New UK Personal Conduct Directorate

There are times when it seems that the sport of Mixed-Doubles Elbow Touching may fall foul of several of the very newest sexual harassment, equality and discrimination laws that the UK government and/or the EU has come up with recently. As we know it will soon be against the law in England and Wales for any man to be within three feet (One Metre) of any woman without a written consent form and a valid up-to-date Sexual Probity Certificate from the new UK Personal Conduct Directorate set up by the Ministry of Interpersonal Relations, or to be within 3 miles (meh kilometres) of any child without having a criminal record check, an armed escort, a head-mounted remotely-controlled CCTV camera and a tamperproof padlock on his trousers.

Consequently, for sports where contact is made between people, especially those from the officially-designated different sexes, including such sports as: Mixed-Doubles Elbow Touching, some of the more advanced cases of rugby, golf, ballroom dancing and naked baby-oil Twister, this means that without the government-funded UK Personal Conduct Directorate to oversee each incident, or potential incident of spontaneous touching, then these sports, games and pastimes will no longer be tolerated by the authorities, especially where some of the touching may be of an un-consensual nature, or not adequately conforming to the government’s diversity requirements for that sport, game or pastime.

There is talk that the Labour government, after it has overcome the impending minor inconvenience of an election*, will piss away invest a great deal of research money in a new individual force-field for every adult and child in the UK that will make non-consensual contact between any individuals impossible without official governmental authorisation from the new UK Personal Conduct Directorate.

 

*Quite probably by including the criminal offence of Not Voting Labour in the next iteration of its Anti-Terrorism laws.

Russian Plan To Destroy Asteroid Condemned

The head of the Russian space agency has announced plans to destroy an asteroid seemingly on a collision course with the Earth, claiming such a collision could claim many thousands of lives.

However, a spokeswoman for HETA (Humans for the Ethical Treatment of Asteroids), Gully Usefulidiot, strongly condemned the move, claiming it would be a severe breach of the asteroid’s rights, especially those concerning its freedom of movement throughout the solar system, saying:

Again, these Wester… er… Eastern hegemonic scientific imperialists show a blatant disregard for the rest of nature, feeling they have the right to destroy a poor defenceless little asteroid for purely selfish reasons. Who are we – mere humans – to decide the fate of these innocent and helpless asteroids?

After all, there is a possibility that some asteroids could even contain some form of life. What right have we mere humans to extinguish what could be the next stage of evolution on Earth?

Asked about the damage that an asteroid impact could inflict on the earth’s eco-system, Gully Usefulidiot replied:

Oh, there’s no need to worry about that, all the Earth’s animals – apart from us evil humans, obviously, oh, and the dinosaurs, of course - have a special instinct about asteroid impacts and will just hide behind a bush or something until it is all over.

Of course, if such an impact kills - or even better, wipes out – humanity then that would be wonderful news for the planet, especially as it would put an end to man-made global warming and everything else mankind has done to this planet.

Asked if there was any hope at all for humanity, Gully Usefulidiot ended with this final remark:

Actually not all scientists are evil, one of the nicer ones said that we in HETA should all go to the impact site ready to greet the asteroid when it lands, which we decided to do. The nice scientist said something about it ‘being nature’s way’.

The World’s Most Famous Pornstar

Rotorblade Trimquim first came to the world’s attention in the hardcore hot auditing action film Double-Entry Babes II, where her ability to reconcile a cash book whilst seemingly being brought to multiple orgasm by two well-oiled, well-hung studs became the most downloaded video clip on the internet last year, more popular even than the Three Kittens Who Look Slightly Like Mussolini, Hitler And Stalin Sitting In A Cardboard Box that web pundits had confidently clamed would be the most popular download in the entire history of the known universe. There is also solid evidence from doctors around the world that Trimquim’s video clip was responsible for a record number of RSI wrist injuries during that year too.

These days coming to fame – as it were – as a porn star is no longer career-limiting to the putative celebrity as it once was, in fact, now porn is regarded as only slightly more risqué than televised darts, been a porn star is seen as almost ideal (superficially slightly edgy, but in reality quite safe) chat show fodder, especially when the guest is wearing a dress she seems constantly on the edge of failing out of, and that she is capable – unlike many former porn stars - of uttering meaningful and, at least, (semi-)coherent sentences. All in all, much like any other chat show guest.

PR Spin ‘Better Than Sex’ Claims PR Industry

There was widespread shock in the UK this morning, when a newspaper printed a ‘survey’ in which most participants seemed to express a strong preference for fitting in with the marketing strategy of the company that sponsored the ‘research’.

A gleeful spokeswoman for the PR Company employed by the sponsoring brand later said:

We hope that thousands of women across the country were slightly interested to discover that a headline which mentioned that something or other ‘was better than sex’ was just a thinly-disguised column filler based on our very own PR spin. It seemed that some of them even gave some credibility to our idea that some women would be more excited by sliding into a pair of old jeans, rather than having a well-oiled George Clooney sliding into them in several ways they have only ever read about while eating excessive quantities of chocolate in a heavily-scented bath.

We know that most of them will instantly forget this ‘survey’ when they turn the page, but we hope that we have worded it well enough for a fair few of them to be left with a nagging doubt about how they shape up, and maybe enough of them will be then tempted to try this cereal for the cereal makers to renew our contract. Our only worry is that one day we may run out of things that we can say ‘are better than sex’ without looking too stupid, although when you look at the rest of the stuff that fills the newspapers these days, that time is obviously still quite far off.

A reader of the newspaper said:

Of course, I know these so-called ‘surveys’, and other pieces of PR-generated fluff, are all a load of old toss. It is just that when the headline yells that something ‘is better than sex’ then you know everyone is going to read it, even though we all know it is not true. I suppose most women would like a smaller arse, but I really doubt that many of them would step over a naked Brad Pitt in a hurry to try an old pair of jeans on.

Quite frankly, this so-called survey is too ridiculous for me to even want to pass it around to the rest of the girls in the office at tea-break for a giggle Although, it might be just enough to get us to start discussing exactly what we’d like to do with Brad Pitt and George Clooney just to see which one of us can get the new office boy to suddenly rush off to the gents before he comes in his pants.

Although, to be honest, I bet even a quick knee-trembler against the wall in the alley by the supermarket skip with the Archbishop of Canterbury would be better than eating a bowl of soggy breakfast cereal that doesn’t taste anywhere near as good as the cardboard box it came in. So I suppose they’ve got to find some way of trying to flog the stuff.

Call For Sensible Levels Of ‘Political Correctness Gone Mad’

Over the Christmas break there were calls by The Amalgamated Union of Comedians, Humorists and Satirists for a ‘return to sensible levels of ‘Political Correctness Gone Mad’ after a council announced a ban on a bingo caller saying things that some in the audience could find ‘offensive’.

A spokeswoman for TAUCHS said:

Obviously we don’t want to call for a total ban on these ‘Political Correctness Gone Mad’ pronouncements as quite a number of our members make quite a reasonable living from them, but when they tip over into this level of… well, extreme parody then our hard-working members, many of whom – by the way – have families to support, will have trouble thinking of anything more absurd than these pronouncements in order to point out the stupidity of them. Not only that, of course, there is a clear demarcation issue here with the public bodies, and those others, who make these pronouncements clearly entering into the realms of surreal humour which clearly belongs to our members.

