Editor’s blog Wednesday 8 September 2010: The Wednesday WTF Award - inaugural tie

Here we go - a new feature, the Wednesday What The Flugelhorn (WTF) Award. The WTF Award will henceforth grace HPI every Wednesday, apart from those when it doesn't.

This week's primii inter pares give us a joint winner - a splendid pair:

This story from The Independent on morning sickness cures, which apparently don't work, you'll be amazed to hear.

No, really.

It appears in the Indy's wonderfully-titled 'RelaxNews' section (man), and with no discernible sense of irony, first reports that a Cochrane review found that therapies for morning sickness, nausea and other symptoms associated with pregnancy, therapies and found none are "safe and effective".

The article jauntily concludes, "That being said if you are suffering day or night with an upset belly and nausea you might want to try some of Websitename.com's home remedies such as sniffing lemon peels, suck on fresh ginger (popular in Asia, could cause heartburn), spoons full of apple cider vinegar and honey before bed and wearing motion sickness bands (BrandName $11.95/€9.27, BrandName2 £7.99/€9.60)".

I think we can safely say Jeremy Laurance didn't write this.

It ties in first place with this story from the nation's acknowledged moral arbiter The Old Currant Bun, about the provenance and provision of porn for sperm donation / fertility clinics in the NHS.

Julia Manning, director of of 20-20 Health, who carried out this vital study, reveals that (like policemen) the models-cum-actors in porn are getting younger. Manning spikes her own guns slightly, pointing out that 77% of the NHs workforce are female and "Seventy-seven per cent of the NHS workforce is female and they should never have to work in an environment that endorses pornography".

Ummm ... Julia ... if 77% of the NHS's 1.3 million workforce (and shrinking) are crammed into the NHS's sperm donating cubicles or suites - which are realistically the bits of the NHS estate that endorse jazz mags and movies, we can confidently predict that only a fistful (ahem) of extreme exhibitionists are going to be able to get wood.

The story is a natural fit for The Old Currant Bun, a journal which, like its proprietor Rupert Murdoch Esq, is a great believer in deregulated free markets and competition. And which will perhaps already be assembling a bid to offer its own services in the masturbation-assisting department to grateful NHS trusts around the UK. With the natural campaign slogan, 'It's The Sun Wot Cum It'.