Category: Leeds

What’s that coming over the hill? Is it a monster? Well, in a way, yes; it’s the return of normality.

As the 21st of June breaches the horizon, in a pathetic attempt to stay relevant, Zoom have launched their most realistic platform to date: Zoom Live Indeed, this new platform feels like the least necessary invention since Tango Orange shower gel, leaving many people asking: “Isn’t that just real life?”, and others asking: “Tango shower gel? Can you drink it?”.

The news comes as Zoom plan for a post-COVID utopia in which quizzes, web-cams and waiting rooms (including at the dentists) will no longer exist. In an effort to move with the times, Zoom Live will allow users to interact with each other on a 3D-in-person interface complete with physical touch features and a premium setting that allows you to hug your favourite nan.

The Whip caught up with 51-year-old Charles E. O’Zoom to hear about his experience with the new technology.

“I would just like to begin by stating that I categorically have no relation to the Best Company Culture 2020 winners Zoom. My Irish last name is merely a coincidence and I have no conflict of interest with the 5th most downloaded app of 2020, even though it does seem like a pretty great company with lots to offer the human race and the planet as a whole.

“When I used Zoom Live for the first-time last week, I couldn’t believe how real it made real life feel. I was having a conversation with my friend and it was so realistic that I completely forgot that there wasn’t a screen between us, just air!

“As we concluded our conversation about how funny it would be if a boat got stuck in the Suez Canal one day, I decided to try out the physical touch feature, and reached out to hold my friend’s hand. He immediately started to cry and said: ‘Thank you, Zoom! I haven’t touched anyone in well over a decade. You’re the best company in the world, I think it’s completely right that you don’t pay any tax!’, I agreed with him and we parted ways feeling fulfilled and happy because of Zoom.

“Overall, I was very pleased with Zoom Live and would rate it 11/10.”

The Whip realizes that Charles E. O’Zoom was actually the CEO of Zoom, and regrets writing this article.

As Great Britain, a nation built on aversion to the truth masquerading as politeness and civility, wakes up to the chronic injustices faced by people the world over (many products of our colonial past) questions about our relationship with our history are rightly being asked. The most important question of course being ‘Why won’t anyone think of the statues in all this?!’

The conveniently distracting debate about whether big metal blokes are the best medium by which to express any country’s chequered history has finally turned its unfocused gaze towards the abstract. In an entirely unsurprising turn of events, our boys in blue (not to be confused with the cast of Avatar), have rallied round a cornerstone of their culture, the salty monument to the constabulary that is bacon.

We spoke with West Yorkshire Police Spokesfed Sergeant Hans Cuffs to ask about the motivation behind this protective police protest.

“As police we’re just scared you know. We feel like everyone is after us, and for what? All we’re doing each day is trying to protect people – by arresting them, infringing on their rights, and entrenching systemic inequality whilst demanding more intrusive powers. Why don’t people see that we have their best interests at heart?

“We finally decided to stand up for our heritage and form a protective barrier around the bacon statue on campus, taking ownership of a verbal stick that has too often been used to beat us, in much the same way we beat actual people with actual sticks. Despite no material threat to the statue and a grisly murder happening about 35 metres away, we decided that our vacuous gesture was important and necessary.”

The Whip HQ was broken into by a rival satirical news outlet over the weekend and despite catching the perpetrators on CCTV the West Yorkshire Constabulary have informed us that they must focus their efforts on more ‘Empty diversionary tactics.’

With the UK knee-deep in the third installment of the lockdown trilogy no one wanted, the Many Dealers of Leeds (no relation to the Merry Wives of Windsor) have had to hunt for ever more creative ways to keep the bags flowing and the Covid spread slowing. One dealer, who goes by the street-name ‘Medium Ken’ has taken that responsibility particularly seriously and recently purchased 10 stretch limos for each of his runners, whom he lovingly calls ‘Ken’s little boffins’. We caught up with Ken to hear more about this innovative development in narcotic delivery.

“I mean let’s start off by saying that there wouldn’t even be a pandemic if we didn’t have any 5G masts, let’s say that right away at the start ok.

“But while most people are yet to wake up and unplug from the twat-matrix as I call it, I have noticed a lot of my customers getting more and more paranoid as this hoaxdemic has re-spread like microwaved butter.

“At the end of the day dealing is a customer service game, if my customers aren’t happy, I’m not happy. To that end, I picked up these 10 stretch limos on a bulk deal from a guy who ran a bachelorette party business until a rogue bridesmaid seized control of one of the limos and blocked the EuroTunnel for 48 hours – the business never recovered.

“Now my customers can pick up illicit substances in the midst of a pandemic with confidence! We have a pulley system along the ceiling of the limo to keep the 2 metres distance and after each sale we let a pigeon covered in hand sanitizer fly around to sanitize the limo’s cabin.”

Whilst we cannot condone such a flagrant violation of Covid laws and indeed standard laws, we here at The Whip have been impressed with the ingenuity of the man known as ‘Medium Ken’.

England reached its first major milestone in the gradual return to pre-pandemic normality today, as schools up and down the country opened their doors to the relief of parents of thick kids.

A notable absence from the government’s ‘roadmap for recovery’ has been any concrete guarantees for that most overlooked educational subculture; the University student. With little information available as to when and in what capacity students might one day be able to avoid answering seminar questions in glorious 3D, final year Geography student Anthony Arctica simply cannot avoid the allure of in person teaching and hatched a cunning plan. We caught up with them to find out more.