After failing to find someone on the BBC’s Comedy Department to talk to him, our reporter eventually resorted to speaking to someone from the BBC’s benevolent home for worn-out 80s-style student political ‘comedy’ The Now Show, who said:

One of our writers wrote something about this bingo thing being an actual case of ‘Political correctness gone ma… ma….’ Sorry, I can’t say it; it just won’t come out of my mouth. Anyway, one of our writer’s wrote a sketch about it, but obviously we can’t say anything which is a bit ideologically suspect like that and keep working for the BBC.

Also, quite simply, neither we nor our audience would be able to understand it and get the joke. Obviously, though, out of solidarity with our brothers –and, of course, sisters - in the union we must support this action, even though it contradicts all we hold dear in that it is only ever stuff done by the evil Tories that is intrinsically ‘funny’ to us, even when it does make sense to everyone else.

The spokeswoman for TAUCHS also went on to say:

Also, we would call on the UK government to restrict announcements from Harriet Harman’s so-called ‘Equality Agenda’, as many of our members feel that this ‘agenda’ is a clear breach of the agreed boundaries between government policy and comedy, an agreement that this government has already breached far too many times in the last 12 years.

Asked to comment, Harriet Harman said:

Actually, originally, I really wanted to be a comedian, but at my first gig, I was booed off the stage within the first five seconds. A bit later, at the Labour Party conference, I did the same routine, but with slightly fewer knob gags, and got a standing ovation. Next thing I knew I was deputy leader of the party. So I got out all my old jokes from my comedy routine, dusted them off and turned them into my Equality Agenda policy. Oooh, I’m Harriet Harman. Thank you and Good night.

The Latest Media Sensation

Our knees are all atremble at the news; our very elbows are agog with excitement. Even our ukuleles have been stunned into silence as we await the latest media sensation we have been promised.

Whatever it is.

It doesn’t actually matter what it is. The hype is the thing. It could be anything from a new potato peeler, a new film, a new computer game, a new ‘stylish’ way of wearing one’s underpants, a new sex goddess, anything. It does not matter.

What matters these days is the media circus and how big it is.

The product – even if it is a living breathing person, it is still a product – at the heart of all this hype is mostly irrelevant, that is if you do your duty as a consumer and consume this product in the way indicated. Yes, it is a bit like medicine – this is the wonder drug that the PR industry has decided will cure all your zeitgeist woes as long as you take it in the dose specified.

You have to play the game, dance the dance, watch the trailers or the adverts, get caught up in it. It is like a religion. After all, religions too are all about the hype – the original Promised Land, heaven, and so on and on and on.

Of course, religions too fail to live up to their promises as well. They promise life everlasting but end up with some priest found deep in the choirboys, or some young girl stoned to death for some petty little misdemeanour.

The same goes for politics too, all those utopias, worker’s paradises and lives of endless summer are all just as false too.

It is all the same lie – just don’t ever catch yourself thinking, even for a moment, that some of it might – just – be true.

So:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to One and All!

 

NB: Posting here will be sporadic until the New Year.

Raiders Of The Lost Car Park

The engines are all on the blink again as the petrol run low once more. Our thighs are all aquiver with foreboding as we make our way down these dark side streets, following the ancient runes that point our way towards… towards… towards we do not know what, but when we get there… if we ever get there then we will know.

[An ancient mystical rune that purports to point the way for the weary traveller to take]

There are so many legends, stories and rumours about these long lost mysterious mythical places. Tales told around the camp fires where the old shoppers gather to tell the tales of the great shopping trips of the ancestors. Time and again though as the fire ebbs and dies, talk turns again to the legend of the lost car park.

The tales, as all such tales do, vary, some speak of a giant lost multi-storey car park deep within the fabled shopping centres. Others talk of wide-open spaces out on the outskirts of the shopping malls, where car parking spaces extended as far as the eye could see, spreading far out into the place of legends and heroic tales, meeting the wild untamed jungle of the suburban housing estates where civilisation - as we know it - ends.

Of course, many, many explorers have set out searching for these fabled monuments that, it is said, the ancients set up to worship the holy motor vehicle, back in the days when such things were, in those more superstitious times, regarded as gods to be worshiped and placated with temples devoted to their times of rest and recuperation.

But we are her, lost on these endless bypasses and one-way systems that seem to promise the sanctuary of the holy parking space, without ever actually providing us with one. We are the doomed cursed forever to cruise these streets until in the end – finally – we run out of petrol and out of hope.

Smart Meter Scheme Expanded

In an extension to the utility smart metering system for gas and electricity, the UK government has announced that it is going to introduce smart meters for the many other things it wants to monitor, partly to bring the UK into line with several EU regulations and – mainly – because it thinks it can get away with it quite easily.

First and foremost, the UK government wants to introduce greenhouse gas monitors into people’s homes to register the ‘carbon footprint’ of every person in that household. However, this initiative has received strong condemnation from the Sprout Growers Association who fear that such close monitoring of people’s emissions will have dire consequences for their member’s livelihoods.

There will also be a UK Government Diversity Awareness Monitor that will monitor each household to make sure that it is made up of the correct quantities of ethnically-diverse occupants and that the government’s standard level of sexual equality and ethnic minority balance is being met. All households that do not, say, have enough Scottish lesbians and transvestite German-Jewish Muslims in residence to accurately reflect the UK government’s diversity make-up quotas will be therefore restructured away from the traditional nuclear family-style household until they do.

The output from all these monitors will also enable the government to issue sternly-worded directives to everyone in order to hector them into behaving as the government wants them to behave.

Also, there will be a household budget smart meter installed in every household designed to detect any money left over in the household budget that could be taken by the government in taxation before the members of the household waste it on non-government-approved frivolities.

All-in-all the government is confident that its new smart metering campaign will enable it to monitor, control, direct and tax the UK population in almost every way it can think of, and, as one government minister said: ‘…in quite a few new ways we haven’t thought of… yet.’

Nanny State Promises To Carry On Hectoring Over Christmas

For those worried that the British state and its armies of hectoring minions may have shut up and left us in peace over Christmas, there have been cries of relief all around as the Department of Heath and the Ramblers Association joined forces to help prevent the danger of people being left to make up their own minds about what to do with their lives.

As a government spokesman said:

Over Christmas - with the normal government offices and their myriad of quangos, agencies and pseudo-charities all taking a well-earned break in order to spend some of their excessive salaries on being pampered by dusky maidens in far-off tropical paradises - there is a danger that the constant level of nannying, hectoring, and plain and simple bullying of the British population will fall below the level where some of the more robust of our citizens may just start thinking for themselves. Obviously, that can’t be allowed to happen. So it is vital that government offices, and theses other agencies we so lavishly piss tax payer’s money away on, all get together to release enough press releases, information leaflets, contradictory advice and pointless guidance to mollify the population over the extended Christmas break.

Quite frankly, we can’t rely on the HSE to do all this vital work on their own, even though it often goes beyond the call of duty in issuing warnings about every aspect of people’s normal daily lives. The HSE has also issued extra warnings in order to irritate and annoy people over the Christmas period this year, such as: warnings about the danger of getting paper cuts from unwrapping presents without wearing safety gloves, falling off ladders when hanging decorations, the danger of a loud(ish) bang when someone pulls a cracker, the danger of too many sprouts and – of course - the danger of getting extensive burns when setting fire to annoying relatives, as well as many other such unnecessary warnings.

