic, fairykin pan-amorous feminist whose preferred pronouns are “zyrdl”, “zyrdlre”, and “xzyv” (LEARN THEM OR I WILL BLOCK YOU) and who identifies as a pan-gendered demi-theist, myxa-romantic pluraphorialist (but I’m not sure about that last one so I’ll see how I feel next week). And I am so DONE with this problematic fuckery.

So why did I hack his blog, you ask? Well, all across the world, in colleges and universities from Britain to America to South Africa, Freedom of Speech is under attack. Every time we - feminists and protesters like myself - say or do something virtuous and pure, hordes of droning troglodytes are allowed to reply with their wrong, stupid opinions. Large rallies of Christians and Republicans, and all flavours of controversial speakers are allowed to poison the air with their vituperative agendas, veiled under a thin pretense of "the right to political association and freedom of expression". They're allowed to lampoon our sacred, holy, universal beliefs. It's sick.

For every paper or publication we ban on campus, another pops up. For every song we get blacklisted on campus, another one takes its place. For every problematic noun or word that gets added to a list of potential Disciplinary Offences, a new one is created. For every dissenting, evil voice whose career and life we destroy on social media through paranoia, virtue signaling, and mob hatred, another one pipes up from the gorgeous, progressive silence.

Universities should be a safe space, where all of us - whether you're a POC, a Critical Studies student or someone fighting for a cause I already support - should be allowed to discuss our ideas freely and safely, without criticism or dissent.

I am done with cis-gender white men thinking they can rule and oppress the world and everyone. These straight, white male scum stereotype and box everyone by their sexual orientation, gender identity, race and sex, and then try to make them feel bad about just being who they are. It’s bullshit. They're a bunch of man-spreading, mansplaining, micro-aggressing bigots who reduce everything around them to an oversimplified straw-man. Every day, they inflict mental and systemic violence on hundreds of people just by being there. Their violence is disgusting. If we want to create a more peaceful, tolerant society, we need to kill them all #YESALLMEN.

MICRO-AGRESSING SCUM.
pic: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:FriedC

They’re probably even worse than second wave, sorry WHITE feminists, who did even less for society. You’d think that fighting for the vote, reducing voting age, securing fair labour laws and working towards our social and sexual emancipation would have been high on the agenda, but no, Becky with the Bitch hair was too busy listening to hubby, wearing pink and making cute cupcakes to stop the OPPRESSIVE PATRIARCHAL SHITLORDS from continuing their shitty, oppressive, democratically elected campaigns of terror into 2016. Worse still, their practices were hugely islamophobic and Eurocentric. How can scum like Ayaan Hirsi Ali have the audacity to criticise other cultures, or tell them how to treat their women? EUGH YOUR FAVES ARE SO PROBLEMATIC.

They didn’t even think of the biggest issues of our time. Things like white guilt and white privilege. As a white female, it sickens me to think of how many white people there are that don’t make effusive, complicated internet confessions of their sins to seem more enlightened and morally superior than those around them. It makes me so angry I almost spilled cappuccino onto my Macbook Pro's keyboard.

Despite there still being a pay gap in some small areas of society when you don’t adjust for job experience, qualification, time off and maternity leave, do they focus their efforts on this? No. And how can they, because they DON’T UNDERSTAND THE WORLD like we – twenty-something unemployed bloggers with four year degrees in Media Studies and Gender studies – do.

How can you begin to lobby for better, more progressive legislation without a spicy FIRE hashtag? How do even consider studying for something like a law degree to ensure that existing legal frameworks that ensure equality between men and women of any race or creed are upheld and followed to the letter without getting to grips with the deep lattice of competing systems of bigotry and prejudice that make me a lot more oppressed than you? How can we work towards a better, more considerate society if we aren’t ostracising those who think differently from us and use words or ideas that offend me?

Let this be a lesson to all of you out there. We are woke. We are watching. The days of this kind of oppressive, unfunny, fuckery that masquerades that “satire” and makes fun of things that I don’t find funny are numbered.

Making fun of Donald Trump or insulting African and traditional leaders who hate gay people is okay. I don't mind if he writes highly charged, ironic posts about how female voices are underrepresented in traditional, academic and legal spheres. I can even support his parodying of Men's Rights Activists. But to make fun of things I don't find funny, or my personal beliefs is a level of privileged fuckery that I won't tolerate. Say one more goddamn word about bell hooks and I’ll give this blog the Blurred Lines treatment: it'll be gone faster than a tweet that disagrees with whatever I say or do.

The choice is yours, boy: Check your privilege and check your hate speech, or Muse and Abuse goes bye-bye.

Trumps wall plans “a good start but not enough” say world’s leaders

Speaking at a United Nations conference in Paris, world leaders today embraced Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s controversial plans for a giant wall, saying “it’s a visionary and necessary move, but at this stage, it’s just not enough.”

