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And after that word of caution, which is mandatory under current regulations to protect our asses from being hauled over the coals, we can plunge right into this morning's main headlines to find out what is not really happening around the nation even as we speak.

Sundays on again
After thorough deliberation and much agonising indecision, the Bureau of Sloth and Lethargy has finally decided to restore the Sunday holiday inside the Outer Ring Road.

The on-again-off-again decision came after the Bureau announced last week that Sunday would be a working day in Kathmandu Valley but irate civilian servants said this would deprive them of adequate rest to prepare for a new week of idle worship. "If we work Sundays, we will be forced to become our old inefficient and lazy selves," said one bureaucrat who agreed to be interviewed only in silhouette while taking a post-prandial nap.

Outside the Outer Ring Road, however, it will be business as unusual on Sundays, the Bureau said.

Test-tube tourists born
The test-tube baby boom showed no signs of abating this week as more and more experimental human beings entered the kingdom, boosting hopes that this would impact favourably on sagging domestic tourism figures for the season.

Among those born this week was a test-tube journalist who, unaware of prevailing laws of the land, hasn't stopped bawling ever since he was born four days ago. Now that Nepal is a signatory of the International Anti-Biopiracy Convention it retains the copyright for the new babies so they can't be cloned by anyone else. Not that anybody would want to.

"I kid you not": Minister
The Minister of Innuendo and Insinuation has urged the media to disseminate only news based on facts that are stranger than fiction.

Addressing a gathering of journalists-turned-pan wallas in Biratnagar this week, he said: "It is not untrue to deny that there is hardly no censorship, but I can't confirm that those days are not here to stay."

He added that unlike in the old days of unbelievable freedom, the public can now trust every word in the papers since they have all been fact-checked by the concerned authoritarians. He added: "You can be sure that nothing is made up, unless it's an emergency."