However, as one member of the public said:

Going for a walk, once in a while over Christmas, may actually be a good idea, instead of spending half a dozen days in front of the TV, just stuffing yourself with yet more food and drink every couple of hours. But, have the HSE, or anyone, warned anyone about the dangers of going out walking where you might accidentally meet a bunch of ramblers in their hideous day-glo kagooles, or even worse, Janet Street-Bloody-Porter! That’s not a sight anyone could cope with without throwing up, is it? Do they really want the British countryside to be inches deep in semi-digested turkey, sherry and chocolate-flecked vomit?

Britain To Have TV Election Debates

Britain’s, clubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres and few remaining pubs were all celebrating last night on hearing the news that the main UK TV channels (and Sky) are all promising to show pre-election debates between the three political party leaders that could last up to an hour and a half each.

One delighted pub owner said:

This is the first good news we’ve had since the smoking ban. If we can just manage to stay open until the election is called, we’ll be guaranteed three bumper nights. It’ll be like darts final night, the Christmas pub quiz and that night we had a lock-in with those three dirty, dirty lesbian strippers with the bucket of baby oil… all rolled into one.

The TV stations all issued full apologies for allowing themselves to be duped into showing the programmes. However, they were still condemned for their blatant irresponsibility by metal heath organisations, The Samaritans and several charities that help the terminally TV-befuddled how to find the off switch on their own TV sets. As one very experienced TV viewer said:

I accidentally watched an Election Night Special once, when I’d got the TV schedules mixed up after we’d been out celebrating Big Dave’s 25th birthday for a week and a half. I was sitting there expecting a frank expose of secret teenage lesbianism, but instead I ended up with several hours of watching Peter Snow fiddling about with his swingometer. Put me off political programmes for life, that did.

So, three programmes lasting an hour and a half each, that’s four and a half hours of watching those three party leaders trying to avoid saying anything they can later be held to. Frankly, I’d rather gouge out my own eyeballs with a rusty teaspoon.

Some of the nearly half a dozen people in the UK who notice politics seemed to be quite excited by the prospect with several sneaking both hands inside their underpants as they digested the news.

However, as one political pundit explained.

You think ordinary political interview programmes are boring exercises in bland meaningless regurgitated spin. Just you wait until you see these three programmes. From now until the night the first one is broadcast, each party’s PR teams will have their leaders locked in a darkened basement under party headquarters with their genitals wired up to the mains, making sure they are on message and spin-perfect no matter what questions they get asked. The Labour team will probably have to work overtime trying to get Gordon Brown to be much more decisive about his choice of biscuit, but it is vital matters like this that could decide the fate of the election. That is, if there is anyone out there actually insane enough to want to watch these programmes out of choice. I’ll have to do it because it is my job, but even I am thinking of hammering a six inch nail up my nose just to get out of it.

When out reporter went out into the streets of Britain to do a vox pop, most people just screamed ‘AAAAAARRGGGHHHH!’ and ran away. Others just stood there, blinking very slowly as our reporter explained it would be a bit like Celebrity Strictly Come Dancing On Ice Factor, but with out the dancing, the ice… or the celebrities.

Christmas 'Gift' Catalogues

Now it is that time of the year to think of those more fortunate than ourselves. To think what undeserving jammy bastards they are to be able to afford all that multitude of overpriced tat that comes in glossy catalogues though our letterboxes with annoying over-frequency at this time of year. No doubt too, they have many friends or relatives, at least several of whom find the idea of yet-another novelty-shaped corkscrew to be the one thing they have always desired.

However, the rest of us face this period with ever-increasing dread, not looking forward to what we know will be a fruitless trudge though cold streets, dodging and weaving through the preposterous seasonal crowds. Searching for something, anything, that is even in some small way slightly different to last year's dismal offering, without being quite as brain-numbingly awful as the garbage in those far-too-glossy-for-any-other-use catalogues. Far too glossy for use as anything else like lining the cat tray, wiping up dog vomit, lighting the fire, wrapping fragile items or - indeed - anything beyond lobbing into the re-cycling bin straight after that first cursory and increasingly incredulous skim through.

So, in the end it will probably be the perfume again. We know we are on fairly safe ground there. After all last year's is almost all gone, anyway. "At least," she'll sigh, wistfully "it is something I use."

PM Says Copenhagen A Failure

Gordon Brown, it was revealed over the weekend, had planned to lead the world into – what he called – ‘A Brand-New Dawn’ of taxation, claiming that climate change was the best excuse for a generation, or more, for governments to discover whole new areas of previous-untapped taxation, along with entire new realms of social control and social engineering. However, with the failure of the Copenhagen Climate summit to come to any kind of solution, Gordon Brown’s plans to use the agreement as a justification for his new taxes and social order planning were left in ruins.

Before the Copenhagen conference the British PM had spoken of his desire to introduce many new forms of taxation under the smokescreen of claiming they would ‘help cut carbon’, ‘counter global warming’ and so forth. Gordon Brown had also spoken of how the threat of climate change could be used to bring in many more forms of social control and engineering:

We have already had a great deal of success using the threat of terrorism to curtail so-called traditional British freedoms. Therefore, building on these successes, I can envisage several ways in which the threat of climate change can be used to increase our control of the populace. For example, I don’t drive, so therefore there is no need for anyone else in the UK – apart from government chauffeurs, of course - to be allowed to drive around freely either. We can tax the car, tax the road, tax the petrol, track every journey by CCTV and satellite and so on. We may even introduce a special one-off tax on being Jeremy Clarkson. All this, in the name of being environmentally aware, means there is almost no limit to what a government – with its own best interests at heart, and – therefore, the best interests of the British population at heart – can do all in the name of something vital and urgent such as we claim climate change is.

We could also, for instance, severely tax and restrict people’s ability to fly around the globe too, ostensibly for environmental reasons. Possibly restricting it to vital inter-governmental conferences and the essential photo-opportunities they provide for a grateful populace to see their beloved Prime Minister once again saving the world – against all the odds, just like in the films they will no longer be allowed to watch on their government-controlled TVs.

Other countries too have expressed their disappointment at not being able to get their hands on loads of extra free money to piss away on vanity projects and ineffectual show-pieces. A spokesman for a coalition of African countries said of the failure to reach agreement:

Obviously we are disappointed. Now that most of the world has realised that food and developmental aid doesn’t work and often only makes things worse, we were hoping that we could con the rich countries into giving us ‘Climate Change’ money instead. Of course, we would have to guarantee to each other that this money would be spent in the same way as all the other forms of aid we used to receive, such as: on luxury jets for the presidents, twice their own weight in gold and jewellery for their mistresses and very expensive weapons systems for the armies that keep them in power and their populations in dire poverty.

Unfortunately, all of this was thwarted by the failure to reach a global deal, with Gordon Brown claiming the chance of a global deal was scuppered by a handful of countries holding the world to ransom. Just before he was led away by some nice men in white coats, an angry Gordon Brown claimed:

If it wasn’t for those pesky countries I would have got away with it. All my plans for a world-dominating system of taxation and social engineering on a scale never before attempted have been ruined by these hardly-developed nations.

[Representatives of ‘those pesky countries’ leaving the Copenhagen conference]

Pottering About

[Hopalong Gravelpath]

Hopalong Gravelpath is – quite rightly – well known throughout these islands as one of the leading exponents of Premier Division Pottering About, and is all set to be the captain of the UK’s Olympic Pottering About team for the 2012 Olympics.