“Much more work needs to be done,” said the Presidents and leaders of 193 nations across the globe. “For a start, it’s not high enough. It needs to be taller. Thicker. Larger. Longer. It needs to be covered in surface-to-air-missile launchers, electrified barbed wire and landmines. That’s the only way to be absolutely sure that nothing can get into America. Or, more specifically, out.”

“Just imagine the kind of person who would try to come into our country from the post-apocalyptic hellhole that will be Trump’s America?” said the President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, who – along with his nation – is personally footing the bill for the construction of the gargantuan border wall. “The man might be insane, but he’s right: we need those borders to be utterly impassable.”

He went on to add that Trump’s vision of protecting jobs, healthcare, and welfare were “an inspiration” that all other nations should draw from.

“Again, Trump is right: we need to protect our jobs, our hospitals and our social grants. Right now, there are thousands of Mexicans whose jobs as baristas, social media managers, and website designers will be threatened by a wave of American liberal immigrants. Right now – in places like Mexico and Cuba – millions of dollars are thrown away into giving American immigrants affordable, state-funded healthcare and drugs that aren’t marked up 5000% by greedy pharmaceutical corporations. We must protect what is ours.”

Other presidents agreed and elucidated.

“Trumps aims are sound and well-founded,” said Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel. “As time goes on and the spread of fascism worsens, thousands of people will attempt to escape their authoritarian regimes of hatred and oppression into brighter lands of tolerance and respect for basic human rights. Who knows, maybe some of these immigrants might come from countries that aren’t the future United States?”

However, some political analysis have noted concern for Trump’s plans, saying it could “direly affect” his term of Presidency.

“If the border wall goes up, we have to ask ourselves some important questions,” said head researcher at the Palfron Foundation of International Affairs, Hillary Cuck. “Questions like, ‘where will Donald get undocumented Polish Immigrants to work for him?’, ‘Where will our expensive, handmade toupees come from?’ and, mostly importantly, ‘Who will cut our lawns, clean our pools and take up all the shitty jobs that no one wants?’”

However, supporters are standing by their man.

“He’s gonna be great,” said one man. “He has the brightest 22-year-old hot graduate minds informing his foreign policy, a rich history of making tough decisions – especially on season three of The Apprentice – and sound business acumen. Hell, his corporations have only declared bankruptcy like four times, tops, and he's written a bunch of business books that go all the way up until Chapter 11."

“Besides, it’s not like he’s naïve and wildly unqualified and would get totally walked over by cutthroat Chinese businessmen who would just retaliate punitive duties with their own tax increases and higher duties on Chinese products that America depends on, or get absolutely pawned by political animals like Vladimir Putin… right?”

Disclosure: the brilliant Chapter 11 joke isn't mine.

Critic slams ‘mustfall, pro-transformation movements

Various #(Something)MustFall and pro-transformation movements were issued a scathing indictment this morning, after an Area man and member of AfriForum blasted the group’s manifestos as “unnecessary and moot”.

52-year-old Johannes Botha, a passionate builder and online commenter, today slammed the groups in a brutal refutation, citing statistics that show that South African society is “transformed and representative of the demographics of the country”.

“We hear all these ridiculous claims being thrown around that our country, universities, society and the media still have issues of transformation that urgently need to be addressed, but it’s all lies,” he explained, finishing off his last beer and poking the coals of his braai. “But if you just look more closelier at the country, you’ll see I’m right.”

He explained at some length between glasses of Klipdrift.

“Just look at our universities – they are filled with black people! We look at the cleaners and gardeners and people who sweep up the halls and wipe up the vomit from when Johan junior has had a couple too many - and are they white? No! Just because these okes don’t have ludicrous, high-paying jobs from their dads doesn’t mean we can start to pretend they don’t dominate the economy.”

He continued his stunning dissertation, pausing only to check if 49-year-old domestic worker Thembiswa Mhlanga could hear him from the kitchen.

“It gets worse, just look at the townships and – Thembi?! THEMBI?! KAN JY VIR MY HOOR??? - sorry, just look at townships and prisons. These so-called academics and ‘critical thinkers who have studied this problem for many years and in great detail’ say that society is unequal – but blacks are represented more in society than oppressed whites, in places like jails or low-income housing zones. This kind of reverse racism is disgusting.”

“Then we need only look at employment statistics: if you’re a middle-class white person and you want to go work in a low-wage workhouse making Nike shoes and export trinkets for 17 hours a day, guess how much of a chance you have? We need to start admitting that there are just some places where black people have an unfair advantage over us poor whiteys.”

Stopping momentarily to ensure the inter-leading glass door to the servant’s scullery was properly closed and locked, he went on.

