I have to start by saying that the BBC rocks.

Seriously, how many news services can deliver a straight-faced story about crop circles caused by wallabies high on poppies?  And I had never once considered the possibility that these smaller cousins of the kangaroo had Gummi-Bear-jumping-here-and-there-and-everywhere powers when under the influence of an opiate. Surely they’d need said jumping abilities to cross continents and states, popping up all over the world and leaving behind tamped down grass and earth in a concentric circle.

To think, all this time I’d been pinning the blame solely on aliens in circular spacecraft.

But I have to admit the wallaby story just reaffirms my passion for the stoic-faced Brits pounding out these stories for online consumption. The BBC first caught my attention, and my undying affection, back in 2007 with a story about how the British Army was in no way responsible for unleashing man-eating badgers on the villagers of Basra, Iraq.

Yes, you really did just read that last sentence. Go back and read the BBC story for what has to be the single best statement ever delivered and recorded at a press conference. (P.S. If anyone knows where video footage of this moment resides, please let me know. I would love to find out if the British Army spokesman gets through the categorical denial statement with the expression I’ve been imagining for the past few years.)

//