It is always a stirring sight to any freeborn English person to see a Pottering About team take the field, eventually wandering on to the pitch in their ill-matched tatty cardigans and down-at-heel slippers, ready for the vital pre-match sit down and the traditional start to every game of Pottering About, the Nice Cup Of Tea.

Then once the Nice Cup Of Tea has been finished and the official words of approval have been made by each side to the umpire, it is time for the fans to concentrate closely on the tactical finesse of each team. For those new to the sport here are a few things to watch out for at the begging of any Pottering About match. It is important to study just how long and how convincing is the deep sigh made by each player as they contemplate the recently quaffed Nice Cup Of Tea. It is at this point that the more skilful players will attempt the sometimes tricky ‘see if there’s another one in the pot’ gambit to outfox the opposing team. Other players will drum the fingers on the arm of their match armchair, while some will unbutton, then slowly re-button their cardigans whilst the crowd grows tense, waiting for someone, anyone, to make the first decisive move towards considering making some attempt towards contemplating thinking about getting on with it.

As we all know the real skill in professional top-flight Pottering About is to be always on the verge of actually getting on with it without apparently seeming to do anything, then – with no clear idea of how it happened - the opposition are suddenly One-nil down, with the scoring team back in their armchairs as if nothing had happened, ready for the umpire to restart the match.

Sometimes it is only through the slow motion replay that you can see how the goal was scored, but not always then. For example, with a really great Pottering About squad like the legendary European Cup winning Littlehampton Dawdlers team of 2001, who could sometimes be 6-0 up without seemingly leaving their armchairs or even without taking the sleeping cat from their laps, it is impossible to see – even in slow motion – any of them moving towards the opposition half at all.

Blair To Give Inquiry Evidence In Public

The chairman of the Pillock Inquiry, Sir Nigel ‘Nigel’ Pillock has insisted that the former PM Tony Blair, will be called to give evidence to his Inquiry, and that - furthermore - that evidence will be given in public, and not in secret as some had feared.

The Pillock inquiry was set up by the UK government in response to opposition and public pressure for an inquiry into just how Tony Blair managed to lead the Labour Party to three consecutive election victories, despite – or, as some still insist, because of – him being a oleaginous con-artist more suited to selling miracle-cure snake-oil from the back of a wagon than running a country, even one as terminally half-arsed as the UK.

Of course, most commentators put the Labour party’s easy victories down to the fact that they faced no real, or credible, opposition, citing both Michael Howard and Ian Duncan-Smith as obvious examples. Others point out that a population already cowed by the parade of smarmy gits from the world of entertainment that are constantly paraded across their incessant TV chat shows would be no match for the Blair charm offensive and lethally-mesmerising grin.

However, it was Blair’s claim that there were ‘forces of conservatism’ deep within British society that could, at 45 minutes notice, completely destroy such great British institutions as the NHS, the BBC and lay waste to the entire British welfare state,’ that gave Blair the necessary authority to stage his invasion of Downing Street.

In fact, as it turned out victory did come surprisingly easy to the massed Labour ranks, storming into Downing Street, after overwhelming the opposition with their fearsome ‘Education! Education! Education!’ battle cry.

However, not soon after this successful invasion of what had once seemed an impregnable Tory fortress with their much feared ‘Blue-Rinse Guard’, things began to go horribly wrong.

As one former government minister said:

Our plans for after the invasion of Downing Street were really quite simple. It seemed obvious to us that Britain’s malaise could be put down to the Evil Tories starving the public sector of money. So, to us the solution seemed obvious. Just throw more and more money at it.

However, this surge of public money seemed to do little to solve any of the problems Blair and the Labour party had claimed it would. In fact, it just seemed to make things worse.

As for the ‘forces of conservatism’ they were never found, in fact the invasion led to a massive insurgency on the part of all those left-leaning ideologues that the Labour invasion then unleashed onto an unsuspecting populace: The Extreme Equality Agendaists, the Punitive Taxation Zealots, the roaming bands of social engineering terrorists, Diversity Awareness Squads and more were all let loose onto British society, leading to chaos, disorder and victimisation of the law-abiding middle-classes on a scale that had never been seen before.

Worse was to follow when Labour’s – supposedly - crack team of economic wonders, lead by (then) Lieutenant ‘Calamity’ Brown were supposed to go in and eliminate boom and bust, only to have the whole economy blow up in their faces, leading to severe damage to the country’s economic infrastructure, from which it is still to recover.

Nowadays, most people regard the Labour party’s invasion of the UK Government as a massive mistake, hence this Inquiry. They, therefore, fear that if the lessons from these all-too recent events are not learnt in time, then a further Labour election victory – no matter how remote that seems at the moment – could so easily happen again.

Government Reveals Millions Spent On Merchandise

 

The UK government has come under fire for spending millions of pounds on merchandise and other promotional items that are apparently used for promotion purposes and ‘to reward staff’. As the BBC report says:

Among the items set to be ordered from 58 UK-only suppliers include promotional pens, key rings, travel wallets, tea towels, polo shirts, lip balms and "beanie" hats.

As the BBC’s Political Correspondent said, speaking from his kennel just outside 10 Downing Street:

Originally, the government was spending a great deal of money on various items of tat in order to promote itself and the endless stream of ‘initiatives’ that it produces instead of actually attempting to do anything worthwhile or meaningful. However, they did eventually realise no-one in their right mind would want to have anything festooned with government logos, or with think-tank friendly slogans and entreaties all over it. Then, one day, someone in the Home Office noticed that one of its shiny new Government Logo key rings had mollified Jack Straw into more than his usual inertia. It was then that they realised what they could do with all that stuff piled up in cardboard boxes down in the cellar of No. 11 Downing Street.

A government spokesman said, in a press conference:

Look we’ve got to do something to stop this government buggering things up even more than they have done. It’s quite amazing really if you give a government minister some shiny novelty item they can sometimes sit there and play with it for hours, leaving us free to get on with things. Give them a mug with a picture of themselves on and they’ll be out of the office for hours showing it to everyone they know.

We got Gordon Brown a yo-yo, but he just tried to ‘eliminate going up and going down’ from it, so instead we just gave him a punch-bag, with David Cameron’s face painted on, so he can throw old Nokias at it. Oh, and a baseball cap with PM written on it for him to wear while he’s phoning up various world leaders trying to get them to talk to him.

However, someone did give Harriet Harman a Barbie doll. That’s a mistake he won’t be making again. I should think he’ll be reminded of it every time he tries to sit down. She did ask for an Action Man, but changed her mind when someone told her it already had its balls cut off.

Alistair Darling did get his hands on the Downing Street official Monopoly set, though. He just took all the money out of it, and threw the rest of the game away; apparently, he is planning to pay off the government debt with the Monopoly money.

However, in a later interview, when asked who was actually running the country whilst the members of the government were playing with all these toys, The Dark Lord Of Foy replied:

You don’t really need me to answer that, do you?

Doubts Cast On Authenticity Of Holy Relic

Yesterday, it emerged that further doubts have been cast over the authenticity of the so-called Wolverhampton T-shirt of Nhigel, supposedly the very t-shirt that the great prophet Nhigel (May His Plums Dangle Mightily) wore on the fabled Night of the Last Kebab in the Uttabollux Holy City of Tourhisttrhap, the very night that Nhigel (MHPDM) mysteriously disappeared and – some contemporary accounts say – ascended to heaven on the back seat of an angelic mini-cab.

