Trump shocked to find Hillary already in Oval Office on his first day at work

When Donald Trump stepped into the White House Oval Office the day after his inauguration as 45th president of the USA, he was surprised to find Hillary Clinton already sitting at the desk. Clinton had decided to take up her post after she realised that the election results were rigged and sections of the media had deliberately created the fiction that Trump had won. 'I knew I'd won the election', said Clinton. ‘I spoke to hundreds of people around the USA in the weeks after the vote and most of them confirmed that they'd voted for me. Donald Trump's media lackeys, led by Fox News, thought that by trumpeting out his victory claim they could somehow deprive the American people of the true winner.’ Even White House staff knew that Clinton was really the new president, which is why they let her in on 21 January, once Barack Obama had finally departed for his vacation at Palm Springs. Said Paulo Ortiz, Chief Usher at the White House, 'Hillary came knocking at the door and I just let her in. It was a no-brainer. Trump was a bit slow in arriving that morning, obviously thinking he could just cruise in anytime he wanted.' When Trump saw Clinton, she was already on a three-way teleconference with Angela Merkel and Theresa May, her counterparts across the Atlantic, discussing a strategy for raising the status of women and other stuff. Pokemon Go fanatic and prime minister of Norway, Erna Solberg, was unable to make the call but intends to sign up for future chats. Clinton already had calls lined up with Madonna and Meryl Streep later in the day. Trump was apoplectic and raged at the White House staff for kow-towing to Clinton but even he realised after a while that in a post-truth world there are always winners and losers. Trump refused point-blank even to acknowledge ex-president Bill Clinton who was lounging on a couch in one corner, whatsapping Chelsea, who was travelling abroad.

Cape sunbird noticeably less paranoid than before

Ornithologists in Cape Town have noticed that the well-known Cape Sunbird has slashed the rate at which it moves its head when stationary. Any observer of the beautiful bird, with its stunning colour combination of red, green, blue, grey and white, will have noticed that it constantly turns its head in different directions, when standing on a branch. Because it has eyes on each side of its head it needs to turn all the time, looking for predators and food. Rapid head turning enables it to compare the images from before and after the move to gain depth perception - its brain integrates the 'before' and 'after' to produce a composite image.  However, in recent years the rate of head twisting has plunged. Says Mariel du Toit, a well-known twitcher from Bellville, 'The sunbird used to cock its head every 0.8 seconds on average. However, this has declined across almost the entire population to an average of 1.5 seconds in recent years.' Bird watchers argue over the reasons for this but the most widely held view is that the sunbird is simply becoming less paranoid. There just aren't as many cuckoos and shrikes around as before. ‘It's a psychological phenomenon brought on as the evolving species has twigged that the number of natural predators has declined significantly,’ maintains Mariel. ‘You even see the sunbird more tolerant of other species like the witogie as it has taken on an entirely more benevolent view of the world. Even human proximity appears to have become less of a threat.’ Other ornithologists claim that the sunbird doesn’t need to work so hard to feed itself. The proliferation of garden feeders has made life easy for many sunbirds, so they don’t have to look around so frantically for insects and spiders to eat. Another possible reason is that the sunbird is taking advantage of the exponential growth in marijuana planted in the Cape in recent years. It may be feeding on aphids and other insects that subsist on marijuana buds, so becoming more chilled.

Peninsula arsonists light up their boring lives

17-year old Joe Soap (real name withheld) is over the moon with his latest arsonist exploits, having kindled a blaze above Simonstown which generated a massive response. 'It was such a gas. While everyone was fighting the blaze across the bay above Glencairn, me and my mates sparked a little flare-up above Simonskloof where all the smart homes are. We put it in the western corner so the westerly wind would blow it across the slope right above the houses.' Even for Soap, a veteran fire-lighter in the southern Peninsula despite his youth, the reaction was spectacular. Fire engines and volunteer firefighters poured in from nowhere, shortly followed by three helicopters and a spotter plane. Flames were leaping 30 feet into the air. Soap and his mates doubled round into the village and watched the action from near the yacht club. There they had ringside seats as the choppers swooped down from the mountain side to scoop buckets full of water, spraying the contents over the fire. It took three days and nights to finally extinguish the blaze. Avers Soap: 'Life is boring when you have no job and live in a squatter camp. Hours and days pass with nothing to do. But once mid-summer comes around and the winds get up you can really get some action. Suddenly everyone's running around, rolling out hoses and firefighters pour in from all over the Peninsula. It's an audio and visual feast with sirens, chopper blades beating the air, and the flames crackling like a thousand paper packets, to say nothing of the heat.' Continues Soap: 'It sure livens up the day....and night. So what if one or two homes go up in smoke? They're all rich, they have proper homes after all.' Soap has a loose connection with other fire-lighting groups around the Western Cape (for instance the Signal Hill and Helderberg cabals) but is careful not to get too close for fear of getting caught. Some journalists have speculated that the arsonists are linked to the Fees Must Fall student groups in the province but Soap says this is pure speculation. He retorts: 'Those dudes don't care what happens to the poorer students when they set fire to buildings on campus. Our work actually creates work opportunities for people, so just about everybody gains.'

North Korea bans singing in harmony

In his 2017 New Year message to the nation, North Korea’s president Kim Jong-Il has announced a ban on singing in harmony and listening to harmonious songs, ignoring a millennium-old Korean tradition of singers accompanying each other to enhance the depth and tone of its vernacular music. The paranoid government has asserted that harmonies are being used for spy communications. The national radio broadcaster already jams numerous incoming radio transmissions on shortwave and has become increasingly concerned that foreign coded messages are being deciphered by sophisticated audio equipment which unpacks the resonances of human voices combined at certain pitches. Enya, the Irish singer, who does all her own harmonies, has criticised the ban as ridiculous. ‘Nothing could be further from my mind than secret coding when I combine my various voices on each song. It’s a tragedy: I have a loyal North Korean fan base which will now be deprived of my music.’ However, the North Korean secret service has long suspected Enya of being used by foreign spy agencies to transmit revolutionary messages to Korea. Jim McLeod, a retired CIA audio specialist says: ‘It’s well known that when you reach a certain pitch singing in the bathroom, for instance, something special can happen which amplifies your voice well beyond its normal range. Then, when voices are combined in the bathroom in harmony, the interplay of sounds can reach another level entirely. The North Koreans suspect that advanced techniques using these principles are being adapted to send coded messages over the airwaves.’ Worse still, the North Koreans are taking this further by banning harmonies at live concerts. North Korean scientists have convinced the president (or maybe the other way around) that, at certain frequencies, live harmonised voices can mess with your brain and body and induce non-orthodox behaviour. Non-orthodoxy of any kind is regarded as a dire threat to national security. The ruling states that singers who want to perform in groups must either all sing the same notes in the same key or vocalise their individual parts separately, forcing the audience to process the components themselves rather than have the whole, insidious package transmitted to them.