“I haven’t had in-person teaching in almost an entire year now. I’m not annoyed! Don’t make me come across as annoyed in your article – not that anyone reads them anyway, people only care about the headline. I understand the sacrifices everyone has had to make. My Uncle Terry sacrifices a pig to the Apollo, the Greek God of Plagues, every Thursday after The Chase, but he hasn’t had any luck yet.”

I heard that schools were coming back, and our student house is opposite a school, so I thought – Why the hell not! I traded clothes with a 16-year-old – nothing weird, I paid him £20 and bought him some ciggies too – and I spent the day living out my dreams of in-person education. I’ll be honest, they did cover quite a lot of stuff that I already knew, and a kid in year 7 called me an ‘Atlas Nonce’ when I was having a flick through one in the library, but to be honest it just took me back to my school days.’

The Whip have contacted West Yorkshire Constabulary and reported Mr Arctica to them.

If you hadn’t already guessed, the lad in your flat eating beans out of the tin and blasting Tyler the Creator and Frank Ocean on his second-hand decks is finding life without the boys quite tough indeed.

Swathes of edgy boys, sporty lads and boring blokes are frothing at the mouth for a fresh pint of tart cider or even a whiff of a John Smith’s stained pub carpet. They’re gagging for a Wetherspoons breakfast, craving the feeling of a fresh pair of cords in an Urban Outfitter’s changing room, and desperate for a sit-down chicken katsu curry which they’ll order with no shame at all. You know the type.

Here at The Whip, we took a moment to acknowledge the struggle of these poor, bereft Leeds boys and remind ourselves that everybody is going through something this lockdown.

During these challenging times, we must acknowledge the struggle of those Tinder boys looking for a ‘sesh buddy’, without knowing when the next sesh will be. And those guys who just want someone to adventure with, unaware that it could be months before they can tell a real-life girl with misguided pride that they’re over six foot tall.

The days of tinnies in the park on a bright sunny day, pints of dark fruits outside Terrace and Old Bar and shitty Tesco cocktail tins on the long walk to town are a thing of the past. Come to think of it, all aspects of social alcohol consumption are non-existent unless you count a glass of Gallo rosé on FaceTime with your mum.

The Whip hope these days will soon return and with them, we can return the boring blokes of Leeds to their natural habitat. We just hope that Brudenell and Stone Roses are sufficiently stocked up on dark fruits lest all hell breaks loose.

Making your mark in the workplace is a well-known challenge for new employees. How do you ensure people know who you are? Call you the right name? Don’t mistake you for a well-dressed lamppost?

A plethora of literature exists on this very subject. Books with titles such as ‘How to climb your way to the top and make people hate you on the way’ and ’10 secrets of success: the main secret is to have a lot of money’. Books dictated by people with names like Brunk Dunkley and Flip McGivern who have carved lucrative careers in the vacuous business literature business.

But one new starter, or, in this case, new Starmer, has clearly not sought out any advice from such self-help gurus and is floundering like a tiny dog in a massive pond. Ex-Leeds student Sir Keir Starmer has suffered the same fate as many a recent graduate and accepted the first job offer that came his way, as Leader of the Opposition, despite clearly having no real interest or aptitude for the role. The Whip caught up with one of Sir Keir’s new colleagues, the MP for Polzance West and Shadow Minister for Shawarma and Other Rotating Meats, Yvonne Salad, to hear more about Sir Keir’s first few weeks.

“Well when he first arrived at the office, we all thought that someone’s Uncle was here to take them to a Coldplay gig, but it turns out he’s the new Leader of the Labour Party – so that certainly came as a shock.”

“He has been very visible, and keeps throwing press conferences and saying lots of very important sounding things, but as soon as he’s done saying them, I immediately forget who he is and where I am. He’s like that light-flash machine from Men in Black that makes you forget everything but in human form.”

We here at The Whip of course wish Leeds alumni the greatest of success, but next time we’ll see if Chris Pine is making another Wonder Woman, he was here for a semester abroad wasn’t he?

With a recent wave of law-breaking clandestine club nights coming to the attention of the rozzers, those wishing to throw a Covid friendly party (i.e. a party at which everyone will become intimately friendly with Covid by catching it) are on the lookout for ways to avoid scrutiny and potentially lessen punitive financial action.

One such method, already adopted by many in the retail industry, and briefly seen in pubs during the Great Pub Revival of June 2020 to November 2020, is the one-way system. A fool proof system that can in no way be circumvented and is completely and unequivocally effective, the one-way system was invented by Jules One-Way in 1884 after he walked directly into an oncoming shire horse. The system has seen a recent return to prominence thanks to the invention of the water slide and the popularity of Swedish tat emporium Ikea, both of which owe their continued relevance to the ingenuity of Jules One-Way.

Organiser of Illegal rave orgy night ‘DJs n BJs’, Olivia One-Way (no relation), was desperate to avoid a similar fate to ‘The Covid Arms’ in Birmingham and ‘The Abandoned Factory full of Stinky Crusties’ in Bristol, that saw organisers slapped and tickled with a £10,000 fine. The Whip caught up with Olivia to hear about her thoughtful cautionary plans.

“So basically right, I want to rave, I want to rave hard, I want to rave now, but most importantly, I want to rave safely. With all this Covid knocking about, I want to be able to have sex with strangers and gobble pellets like a horny tortoise, all with an air of consideration and care. So starting from our next illegal rave – inside the freezer of an abandoned vegan butchers in Chegton-On-The-Wold – we’ll have a strict one way system in the makeshift club that will criss-cross back and forth across the room. Also everyone will have to wear facemasks while they put their genitals through holes in the wall. Oh, and you have to sanitise your hands when you come in but not when you leave.”                 

The Whip reached out to Scotland Yard for comment but forgot to put a stamp on our letter so we don’t think they got it.