The Holy T-shirt of Nhigel first came to light during the mediaeval era when it was allegedly found in a skip in mysterious circumstances in the tow City of Wolverhampton; hence the otherwise inexplicable naming of the shirt, as it is well-known that Nhigel never actually visited Wolverhampton. Although, rumour has it he once bought a packet of pork scratchings in nearby Dudley, on Barry The Tosser’s (one of Nhigel’s Holy Mates) stag night.
Most commentators have since claimed that the t-shirt was forged by several enterprising medieval entrepreneurs and Inn owners who fancied getting in on the then very lucrative Holy Pilgrimage trade. In fact, as a consequence of this, Wolverhampton can lay claim to have been home to the world’s first Travel Agent (although, to be fair this is something the tow city usually likes to keep quiet about).
However, archaeologists yesterday managed to exhume a relatively intact t-shirt from a dig contemporaneous with the time of Nhigel, and a through examination of the t-shirt shows that it is of a completely different style to the Wolverhampton t-shirt, which is of a much more medieval design, and – quite significantly – bears the logo of the band Status Quo, who while they have been around a long time do not – quite – predate the medieval era.
Many scientific investigations have been carried out into the authenticity of the Wolverhampton t-shirt, all of which have proved conclusively that the t-shirt is a medieval fraud. These, recent scientific examinations – reluctantly allowed by the Uttabollux religious leaders – the Dhaftghits, including Nohbrahin Re-Actshunahri, the Hibossmahn (High priest) Dhaftghit himself – have demonstrated that several of the stains on the t-shirt do not come – as the Uttabolluxers claim – from a kebab at all. Some of the stains have been shown to be almost certainly from a Chicken Biryani (made to a typical medieval recipe). Another stain, said to be where someone spilt Nhigel’s pint over him on the Night of the Last Kebab, has been shown to be Marmite – ironically a substance high on the list of Uttabollux forbidden foods, known as the Nhastistuhff,.
However, despite this most Uttabolluxers are convinced that the t-shirt is a bone-fide holy relic, pointing out – quite rightly - that concepts like truth, scientific evidence and facts are irrelevant when it comes to religious belief, and that, moreover, the willingness to carry on believing something despite the overwhelming evidence that it is all complete bollocks is the sign of the true religious believer. Consequently, for the truly devout the more reality flatly contradicts everything their religion says, the more they believe in it.

Newspaper Industry Discovers New Revenue Scheme

 

In an attempt to halt their ever-increasing decline because of competition from the web, and its culture of freely-available content, the newspaper industry has recently been seeking some new form of revenue. After doubts were expressed over whether Rupert Murdoch’s paywall ideas would work in practice, other newspaper owners have been searching hard to find some other way to keep themselves in the yachts, liberally peppered with the mellow-thighed and scantily-clad bimbos, they regard as an essential requisite for the modern media mogul.

Yesterday, the reclusive Grimm Brothers, owners of The Daily Timewarp, announced that they had discovered what could become a very lucrative revenue scheme for the newspaper industry.

As the brothers said in their press release:

Earlier today, at a loose end, we decided to actually read The Daily Timewarp for the first time since our accountants suggested we buy it. Then, after our butler had woken us up again, we decided to have a look at some of our competitor newspapers, as well as The Daily Paranoia, where we discovered this article, which enabled us to come up with our solution to the newspaper industry’s financial problems.

From our researches, apparently, it seems that these days most, if not all, newspaper articles are little more than regurgitated press releases, or – as in the case of the article we mention above – based around one of those faux surveys that brands commission solely to get themselves in the newspapers.

Obviously, to us, it seems that this is little more than advertising. So, in future – and we hope that all other newspapers and media organisations will join us in this – we will charge our standard advertising rates for all such press releases and fake surveys that we print for these brands.

Not only will we, therefore, receive significant income from these brands, we can also get rid of the so-called journalists who just seem to spend their entire working days re-writing these press releases for our newspapers.

However, journalists were quick to condemn the plan, with a spokeswoman for the NUJ, saying:

It’s not our fault than modern newspapers are mostly just recycled press releases, we’d all like to be proper journalists, out there on the street, getting the stories, but sometimes it is dark… and cold out there. It’s much nicer sitting in a warm office tarting up our Facespace profiles and emailing internet porn to each other while we wait for the press releases to come in.

Anyway, turning those press releases and junk surveys into newspaper articles is highly skilled job, sometimes you need to actually type some words… and that punctuation stuff… in-between the bits you cute and paste from the survey.

Unfortunately, the plan may be doomed to failure before it even gets off the ground. As one Public Relations executive from a company specialising in such PR releases and dodgy surveys said:

Sod that, then. We’ll just bung whatever we want to flog into the middle of some video featuring cute kittens doing something funny and upload it to YouTube and the punters will go wild sending it to each other without us having to pay anyone a single penny. Sorted.

Brown Promises To Build On Poll Boost

Political pundits are struggling to understand what seems like a sudden upswing in support for the UK’s Labour party government, headed by Gordon Brown, as a recent poll shows a narrowing of the gap between Labour and the Conservatives.



However, some commentators have put the recent shock increase in support for the PM down to his typical playground bully-boy tactic of picking on those that are even more unpopular than him, such as the recent attacks on bankers, and picking on them relentlessly to make him look relatively more appealing to an electorate that has the attention span of a comatose gnat and far more interest in the contents of its own nasal passages that it has in politics.

Consequently, along with this increase in popularity brought about by finding more and more ways to tax bankers, the government has also noticed, from the otherwise inexplicable continued popularity of so-called ‘Reality’ and the nominatively paradoxical ‘Talent’ TV shows, that the public seems to have quite a taste a taste for such seemingly pointless and vindictive cruelty.

Therefore, the government has set out plans to discontinue the completely unwatched BBC Parliament TV channel, and replace it with live gladiatorial bouts to the death between random groupings of convicted paedophiles, terrorist suspects, bankers and estate agents, with the TV audience invited to phone in their ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ votes for each contestant, live to the arena.

The government is confident that the show – putatively hosted by Ant and Dec, subject to contractual arrangements – will be a huge ratings success and, moreover, that the income from the phone polling will be far more than enough to pay off the UK’s massive government debt in record time.

Government Minister In Expenses Row

A government minister, Nigel Clapper, hit out furiously in an interview when questioned about a £20 000 claim he’d recently made for expenses. His comments came in a BBC Today Programme interview, where he said:

Look, you impertinent little oik, I regard a mere £20 000 as a bargain for a job well done, and I don’t see that it is any of your business what I, or any other MP do with your money. You should just be grateful that we are willing to accept it in the first place.

However, as the expense claim was submitted to reimburse the MP for paying a brace of unnamed young ladies £20 000 for ‘a thorough oiling and vigorous polishing of the minister’s bell-end’, it seems that there will be questions asked about the wisdom of Mr Clapper trying to claim for such a service on expenses, with – no doubt – several MPs interested to see if they could get away with it too.

Asked whether he would consider resigning, the minister responded:

You must be joking. How else will a bloke as weird looking as me be able to get a couple of hot young lovelies to give the old feller such an expert tug off as that, and get the money back on expenses too? Be honest, would you – even for a moment – voluntary consider giving that up?

Artist Wins BBC2 Art Show

Artist Undercoat Pointillist last night won BBC2’s pseudo-highbrow talent show Infant School Artshow with her ‘amazing piece’ called simply Old Rope.

