Printer’s Devil

What I’m going to write about happened yesterday so I’m a little late in writing about it. Actually, it happened day before yesterday because it was in yesterday’s newspapers. While I’m fully aware that in the world of internet reporting it’s better never than late, this is not an e-paper (hallelujah). Therefore, let me tell you about the day that Johann Bach was arrested in Goa for being a Nazi war criminal.

On a stormy Monday evening, all major newspapers in India received a press note and a bunch of intrepid little reporters pounced upon it. Reputed dailies like the Deccan Herald (where it was front page news, no less), the Asian Age (two reporters shared the credit here; presumably one was responsible for checking facts), the Deccan Chronicle, the Daily Times, the Indian Express, the Telegraph and the Times of india reported that a dastardly Nazi bastard who had been in hiding in Goa had finally been uncovered and captured. This news had come to them from Perus Narkp, “the intelligence wing of the German Chancellor’s Core”. According to the press note, which comes emblazoned with a eagle-adorned seal:

“Perus Narkp, the intelligence wing of the Berlin based German Chancellor’s Core, with the help of senior intelligence officials of the Government of India, have located and apprehended Johann Bach, an absconding high-ranking Waffen SS (Schutzstaffel) colonel in the Germany’s former Nazi party.

88-year-old Bach was posted as a senior adjutant at the Marsha Tikash Whanaab concentration camp in East Berlin and was responsible for the genocide of more than 12,000 Jews in World War II. More than any other offenders who have been prosecuted in the Nuremberg trials, which were set up to look into heinous war crimes during the World War II.

“He had been absconding for more than 50 years after.”

Pretty much every Indian newspaper carried the story. Some were more excited – like the Indian Express – while some were a little cautious, like (surprise, surprise) the Times of India. Weathered, cynical journalists were entranced by the tale. A Nazi in Goa! Just think! And you thought all the Germans did in Goa was set up fantastic bakeries and delicatessens. Ha! At editorial meetings, journalists like Johnson TA of the Indian Express possibly walked around with their chests puffed with pride. Follow-up stories were probably being planned, in which readers would be told all about the heinous Bach who had attempted to hide his deep, dark secrets in the verdant lushness of hippie Goa.

Except among Johann Bach’s greatest sins is perhaps having written too many minuets, not incinerating Jews.

Approximately 24 hours after sending this triumph of intelligence to the press, someone realised the letters of Perus Narkp were suspiciously like the ones that spell out “super prank.”

Absolute genius. Pen pricks, you rock.

By the way, if you think calling the fictitious Nazi Johann Bach is a scream, check out the fake letter Pen Pricks circulated among the press which was signed by a Hamman Smit (it’s written in a downloaded font that I can’t remember and this is driving me insane because I’ve used that very same font while designing a brochure. Damn Alzheimer’s…).