Rabbit In Your Headlines

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is the fact that I've been writing this blog for over a year now.

But anyway, the BBC news website is great for a number of reasons, but my favourite thing about it is how headlines get truncated on the front page. It often makes them completely nonsensical, while making the stories sound far more interesting than they actually are. You can read them without gaining a shred of new information, in some cases coming away knowing even less than before you saw the headline. At times they literally just seem like a random collection of words. Here, in no particular order, are 10 real examples:

10. Arrests in Israeli settler deaths. - See what I mean? Those are just some words!

9. No charges for 'burglar' stab man. - Possibly written by a child.

8. Milton Keynes pilots travel club. - I've been staring at this one for days and I still couldn't tell you what the fuck is going on.

7. Beetle's beer bottle sex wins Ig. - ...

6. Fox ties to friend under scrutiny. - Headlines involving Defence Secretary Liam Fox always just say 'Fox', which never fails to leave me utterly confused for a split-second, while I wonder how a fox could have such complex social and political interactions.

5. School remembers fire death girls. - At least this one is decipherable, I just find the phrase 'fire death girls' odd.

4. Marsh to miss start of Upstairs. - The actual story: Actress Jean Marsh will miss the start of filming Upstairs Downstairs as she's recovering from a minor stroke. What I thought: Jodie Marsh missed a step and fell down some stairs.

3. Shed sprang cricket monster. - Ok I made that one up. Using a random word generator and the format Noun, Verb, Noun, Noun. But the point is it looks like it could be real. Which all the others of these genuinely are.

2. Luck 'saved shot Facebook grass.' - It's the way those words are in quote marks that really confuses me.

1. Man charged in 1980s rapes probe. - Sorry?

Thanks for reading, the title of this blog is a clever (yes, it is.) play on the brilliant UNKLE/DJ Shadow/Thom Yorke song Rabbit In Your Headlights. I'll leave you with that awesome video, enjoy!