Her piece, which consists of a length of old rope thrown casually down on a table impressed the judges with, what one judge, the famous Brit Art artist, Lepidoptera Disestablishment, called:

Its sheer presence and immediacy. It is so unpretentious and says so much about the plight of humanity at the dawn of the 21^st century. I had to wipe away a tear when I first saw it, especially when I realised how much I could have got for that piece of old rope I threw away a couple of weeks ago.

In a post-award interview Undercoat Pointillist spoke of the inspiration for her piece:

I was just walking along by the canal one day and I saw this piece of rope. It wasn’t doing anything important, just tying a boat up to the side of the canal near the lock. Something about its sheer… availability spoke to me, and when, looking around, I realised no-one was watching me. I knew then – instantly – that that piece of old rope and I were meant for each other.

It must have been cosmically-inspired or something, because I heard later on the local news that, not long after I left the canal area, a boat somehow mysteriously crashed into the canal lock, causing thousands of pounds of damage to the canal lock, sinking the boat and drowning the boat owner’s cat.

Anyway, when I got back to the studio I just dropped the piece of old rope on a table and just… well… forgot about it. Then when the TV programme judges came around a few hours later they walked straight past the piece I’d prepared for them by getting all my mates to piss on some screwed up newspapers I’d painted purple and then thrown into a skip, and headed straight for the piece of rope on the table, I’m fairly sure one of them had an orgasm from just looking at it.

When I realised they had mistaken the piece of rope for my competition entry, I did think about telling them the truth, but then what is truth when we are talking about art, a substantial amount of prize money and the beginnings of what could be a very lucrative… I mean a… very artistically-fulfilling career?

Asked why the viewing public has to put up with all this guff, a TV critic explained:

BBC2 wants to have popular programmes like the myriad of reality and talent shows that infect the other channels, however it is under the delusion that it is above such common prolefodder, so instead it makes programmes like Infant School Artshow, that purport to be serious about ‘serious’ subjects like art and culture, but instead reduce them to the status of freak shows just like all the other ‘reality’ and ‘talent’ shows. Frankly, though, who really gives a shit about this conceptual art bollocks anyway? Even the tabloids have given up on pretending to be shocked and outraged by it any more.

Government Announce Changes To Vetting Scheme

The UK government have announced a partial climb-down over their plans for a vetting scheme for all adults who come into contact with children.

As a spokesman for the government said:

Initially we were planning on vetting approximately 11 million adults who might one day find themselves in the near vicinity of a child. However, after a review, we have discovered that about two million of those would actually be too ugly and/or smelly for any child to go anywhere near them without first being given a large dose of horse tranquiliser. So we feel that – unless The Daily Paranoia objects of course – that we can remove the need for those two million to undergo the checks, including the large electric shocks to the genitals whilst being simultaneously shown pictures of children that we decided to introduce purely as a precautionary measure.

Schools and other groups which work with children welcomed the move, with many saying it did not go far enough. As one children’s author put it:

It’s funny how societies seems to have rubbed along for thousands of years without anyone in the past having to go through any of these checks, and yet – apart from relatively few tragic examples – most kids seem to grow up fine without any adults leaping on them as soon as the authorities leave them alone for more than a few seconds.

However, certain charities which depend on creating a fear of paedophiles lurking in wait to leap on children wherever they gather, expressed serious concern over whether these changes would have any repercussions on the amount of government funding they are likely to receive in the future, with a spokeswoman saying:

Won’t someone please think of the children! If they don’t I could easily be out of a job.

However, the spokesman from the Department for Children, Schools and Families went on to add:

This change, however, means that only 9 million people will be on this database, which is – as you well realise - nowhere near enough for this government’s needs. Therefore, the next step will be – obviously – legislation to regulate contacts between all adults in the UK with each other, to make sure that all activities they then engage in are politically correct, respectful of everyone’s diversity, sexual orientation and so forth, that all officially-recognised minority groupings are fully represented, and that all – for example – Sexual Consent Forms have been filled in and registered with the new ‘Sex Tsar’, who will make sure that everyone is fulfilling the new compulsory sexual diversity quotas that everyone, except for us in the Inner party of course, will have to comply with under the forthcoming EU rules that are about to be introduced.

Archbishop: Religion Isn’t Taken Seriously

[Archbishop Wonders Why People Don’t Take Him Seriously]

Over the weekend, a man who apparently likes dressing up as a fantasy wizard at weekends complained that people were not taking him and his made-up imaginary sky-deity chum seriously enough.

In an interview in The Daily Timewarp the archbishop said:

It’s not fair, no-one takes us seriously, not any more, not since we lost the power to set people on fire for believing something, even slightly, different to what we wanted them to believe.

Look at all the places where religion is taken seriously, The Middle East, Northern Island and so on. As soon as people take it seriously they start getting violent with each other over it. Even in America where show business is religion and religion is show business, there are people who take it seriously enough to kill others over it. Even Nazism in WWII Germany and communism elsewhere last century, which both tried to set themselves up as ideological religions managed to kill millions. While the closest we can get to killing someone over religion is the Home-Baked Cake stall on the church jumble sale.

So, you see as soon as people stop caring about religion enough to kill each other over it, they realise what a joke it all is and stop taking it seriously.

Look at me, even, I’m sure the only reason I got this job was because people thought I looked like a cross between Terry Pratchett himself and one of his Discworld wizards, especially when I’m in costume.

Ever since we started with this hippie peace and love and redemption stuff that seemed so groovy back in the 60s, people have stopped taking us seriously. It looks like if we are going to get any of that respect back we are going to have to start doing a bit of righteous smiting.

So, it seems the only way we can start been taken seriously again is if we start setting fire to those who don’t believe exactly what we want them to believe. So, at the next parish raffle for the repair of the church roof prepare yourself for the smell of roasting heretic.

Portents Of Doom

Our very knees are all atremble as we make our way down these lonely streets in the near darkness. We clutch our holy shopping lists close to our chest and whisper the magical spells of our favourite TV commercials under our breath, trusting in the mystical powers of price-comparison websites and bright bold pink stain removers to keep us safe from what lurks in the shadows around us. We trust in the power of the one-eyed god of the living room to keep us safe from this world that lies outside our front doors.

The one-eyed god has warned us of these dangers, in graphic detail and in lurid close up. As we hurry on down the street we watch carefully for any sign of the pixellated faces that will signal danger, or the blurred number plates on the cars that pass by which are the tell-tale signs that something nasty is afoot.

Our tabloid fears grow on apace as we step out into the very streets our Daily Paranoia has so stridently warned us about in many a boldly-headlined front page exclusive and screaming editorial. We know there should be loud drunken rioting, fights and mayhem spilling out into these mean streets as we wade through rivers of running blood past the burnt out shells of overturned cars and gutted looted shops.

But all is quiet.

Perhaps too quiet….

Then out of the shadows comes a fearsome shape hulking towards us. We tense, ready to defend ourselves, instinctively tightening our grip on our shopping list.

“Morning, mate,” says the postman as he emerges from the gloom into the hesitant light of another wary dawn.

“Morning,” we sigh in relief as the postman goes by, mercifully leaving our throats uncut, as he goes off to deliver the post to Mrs Knobgobbler at No. 37.

Education Is ‘Dangerously Elitist’ Claim Schools

Many schools, yesterday, expressed their shock and outrage that people were expecting them to educate their pupils.

