Sideswipe: January 22: Talk show hosts lose their target

As their favourite punchline left the building American television late night hosts made no attempt to hide their glee.

Jimmy Kimmel called it "the end of an error" and questioned whether the presidency was worth it for Trump. "Six years ago, we were all perfectly fine to let him keep bumbling around New York, pretending to be a billionaire," he said. "Probably would've landed a sweet gig as the cranky TV judge on some hooded celebrity pie-eating competition. That's where Donald Trump belonged."

Late Show host Stephen Colbert referred to Trump as "he who shall remain shameless." Summing up four years, he noted "you didn't exactly know where he was going or what he was talking about but it made you feel dirty and you knew it wasn't good for children."

Late Night's Seth Meyers said: "What did you come here to do? Wreck the economy, spread disease, and take selfies with cans of beans? It's not just that Trump inhabits an unhinged fantasy world, which he does, or that he and his aides lie as easily as they breathe, which they do. It's that the entire federal bureaucracy was dragged into defending a narcissistic president's delusion and anyone who refused to support the lie was punished,"

Trevor Noah on The Daily Show compared Trump to the coronavirus. "I hope that he slowly fades away like one of his tans. And I know that he'll never be fully gone, all right? He's basically the COVID of politics," he said. "America's gonna be experiencing side effects long after he's out of the system. And, unfortunately, we're probably gonna see mutated strains, as well."

Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon imagined the scene at the White House, where "Trump's four remaining staffers toasted him by raising a glass of bleach." He joked that they were signing each other's yearbooks with, "I won't testify against you if you don't testify against me." "I think everyone is ready for Trump to move on," he added, noting Wednesday would feel "probably like that moment when they pull the nasal swab out of your nose."

Nailing a long running rumour

Petty thieves make dumb mistakes

Staffordshire police in England received an astonishing call. On the other end of the line were two men audibly discussing the robbery that they were in the middle of committing. The two criminals were unaware that one of them had pocket-dialled the cops and were super surprised when the police turned up. In 2016, another ill-fated duo made the colossal mistake of holding up a French McDonalds — inside of which 11 armed paramilitary members were eating.Then, there's the case of 25-year-old Callum Tumilty. Having stolen a swath of laptops from a school in Northumberland, he accidentally left his phone behind. He was only caught after his mother called him for a chat. This made it rather clear to authorities that Tumilty was at least a suspect.

Did you know?

The great smog of London in 1952 was so bad that pedestrians couldn't even see their feet. Some of the 4,000 who died in the 5 days it lasted didn't suffer lung problems – they fell into the Thames and drowned because they could not see the river.