Established MMXVIII · Circulation: Two Hundred Thousand, Give Or Take A DivorceWEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2026Price: Whatever You Can Still Get Refunded
We do not chase scoops. We wait for the report, then read the footnotes twice.

Brain Epitaph

Complaints may be filed in writing, in person, or shouted at the printer.

All the news that's already dead — we just write the marker.

BreakingGym Renews Membership Automatically, Body Declines To FollowAirline Adds Legroom Fee For Legs Bent At The Correct AngleChurch Introduces Express Confession Lane, Absolution Capped At Three SinsBank Mails Condolences Card For Your Overdraft, Calls It A Nice TouchLocal Council Renames Pothole A Traffic Calming FeatureStreaming Service Adds Fourth Tier, Removes Ability To PauseGym Renews Membership Automatically, Body Declines To FollowAirline Adds Legroom Fee For Legs Bent At The Correct AngleChurch Introduces Express Confession Lane, Absolution Capped At Three SinsBank Mails Condolences Card For Your Overdraft, Calls It A Nice TouchLocal Council Renames Pothole A Traffic Calming FeatureStreaming Service Adds Fourth Tier, Removes Ability To Pause

Front Page · Consumer Desk

Men Downgraded To Best-Effort Service, Support Available Weekdays Only

An eleven-year review closes most complaints as "working as intended" and hands the rest to the woman, alone.

By a Correspondent Who Has Filed His Own Report · Filed Under: Performance

Photo of the 340-page review, left open at the only page that uses the word "sex."

Men have been downgraded from a guaranteed service to a best-effort one, after an eleven-year review of their sex lives. The review is 340 pages long. It uses the word "sex" four times, all of them at the back.

I have never had a single complaint.

Uptime — which the report defines as awake, present and erect — was strong at twenty-five and much weaker at forty-five. For men of sixty the report gives a range instead of a number. The range starts at zero.

Response times have changed. The target is now two working days. It used to be "on request", which the report calls a hope, and dates to 2011.

"I have never had a single complaint," said one man, married thirty-one years. His wife agreed. She stopped complaining in 2009, when she noticed that talking about it made it last longer.

Complaints have in fact been filed the whole time. Most were closed as "working as intended". The rest were closed as "cannot reproduce". Three were closed while the man was still going.

The report also found that most problems are now solved by the woman herself, alone, with no help. The industry calls this self-service. The men have not been told and have not noticed.

The report is careful with words throughout. It calls the act "delivery", the woman "the user", and the nine seconds afterwards "handover".

Makers have changed their words too. In 1998 the product was sold as "built to last". The box now says "results may vary", and the box is smaller.

Men have formed a working group to fight the findings. Its first act was to ask for the study to be done again in the morning.

The regulator says the new label is correct. Best-effort, it explained, is a normal standard for any service that is tried rather than promised.

This newspaper's men's health writer has not been seen since the report came out and is believed to be lying down.

At press time, thousands of complaints were still open. Every one had been marked as solved by the man responsible, who then fell asleep.

The report calls this scheduled maintenance.

Tomorrow’s Forecast

Mild, With A Chance Of Regret

Clear skies until the group chat opens. A short, sharp guilt front moves in around the time you were meant to call your mother.

Outlook: the thing you didn't do today gets rescheduled for a version of you that does not yet exist.

Classifieds

  • FOR SALE: Marriage counselling workbook, half-finished. Ends on page forty, mid-sentence.
  • WANTED: Someone to explain the extended warranty terms in a voice above a whisper.
  • FREE: One motivational mug, "World's Okayest Employee." Barely used. Reason on the mug.
  • LOST: The will to renegotiate the gym contract. Last seen at the front desk, apologising.

Corrections

  • An earlier edition described the review as "thorough." It is 340 pages long and uses the word "sex" four times. We regret the word "thorough."
  • We reported that best-effort service was a temporary measure. It has been the standard since 2011. We regret the word "temporary," and increasingly, the decade.

Letters to the Editor

"Your paper printed a study about response times. My husband read it twice, nodded, and went back to sleep. I would like this noted somewhere official."

— Filed On His Behalf, Again

"I am the man in paragraph four who has never had a complaint. My wife would like it known that she was, in fact, filing them the entire time, through a different department."

— Recently Informed, Still Married