As one head teacher, setting out for a two week-long Diversity Awareness course at a five-star seaside hotel, said:

Where have these people been living? This is not the Dark Ages - whatever that was, the pre-TV age, I think - you know. We are not here to teach them things, that can only lead to elitism, with some children – through no fault of their own – turning out to be cleverer than other children, and we can’t have that.

The kids don’t even need to read and write, anyway, these days, when they can just send pictures to each other on their phones. As for things like Maths, well, with the sort of jobs these kids will get, it doesn’t matter. After all the cash registers in the shops where they work will handle all the complicated stuff for them, they’ll just have to wave the goods around in the direction of the bar code scanner without breaking it too often. Frankly, it would be cruel to even try to educate someone who’s going to have to live the rest of their life like that.

A teacher in a local Comprehensive, shouting from behind a barricade he had built around his desk, added:

Look, our job is to keep the little sods locked up during the day so their parents can go out to work for long enough to be able to afford the video games, phones and broadband connections that will keep these buggers occupied once we let them out of the schools.

It is a good job we don’t try to educate them, actually. Being as teenagers are miserably awkward and contrary grumpy buggers at the best of times, imagine what arseholes they’d be if we gave them enough education for them to realise how shit most of the rest of their lives are going to be?

As the education department no longer exists, The Rope tried to speak to the Secretary of State for Citizen Compliance, Ed ‘Total’ Balls, but he was too busy having backstabbing lessons and checking the PM’s diary for Gordon Brown’s whereabouts on the Ides of March.

Temptations Of The Flesh

Even if it is your most favourite goat that succumbs to deeds and actions which fill you with lustful thoughts and provokes desires within your very soul that could have only one consequence, then the Skhighhibhoss demands that you instead worship him, prostrating yourself on the stony desert ground repeatedly until all thoughts of wanton and lewd goats are cleansed from your mind and heart by his beneficence.

Then you should make your way to the nearest temple where the local Dhaftghit will make arrangements for both you and the strumpet goat to be stoned to death (followed by a minced goat supper for all the stoners and their apprentice stone gatherers).

[The temptations Of the Goat – The Ladhifeah: 1^st Book of Adjustable Spanners - Chapter VII (verses 8901-9907.3)]

To the outsider, or – Indeed – anyone in possession of even a modicum of rationality the above extract from the Uttabollux most Holy book The Ladhifeah seems extreme in its barbaric pointlessness. For – as the Ladhifeah insists throughout its 4000+ pages - a woman should be kept at all times in her cardboard box to prevent her provoking uncontrollable lusts in any nearby men folk.

However, with the women therefore constantly hidden from view and homosexuality punished by being stoned to death (twice) using small and sharply pointed pebbles – and for those caught in the act – fine-grain gravel – it is a slow, lingering, painful and – even, sometimes, quite boring – death. This - in the forbidding desert landscape in which the Uttabollux religion first developed - leaves only goats.

In an otherwise barren and – mostly inhospitable – landscape, a man is often, therefore, left alone and very sexually frustrated with only his flock of goats for company. It is hardly any wonder then, that those goats can provoke a man’s desire, unless - of course - he gets turned on by the only other living thing visible for miles around, small stunted juniper bushes. This, however, is not entirely unknown in that country, and is – obviously - punishable by death by stoning; this time, though, with house bricks.

Time Takes Us By The Hand

Here at the start of the day everything is waiting, ready. Where the day will go from here, no one knows. What will begin and what will end lie concealed by the hours to come.

We think we have control of the future, but it slips out of the grasp just as it comes within reach. We cannot hold on to it and we cannot take it and shape it into a new form to suit us.

Time takes us by the hand and leads us. We do not lead we can only follow. The day is taken from us by time itself and its path chosen for it.

Fury At Church’s Attempt To Hijack Winter Solstice

A marketing campaign by the Christian church to re-label the traditional winter solstice celebrations has been roundly condemned by traditionalists who wish to keep the Winter Solstice special.

As one early solstice reveller said, whilst out shopping for some erotic underwear for his wife:

Those Christians come over here and trying to highjack our traditions, it’s just not right. I think it’s outrageous the way they stole the nativity from Mithras and now claim it as their own. Now, it seems, they want to stop us spending money, eating and drinking to excess and getting a bit rude with each other.

After all, that is what this midwinter period should be all about, a bit of excess and indulgence in the middle of the winter to help us get through the hard times. We don’t want them Christians ruining it all with their bloody dour religion and those tedious bloody carols when we should be having plenty of Slade and Wizzard, mince pies, sherry and a few games of hide the salami with the girls from the office. Now, that’s the real meaning of the midwinter festival!

However, a leading bishop said:

Look, we spent ages ruthlessly persecuting and setting fire to people in order to make everyone decide in was in their best interest to become a Christian. We are not going to give up now, even though people do seem to have seen through all the bollocks we’ve been talking ever since we first set up shop. Christmas is ours, so you can forget about all this ‘real meaning of the solstice’ crap and shove your Yule log up your arse. Now, piss off out of my way, I’ve got some carols to sing.

Call For Computer Game Ban

The British press was yesterday once again accused of trying to stir up outrage over yet another computer game. Despite computer games being around now for well over thirty years and, consequently, the people who are now parents - and even grandparents – are very familiar with computer games, the press still tries to demonize the games into new folk devils that are corrupting the nation’s youth.

This week’s controversy – inevitably enough - centres a round what has become the best-selling computer game of all time: Call Of Auditing: Modern Accountancy III, with the Daily Timewarp, in particular, calling into question the game’s suitability for children, despite the game itself having a very prominent 37+ Only age warning and several stickers detailing the adult nature of some of the very realistic accountancy action in the game.

[A SAS (Special Accountancy Service) operative setting out on the audit trail in the video game: Call Of Auditing: Modern Accountancy III]

In an editorial yesterday, the newspaper asked whether the explicit, hyper-realistic use of Cash Book reconciliation featured in one particular scene within the game was taking it a bit too far, especially when it is the player who has to reconcile the available receipts with the figures in the cash book using only a basic calculator and a single biro.

As it says on the game box:

Call Of Auditing: Modern Accountancy III is a very intense fully-realistic up-to-date accountancy experience, with the player having to go out on the audit trail where they will have to be adept with not only a calculator, but able to cope with a spreadsheet too, especially in the online version when other players will be in the same office, often talking to each other about what was on TV the previous evening, whose turn it is to do the tea round and who was the last one to use the stapler.

A prominent Rent-A-Quote MP who the Daily Timewarp has on speed-dial, responded with the usual cliché: ‘Must we fling this filth at our kids! I demand a full public enquiry!’ before going on to say: ‘What is it I’m meant to be outraged about again…? Oh, a computer game… right. If you’re sure it will get my name in the papers, I’ll certainly call for them to ban it.’

One allegedly concerned educationalist, eager to get her outrage into the media said:

There is a time and a place for children to learn about accountancy, but that must be when they are old enough to have a job of their own. Learning about such things as double-entry, invoice reconciliation and so on at too young an age could cause all sorts of problems later in life, especially when it comes to meeting members of the opposite sex who are not in the habit of keeping all their receipts.

Actually, if you could just mention in your article that – completely by co-incidence – I have a new book out, called: How Evil Computer Games Are Turning Our Children Into Psychopathic Brain-Dead End-Of-Level Monsters, that would be great. Thanks. I’ve known computer games are evil ever since I got stuck on the first level of Halls Of The Things on the Spectrum and my brother, and all his mates, laughed at me.

