At least Mitt Romney hasn't done something like this. Yet.

To Britain, where dropping by an emergency services facility is just the regular ending to a good night out: "Binge drinkers are to be given the opportunity of watching video footage of themselves stumbling into a health centre, in the hope they will reflect on their drunken behaviour." In case you're thinking what I'm thinking here, it turns out that the authorities are a step ahead of you:

Nobody would be forced to watch it, [Conrad Edymann, head of substance misuse strategy and development for Cardiff and Vale University Health Board] said, and all footage of a patient would be destroyed when they left the clinic. Patients would [...]

Here is a heartfelt plea to Britons to remember why they hated Tony Blair.

Today would have marked the 95th birthday of a visionary documentarian who turned a fierce and unblinking eye on the habits and lifestyles of his fellow countrymen. While often castigated for his bleak perspective, it was in fact his honorable unwillingness to soften the grim realities of life amongst his people that allowed the rest of the world for the first time to truly understand the British character. He passed away nearly fifteen years ago, but it is still his profound and unvarnished vision of a nation's squalid citizenry that we think of whenever we consider the Briton. So for that alone, we celebrate the life of Reginald Smyth, [...]

"It's been two years since the annual Gloucester cheese rolling competition was banned on health and safety grounds. But yesterday hundreds took to Cooper's Hill, at Brockworth for a rogue event."

So it's come to this: "Britain’s most vicious swan nicknamed Mr Asbo has been moved to a secret location to protect river users after a series of attacks on rowers and boaters. The bad-tempered male bird has been attacking boats on the River Cam in Cambridge for the last three years but this Spring his behaviour has got worse.River Cam authorities have been granted an emergency licence by Natural England despite it being bredding season amid fears he could cause serious injury."

Earlier: British Swan Thinks He's British People

Those residents of Britain who are somehow able to avoid being stabbed to death will instead be eaten by foxes, who are "taking over" that benighted island.

Is Britain suffering from an epidemic of Crazy Cat Disease? It might explain why they're all so stabby over there.

Now that the Olympics are over, Britons can once again hate life and themselves.

Is this the most British story ever? "A pensioner confronted two thieves trying to steal his award-winning petunias and saw them off with his garden trowel."

"A man who tried to scare off intruders by waving a samurai sword was stabbed with his own weapon. The 65-year-old took the sword from a display in his living room and waved it at three youths who were in the front garden of his flat in east London. When he looked outside again, the garden was empty but he then found two youths on the landing outside his bedroom. He shouted at them to leave but an assault followed during which one of the intruders stabbed him with the sword before they ran off taking the weapon with them."

Tired of just waiting around for his mother to die, the heir to the British throne decided he'd take a crack at meteorology.

The number of Britons naming their children after knives has dropped dramatically in the last decade.

You had to know that once the British finally brought back a toff Prime Minister one of his eventual scandals would be called "Horsegate." It's just so upper class. Anyway: "David Cameron has been accused of not being straight about his close links with News International after he finally admitted riding Rebekah Brooks’s ex-police horse." That is a sentence, yes. In related Knifecrime Island equine news: Is this Britain's tallest horse? Sure, why the hell not.

Britain: If the cats don't get you, the mice will: [A] gang of rampaging mice appear to be striking fear into the hearts of London commuters, after being reported to be nibbling their toes. Passengers at Farringdon station were left puzzled after an official-looking sign warned the mice had been “attacking” customers. The handwritten notice advised: “Please place the bottom of your trousers into your socks to avoid being a victim of the Farringdon mice”.

Oh, August, you cannot end soon enough. [Pic via]

"Conservative politician and novelist Louise Mensch is to stand down as an MP, the party has announced. The MP for Corby is moving to New York with her three children to be with her husband of a year, Peter Mensch, who is manager of rock band Metallica." Who is Louise Mensch? Funny you should ask.

How do they eat now in Britain? "More than half of the adults surveyed said they did not even bother cutting up their food properly, preferring to tear pieces off with their teeth, while 36 per cent scoff all their food in a couple of minutes." Also: "Four out of ten don’t wash their hands before dinner, the study found."

Like all right-thinking people who are fortunate enough to have escaped the dank, vomit-encrusted dagger armory that is Britain, Tina Brown is thankful that she no longer has to deal with that foul island's repulsive weather.

"Families were disgusted to see more than 2000 drunken Cambridge University students stripping off, vomiting and drinking themselves unconscious at a riotous summer term party in a public park. Mothers and fathers looked on in horror as the students downed excessive amounts of alcohol, then threw up just metres away from where their young children were playing. Other undergraduates were seen urinating in the flower beds, while one was even taken to hospital by ambulance after he drank himself unconscious at the park in Cambridge's city centre yesterday (Sun) afternoon."

Photo by shaggy359, via Flickr

Tough times in Britain as the financial crisis and the failure of the governing coalition's austerity measures to improve the nation's stagnant economy have lead to "a dramatic slump in the acrobatic quality of the lithe ladies who populate clubs across the country as a result of venues trying to keep revenues up."