Greater Manchester Police have launched a national campaign to warn students about the dangers of having their drinks spiked during Freshers Week, a timely reminder, since someone clearly needs to spike our journalist’s pint if they’re ever going to produce anything half decent.
The campaign, dubbed “Spiking Intensification Week,” is intended to keep students safe while out enjoying themselves in Manchester and beyond. Unfortunately, it has had the side effect of keeping our reporter entirely sober, which explains the joyless cut-and-paste job you’re currently reading.
“It’s a serious criminal offence,” said Detective Superintendent Jen Tattersall, in what was undoubtedly the most interesting thing anyone’s said to our correspondent since his mum told him to ‘get a proper job’. Police are encouraging young people to look out for each other on nights out, which is more than can be said for the sub-editor who was supposed to proof-read this dross before it went online.
GMP officers will be patrolling the city centre, handing out bottle tops and test kits to help prevent spiking. Sadly, none of them are equipped to detect when a journalist has spiked his own copy with half a gallon of clichés and a dash of tedium.
A spokesman for the Rochdale Times said: “Frankly, if someone doesn’t slip him at least two Red Bulls and a creative writing pamphlet by Thursday, we’ll be forced to send him out to cover a WI cake sale instead, because we can’t get Karl out of the meeting room crying into non-existent social media stats. And nobody wants that. The Victoria sponge always wins.”
Readers are reminded that while spiking is a crime and carries serious consequences, there is currently no law against spiking one of our hacks with caffeine, sarcasm, or mild competence.
