Remain Calm: The World Is Ending

I'm getting increasingly fascinated by all the weird ways websites use their error messages to set themselves apart - from the Twitter FAIL whale to the Superpoke FAIL message I got one time, webmasters are doing a much better job of keeping the mood light when things go wrong and we want to punch our monitors.

From cheezburger.com

But I have now come across a highly customized FAIL message that opts to terrify the living crap out of me rather than amuse me. I don't know why. Have a look:

AAAAAAAAHHH!

I grabbed this screenshot while trying to listen to the Radio 4 Afternoon Play on the iPlayer at the exact moment that a huge press conference was going down about the News of the World scandal. So it's not surprising that the servers were overwhelmed. But why did they have to show me that nightmare-inducing picture?!?! The disturbing fair-game clown doll would've been bad enough, but why is it sitting in front of some God-forsaken apocalyptic blaze? And what's with the blackboard that says "500"? Is that how many points you score for hitting the doll in this ball toss in the Bowels of Hell Fun Fair? It all looks even weirder when set beside such normal, non-horrifying explanatory text.

This why the UK rocks. NPR would never put an apocalyptic clown ball toss game on their 404 error page. Never.