Author’s note: A rather black take on a feel good story.
Following on from the death of the two Iranian twins joined at the head, the worlds media has noticed an upturn in interest for related stories and is now calling for much greater emphasis on “deformities, mutations and other unusual abnormalities”
The search for more people with deformities follows on from the “wholly unexpected” death of the two twins who were undergoing a lengthy and complex operation to separate them. As the operation progressed, the headlines have moved from “Twins joy at life-saving op” to “World mourns tragic twins” enabling extensive longevity of the story and ensuring maximum sales of memorial editions of papers. This has led editors to call for more stories involving people with unusual afflictions. “Let’s face it,” claimed Andy Coulson, Editor of the News of the World. “Malaria and Cholera are just so dull and easy to cure without any high risk, edge of the seat surgery. What the world wants to see is plucky victims with weird medical conditions, fighting against the odds to have complex operations, preferably with lots of white suited surgeons, scientific sounding names and expensive looking machines.”
Speaking on behalf of the Raffles Hospital and Hotel Chain in Singapore, spokesman Dr Loo Choon Yong, justified the massive media coverage of the operation. He explained that it was important to provide “sensitive and insightful news coverage of an important health issue of direct interest to all people who find themselves joined at the head.” Dr. Loo added that the coverage was in no way meant to support his own career or improve the status of Singaporean hospitals and he was confident that Singapore would become a centre of excellence for such operations in the future, especially now that he had signed exclusive marketing rights with News International. He also emphasised that such operations would be key for pushing forward research and education in modern surgical techniques. “We have already assembled some further patients for the new Fox series ‘Emergency 999 special – Freaks in Surgery.’ We’ve got a baby boy with transparent skin, a woman with all over body hair and an African pigmy with three penises. Lucky devil. They will all be on display in glass walled rooms and we are planning on providing educational access to them for interested scholars, with special family rates and big discounts for coach parties”
It does appear that the upturn in interest has had an affect on other areas, with a number of media personalities now developing unusual malignancies to make themselves more interesting. Robbie Williams and Natalie Appleton have announced that they are Siamese twins who are struggling to cope with a career threatening lack of talent and must now undergo surgery to separate their egos. Kate from Big Brother has announced that she is suffering from a chronic shortage of celebrity party invitations and will be seeking treatment for “dangerously low charisma” and Chris Evans has also announced to a shocked world that he will be undergoing surgery to remove his wife after discovering that her youth had developed a tragic wasting disease and is now over 16.”
The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, denied that the Government would be taking advantage of the current interest in deformities, but did confirm that his official spokesman will now be known as “the man with two faces.”
Sex and Drugs and Growing Old 