Karl's News Headlines

Throughout his time on Xfm and during the podcast, Karl has frequently tried to convince Ricky and Steve that the headline of a news-story is all that is needed and that the rest of the story is superfluous information that is not needed. During the third series of Xfm shows Karl noted how Ananova.com (a somewhat unreliable news-site that Karl frequently uses to source "news') had stolen his idea and began posting headlines that get to the "meat of the story" straight away. To prove his point Karl read the headlines, each of which was preceded with a 'Bong' from Ricky (in a similar style to the News at 10). This became a weekly feature although Karl did not specify whether or not they were all from ananova.com or not, however Ricky and Steve simply assumed this was the case.

08 November 2003

Karl believes ananova have stolen his idea, and reads some of the headlines they have posted

• Bong: "Vibrating Shoes Could Stop Elderly Falling"
• Bong: "Family Sick of Living On Butthole Road"
• Bong: "Man Wears Same Shoes For 60 Years"
• Bong: "Man Pulls Train With Teeth"
• Bong: "Man Fails To Break Clothespegs On Face Record"

When asked to read on, Karl said he couldn't be bothered but did elaborate on the 'Clothespegs on face' story. Also, Ricky and Steve encouraged listeners to send in other unusual place names similar to 'Butthole Road'.

22 November 2003

• Bong: "Man Hid In Wardrobe To Avoid Work"
• Bong: "Teenager Gets Stuck In Washing Machine"
• Bong: "Dutch Man Has Two Right Feet"
• Bong: "Cow Hit By Train Lands On Farmer's Wife"

29 November 2003

• Bong: "Man who walks backwards around lake falls in"
• Bong: "Chinese woman eats dirt"
• Bong: "Man lives in rubbish dump for ten years"
• Bong: "Czech family says they've got a rabbit with three nobs"

06 December 2003

• Bong: "Pierced penis man off the hook"
• Bong: "Man changes his name to Bubba Bubba Bubba"
• Bong: "Dwarf to live in a glass box"

13 December 2003

Karl says there is no point doing the feature this week as nothing has happened in the week. He reads out three stories that he found but they are not accompanied by a bong.

• A man hasn't eaten or drank anything for 70 years, but he's alright.
• A woman has had 6 organs donated. She needed a new kidney, a new heart, a new liver, a new stomach and a new intestine.
• A woman who hasn't slept for 8 years.

Ricky thinks all three are rubbish.

27 December 2003 (Best of)

• Bong: "Vibrating Shoes Could Stop Elderly Falling"
• Bong: "Family Sick of Living On Butthole Road"
• Bong: "Man Wears Same Shoes For 60 Years"
• Bong: "Man Pulls Train With Teeth"
• Bong: "Man Fails To Break Clothespegs On Face Record"

Originally Broadcast: 08 November 2003

Aftermath

After this show, the feature was discontinued for reasons that were never revealed, presumably because Ricky and Steve preferred to see the return of Educating Ricky which took up much of the later shows.

During Xfm Series 4, the trio brought back the popular feature Knob News, however it's format was altered from simply telling penis-related news stories, to a cross between Karl's News Headlines and Educating Ricky, wherein Karl would read the knob-based headlines and Ricky and Steve would pick one which Karl would then elaborate on.