The Problem Of Automated Cheese-Recognition

The problem of automated cheese-recognition has bedevilled cheese-distinguishing engineers for centuries. Back in the early days of the industrial revolution, for example, the famous natural philosopher Wensleydale Probity, first began the experiments that years later enabled him to distinguish between Cheddar and Double Gloucester whilst blindfolded in one of the most memorable lectures ever given to the Royal Society, at least since Isaac Newton’s infamous lecture where he poked a sleeping dormouse with a stick in order to demonstrate the subtle effects of gravity on somnolent small mammals.

However, the world had to wait until the industrial revolution was well under way before the mechanical expertise of the engineers of the time had developed to the degree that made automated cheese distinguishing possible.

Postulation Sage-Derby’s first attempt at the Cheese Difference Engine was a failure, however, due to the complexity of programming the machine to cope with the influx of French cheese, where despite their reputation for being fine cheeses – the machine found it hard to distinguish between Brie and Camembert. Even though the programmer Linda Lovelace spent many hours on her knees perfecting her art, much to the delight of Sage-Derby who professed himself more than pleased with Miss Lovelace’s technique, especially in the deft way she encoded his algorithms.

Unfortunately, the funding for Sage-Derby’s Cheese Difference Engine ran out before he could calibrate the elaborate gearing necessary to accurately distinguish Red Leicester from Cheshire cheese without the operator having to wear a hat. This failure to complete the machine that he believed would transform the art of cheese differentiation left Sage-Derby a broken man. Despite Miss Lovelace’s attempts to get him back up, straight and proud, once more he was never the same again, retiring limp and defeated from public life altogether to sit alone in his garden shed quietly pondering his delphiniums, until his death at the age of 59 in 1882.

The Evening’s Promise

The silent midnight, and the dark that hides so much of this, our tragic world, away beyond the reach of the drunks stumbling along these streets made suddenly so full of all the promise they believed this life had so long ago forgotten. It seemed as if it had forgotten them too, leaving them nothing but half-recalled fragments of dreams they once held so close.

Now, as they stumble, those dreams return, as precious as the brightest jewels that ever shone back up to them from the street puddles, reflecting back the bright city lights, along all the streets they rambled down.

They were all looking for that special moment every such night out holds out to those drunk enough to believe that they will be the lucky ones. That it will be they who find everything they have ever searched for, at the end of this particular night.

To them it seems a time when the princess of their dreams will step out from a darkened doorway to take their hand, and lead them towards a far magical kingdom that has no one as worthy to wear the crown.

Government Action On Spending Cuts Announced

Yesterday the UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown*, promised to make significant cuts to his government’s spending, hoping to save – he said: ‘Billions of pounds.’

He went on to outline how he plans to set up an ‘independent government agency – OffToss – which he said would be tasked with the job of identifying savings throughout the entire national and local government systems. Mr Brown pointed out that the agency will be asked to identify at least £10 billion a year, over the next decade, in savings and should be able to identify at least 500 000 jobs that cut be cut without significantly effecting the Labour party’s electoral chances.

In a separate fact sheet issued at the end of Mr Brown’s press briefing, it was estimated that OffToss would cost £15 billion a year to run and would need a staff of at least 750 000 to enable it to investigate thoroughly all aspects of government waste and inefficiency and to produce the essential graphs, tables, PR releases and briefing papers.

The PM then went on to say that there were certain high profile public sector jobs that the country could no longer afford, saying:

I have personally identified around at least 650 jobs that – in the current economic climate (that started in America and had nothing to do with me) – this country can no longer afford. Having a parliament, which only gets in the way of me governing the country how I know it should be run, is a luxury we can no longer justify, especially when there is the ever present danger of a terrorist threat such as the Evil Tories winning the next election… despite all I have done for this country, you bunch of ungrateful Bastar..!

After a government advisor had hit the PM with a stick until he calmed down, the PM continued:

After all, if only you ungrateful bunch of bastards actually realised what a great job I’m doing, and how a towering intellectual genius like me can only be held back by the petty whinging and nit-picking of all those MPs, then you will see the sense of getting rid of them as soon as possible.

Anyway, I know that the hard-working families of this great nation really just can’t be arsed with that walk down to the polling station every five years or so. So, I might as well just save you the bother. See how nice I am to you all?

So, anyway, when I do abolish the outdated institution of the Houses of Parliament, not only will we save the salaries of the MPs, there will be massive savings made by getting rid of their support staff – or close relatives, as they are known elsewhere. Furthermore, I will – once and for all - solve the problem of MP’s expenses, at a stroke. It takes a great genius like me to be that clever. No more of those bloody annoying headlines about sodding moats and duck houses, which will then enable the media to concentrate on what a great job I’m doing saving the world from… from… from… well, whatever it needs me to save it from next time.

Thank you. You will not need to ask me any questions, I have thought of all the ones you could possibly ask me, and I’ve decided they are too piddlingly insignificant for me to waste my towering genius on bothering to answer them.

So… Good night.

*Yes, still, amazingly.

Monday Poem: Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty

Each day it is a new gift
waiting to be opened.
Boxed, neatly ready
for the kiss, it waits
patiently behind beauty's
entangled brambles,
sleeping with parted lips.
A cunning disguise.

The Legends Of The Shopping Mall

Our very chins are all aquiver with excitement this fair morning as we prepare to face the ordeal by supermarket with only the barest minimum on our holy shopping list to protect us from the beguiling and mesmerising special offers and Buy One Get One Free deals that tempt so many unwary shoppers onto the deadly rocks of over-spending.

We fought our way into the shopping mall, home of the demons of discounted prices and battled the monsters that are known only as the Sales That Must End Soon, only ever hoping to come out with our credit rating intact.

We entered the strange twisting labyrinths that are the lairs of the strange giant monsters that hoard furniture, drawing our credit cards in readiness, as we stalked amongst the wardrobes and fitted kitchens, seeking the treasures that are rumoured to lie deep within these monsters’ lairs.

We too have sat around listening in awed wonder to the tales of those brave enough to enter such lairs before us, listening in barely-concealed horror and trepidation as they told tales of that one ideal piece of furniture that lies deep within these places that is both well-made and reasonably priced, but is also that rarest of the rare – of a size that would fit in the space we have available.

So, we crept ever onward down into the darkest, deepest bowels of the labyrinth our ears cocked for those dread screams of terror from those other shoppers as they encounter the dreaded sales assistants and their bloody-curdling cries of ‘Can I help you, sir?’

We fought bravely, and, after a hard-fought battle, won the solemn promise of a delivery date in a future time that feels almost close enough to touch, and have escaped with only minor damage to our bank balance. Only to find our way to home and safety blocked by the necessity of battling through this supermarket in the ordeal known as the weekly shop.

No matter how battle-scarred our bank balance we fought bravely on, staggering beaten and bloody to the relative safety of the checkout queues. A place of relative safety, where at last we could turn to survey the battlefield, and note with sadness how many of our brave fellow shoppers fell to the ambushes so cleverly placed next to the discount shelves that tempted them towards almost certain defeat, and the loss of that week’s saving towards the holiday of a lifetime they had so faithfully promised, vowed, to keep safe from anything the deadly supermarkets could fling at them.

So we escape to the safety of the car park with our trolley of hard-won goods, grateful we live to fight again another day, but always – behind the eyes – there is that never forgotten image of those who we leave behind, cowed and defeated, and the almost certain knowledge that one day – who knows when – it will be our turn.