ISSUE 17 ARCHIVE - LEON WILDEBEEST'S SCUBA DIVING NEWS NUGGETS

Leon Wildebeest

GREENS Announce SOW

Mission GREENS (Giving REEfs aNd other pretty underwater things an improved chance of Survival) today launched their new Save Our Whales (SOW) initiative, designed to spread global awareness of the plight of whales. Spokesperson Dale Dentician provided the following soundbites in GREENS’ bi-minutely press-release:

“We are delighted today to announce our new global campaign to end the slaughter of whales”, he ‘pp’ed, “For too long these glamorous and fashionable creatures have been seen as nothing more than repositories of valuable oils, blubber and science. It’s time for the whaling industry to stop the slaughter and start the not-slaughter.”

Citing the popular novel Moby Dick, which kept millions out of the water following its release, as an example of the negative publicity attributed to whales, Mission GREENS calls for an end to the culling. “Whales are beautiful, photogenic creatures, with many attributes most people are completely unaware of”, worded Dentician’s PA, “like singing; they love to sing”, he exampled, “and they’re really intelligent. More intelligenter than cows, probably”, he exampled further.

Although Mission GREENS have no tangible conservation strategies in place for the beleaguered whale aside from the press-release(s), they are already targeting other attractive “on-the-brink” species for their portfolio of good. “That’s probably it for the underwater things”, chirped Dentician through a mouthful of cod and chips when we called his marketing metropolis, “but there’s plenty of land-based animals worth keeping”. Particular examples include tigers: “people look at them and think ‘rug’ but no one knows that they’re actually endangered”, rhinos: “likewise but aphrodisiacs” and elephants: “umbrellas”, he virtued. And dodos? “I dunno, I’d have to see a picture”.

Haunted Wreck Proves 1982

The remains of a model of an All-Terrain Armoured Transport (AT-AT) recently discovered in the deep-end of the SportsCo recreational swimming pool in Kegworth, have led to a metaphysical re-examination of the year 1982.

Studley Brogan, head of the formerly-beleaguered facility, says the value of the wreck to philosophical knowledge is “invaluable” and “a real game-changer. Particularly with respect to philosophy graduates born in 1983”.

Brogan first discovered the model during a routine swim in the pool three weeks ago. “I needed to clear my head a bit”, discloses Brogan, “SportsCo were on the brink of bankruptcy and I knew I needed something to reel the punters in. I decided to mix things up a bit by wearing goggles for the first time. I couldn’t believe it when I then saw the wreck in the deep-end”.

Finding a Star Wars toy in the deep-end of a swimming pool is a once in a lifetime experience for anyone, but for Brogan it was just the beginning. “I swam down to get a closer look”, he word-says, “and that’s when I saw an Imperial Tie-Fighter pilot waving at me. It was incredible”. It was also when things started to get eerie.

Brogan is quiet for a moment. When he eventually carries on it is in hushed tones: “He was tiny, really. Only 3.75 inches tall but perfectly to scale. Obviously, when I saw him, I swam right up to him and tried to pinch his head off, but…” Brogan pauses, “but my fingers just went straight through him. He was a ghost!”

It was around this time that the SportsCo owner realised the figurine was communicating with him “He told me he was from 1982 and kept telling me things about the Falklands War and Tottenham Hotspur winning the FA Cup. That’s when I knew that 1982 had happened after all, and my 29 year-old philosophy graduate girlfriend, Jenny, was totally wrong and I was going to tell her she was wrong and probably bring it up whenever she has a go at me for not doing the washing-up or accidentally setting fire to the curtains”.

Jenny wasn’t the only one to find out; suddenly the SportsCo swimming pool was inundated with Scuba Divers intent on discovering the wreck for themselves. “The place has become so popular I’ve had to triple my prices just to fully exploit the situation”, gushes Brogan, “God knows how they found out about it, really”, he continuums, “Looking back I should’ve put identifiers on the Facebook posts, Twitter twats and global press-releases to see which strategy was working best”.

For her part, Jenny says she has to accept defeat, “I suppose 1982 must have happened after all”, she says, “but I still find myself wondering why a Tie-Fighter pilot was driving an AT-AT. But then maybe that’s why it crashed into the pool.”

George Lucas was probably unavailable for comment, but we couldn’t find his number in the phone book anyway.

Dive Operator Press-Release

Dive Operator released details today of an upcoming press-release in a press-release released to the press. Whilst full details of the upcoming press-release remain unclear, Dive Operator were able to reveal that it would contain advertisement information packaged in a “news-style” format for release to press and other media outlets.

Industry insiders have described the upcoming release as “electric” and speculation as to what press-release information will be released to the press is rife. Martin Martins of Martins Martin Mart engorged that he suspected the upcoming release could contain “specific information of a scuba-style nature”, and went on to ejaculate that the release “may go so far as to offer a vaguely new product or service with associated pricing information”. Valerie Princeton-Yale of corporate diving information firm CorporateDivingInfo agreed that there would probably be some “new figures in there with relation to product-specific services or goods valued in money”, but disagreed that the product or service would be vaguely new. “It’ll probably just be new to Dive Operator”, she articulated, “but it will be a destination or three-dimensional object that we’ve seen before”.

Diving news outlets feasted on the press-release like a pack of wild dogs devouring the freshly-killed carcass of a brindled gnu.