“Then there’s the media – I mean come on, black people are in the news all the time! These ridiculous students complain that there is an absence of black voices and stories in the traditional and digital media, and then they get all picky and angry just because a lot of those stories are about crime and corruption?” he brilliantly noted, sotto voce. “Sometimes I look at the country and think that, hell, there’s so much transformations going on it’s laaike flippen’ Michael Bay is the president.”

He shook his head gravely and tutted.

“Me and all my friends – some of my best ones are black, you know? - agree: Nelson Mandinga is probably sitting in a retirement home in Kunu in abject shock at how his rainbow nation is filled with racist ignoramsuses who are completely out of touch with the history, current affairs and problems of our country. For shame!"

“Hands off our users’ data” say Apple, Google to FBI. “That’s ours!”

The FBI has been dealt a serious blow today, after Apple, Google, Twitter and Facebook banded together to take a stand against “anyone but us tampering with your private data and personal information.”

The union between these massive conglomerates and companies released a joint statement today, blasting the FBI’s desire to have a 'back door' into users' devices and saying that no government agency or outside entity that wasn’t a listed subsidiary of their parent organisations had the right to invade into users’ private spheres.

“We have to take a stand for what is right,” said the letter, which was co-signed by Jack Dorsey (CEO of Twitter), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Sundar Pichai (CEO of Google) and Marissa Mayer who apparently still thinks Yahoo is a thing. “We can’t just let anyone who isn’t one of our technicians, marketing data analysts, stockholders or data miners tamper with or collect our user’s personal information and private data. That would be hugely unethical. “

“To let a company that isn’t us have a free back-door into your divide and personal data would simply be just wrong.”

The letter continued:

“The repercussions of giving organisations who aren’t us - and who didn’t legally bind you with that other document we published but you didn’t read (our user Terms and Condition) - unfettered access to your data is unimaginably dangerous,” it read. “If we let [the FBI] access our data, then they might mine it for demographic data, user trends and usage patterns to create billion-dollar ad-placement algorithms and targeted marketing.”

“Or even worse, they could find your deleted search history.”

Apple now says it would redouble its efforts to protect its devices and software.

“We would never let anyone ever interfere with your device without our permission,” they said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the FBI or a phone repairman fixing your screen of home button in a country without registered Apple repairmen. We would rather totally lock anyone – even legitimate users – out of their devices forever and render them completely unusable forcing you to buy another one than see your private information fall into the hands of someone who isn’t a registered subsidiary of Apple, Inc.”

The united companies were resilient in their defiance.

“We would never give any outside government organisation your personal data,” they said. “Well, except maybe for PRISM and the National Security Agency. But no one else, scout’s honour, cross our hearts!”

However, the FBI has since backed off from its demands, saying it realises “if we got into your phones and Facebook feeds we’d have to sift through all your incredibly boring drivel on social media only to find out you’re not a crazed ISIS cell member.”

However, user reactions have been mixed.

“It’s outrageous!” said one Apple user, Amabaya Nufone. “I have lots of top-secret, sensitive information on my phone. If all those SMSes to my mom, those funny memes my friends sent me over Whatsapp, or my browsing history were to get into the hands of the FBI, who knows what awful things they would do it?”

“I think the FBI are right: we should support them and hand over all our personal information,” said another. “If the cost of protecting our hard-won freedom and democracy is just sacrificing a couple of freedoms and democratic rights, then that’s a price we should all pay gladly. “

“I shudder to think of the future if things continue like this. We could soon be living in an extremist state where you have no privacy or rights and your every movement is scrutinised by fundamentalists dedicated to their particular beliefs – and that's just the government. I haven’t even mentioned what ISIS might do!”

Heartbreak "a billion-dollar industry" - Financial Experts

Has your significant other just abandoned you and utterly shattered your belief in love? Well don’t worry, because you could be giving the economy a much-needed boost, say researchers at the Institute for Market Studies.

Yes, according to scientists at the IMS, having your bitch ex-girlfriend leave you for that douche Bradley and then post all those goddamn ‘#love’ selfies that clutter your feed every waking minute making you realise that love is just a lie our parents rub into us to deal with the howling loneliness that is life might be better than you’d think.

“On the surface, having my ex-wife pack my kids into my car and empty our joint bank account before running off to Spain with the dentist she’s been banging for the last three years seems awful,” said chief researcher for the IMS Ivana Kilmisylf. “But actually, when we look at things like Taylor Swift CD sales, exorbitant legal fees stemming from months-long acrimonious divorce cases, and the massive surge in sales of chocolate, alcohol and high-grade antidepressants, it’s much better for the economy than you’d think.”

Heartbreak is now the fourth most profitable human quality, just after love, fearful paranoia, and hatred.

