Except he isn't. However, if you live in South Africa you might have been forgiven for thinking that he was, for three seconds at least.

According to reports, and we presume eye witnesses, a South African television channel mistakenly broadcast the news that the departed president had, um, departed. The channel displayed a banner across its screen reading "George Bush is dead", however this was down to a technician testing out whether such banners work. Well, they do.

From here on in the station intends to use gobbledegook in its test banners to avoid any repeats of the incident and future confusion. Sneak suggests these gobbledegook phrases: "Dead rise from the grave"; "Princess Diana working in chip shop"; and "Missing radioactive rabid monkey spotted in built-up shopping area - caution urged!".

In Sneak's opinion these are less likely to create as much interest as the one the station mistakenly used.

11 Feb 2009