Pictured: artist's depiction of a burgeoning, health economy

”Just think about it,” he added. “Every time someone buys a needlessly expensive gym membership, fancy clothes or a new haircut to try and recover some shred of self-worth from the harrowing loss of their lover, that’s money flowing into the economy.”

And when you factor in sales of double-choc-nut-fudge ice cream, junk ‘comfort’ foods, terrible romantic-comedy DVDs, and all those stupid impulse credit card purchases you made on Amazon to trick yourself into something vaguely resembling happiness, financial experts say heartbreak could potentially equal love as a GDP booster.

“Sure, it might not be anywhere near the global-economy-steroid market-leaders such as hatred, war, fear, and albums by the irritating boybands,” said Financial Times editor Helen Erth, “but, when you think of all the pointless crap you buy after your boyfriend dumps you and makes out with that skank Mandy right in front of you at your favourite nightclub, then we can easily see how heartbreak is pound-for-pound an equally important contender as happiness, joy or love are.”

"In fact, each photo of that piece of shit and his new whore holding hands or kissing with the goddamn sunset in the background could potentially be worth thousands of dollars,' she added. "I know for sure that it's worth exactly the price of a semi-automatic handgun."

And it’s something economists hope will never change.

“You know, sometimes I imagine a world free of suffering - a world of perfect love and harmony, a world where human beings never go through the stresses and trauma of a troubled relationship, and I shudder,” said Erth. “Christ, can you imagine the fiscal losses we’d have to report?”

University celebrates Internationalism, Multiculturalism with diverse array of stereotypes

Saying they wanted to celebrate the rich and varied heritages of their students both local and international, lecturers and staff at an area University this week celebrated the diverse and fascinating heritages of their campus using a wide and colourful range of stereotypes and cultural oversimplifications.

“We all know that national identities are at their core monolithic and static entities,” said event organiser Carrie Kature, “so what better way to celebrate our wide and diverse collection of peoples, cultural heritages and traditional backgrounds than through a series of reductive representations of complex cultures, such as cliché meals, national dresses out of a 50’s NatGeo mag, and flags?”

And students could not be happier.

“Itsa true-a! They’ra a-celebrayting-a la diversity!” said Italian exchange student and third-year Guido Linguini, working his way through a bowl of pasta while kissing his fingertips. “Eetza so grayta!”

Other students agree.

“Zis ‘is ze faanest way to zelebrate ze rish culture of ma favorit quantree, le France!,” said French postgraduate student Ommelay Du Fromage, munching a croquet-monsiquer and tilting his beret. “I weesh zat all ze kantreez kud zelebrate la culture comme ca!”

The University is already hard at work preparing for its next celebration, South Africa’s heritage day.

We’re really looking forward to Heritage Day,” said the Uni. "So we can celebrate our country's turbulent history and wide array of tribes and peoples by charring some fillet and vors."

USA celebrates 47-year anniversary of faking Moon Landing

It’s another giant leap for mankind today, after the National Aeronautical and Space Agency (NASA) and the United States government celebrated its 47th anniversary of the great Moon Landing Hoax of July 1969.

The elaborate hoax (which was filmed in a Hollywood basement and duped millions of viewers on “live” television) involved meticulous planning and required the silencing of hundreds of thousands of key witnesses and involved parties for nearly 50 years. Even today, it has still got all but ‘a few enlightened geniuses in camper trailers across the globe’ totally fooled.

“It’s incredible,” said then project manager for the intricate cinematographic con, Philemon Greenscreen. “Still to this day, millions of people actually believe we went and landed on the moon. You can’t imagine the amount of work it has taken to keep them all in the dark.”

Greenscreen explained the unfathomable complexities of the massive cover-up.

"We had to train thousands of staff and engineers to make plausible rockets and equipment that we tested in front of crowds of thousands of paid actors."

“Since then, we’ve had to keep hundreds of thousands of scientists, tech developers, researchers, politicians, journalists and employees of the state – who were all involved in the moon landing projects – silent on the whole thing,” he explained. “Then there’s the arduous task of keeping all of our trained actors to one script whose details never change even once over several decades. It’s been hard work.”

The difficulty of their work has lead Greenscreen and many other NASA frauds to reflect on their tireless efforts.

“It’s was tough, but we did it,” said camera operator and the genius behind the fake ‘hammer and feather’ scene, Sian Sfukushun. “And we’re lucky, too: you’d think that by now one of the countless state enemies that we’ve had since the Big Fake of ’69 would blown the lid off this whole thing with irrefutable leaked evidence that we threw it all together with Spielberg in a NASA basement.”

“Sometimes I think of the billions of dollars we spent on space travel and the existing technological advancements alongside plausible, tried-and-tested science that was widely available at the time, and it makes me wonder,” she said.

“With Yuri Gagarin and the incremental improvements to space-travel made in the Apollo missions, it probably would have just been cheaper and simpler just to actually go to the Moon.”