Where's Tony?

As Israel's cabinet pondered international calls for a ceasefire for a tense three seconds, before deciding to carry on turning the Gaza Strip into an elongated crater, concern was growing over the whereabouts of Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair.

"He gave an interview for our Haaretz newspaper a week ago, in which he trotted out the usual wishy-washy crap about 'wouldn't it be nice if everyone would just learn to get along'," laughed Israel's PM, Ehud Olmert, "But that was over the phone. We haven't actually seen him in ages. He's not going to be in the Gaza Strip, either. We told him back in July that it was a bit iffy - and if he was too timid to go there then, well, he's not very likely to be there now, is he?"

When asked if he had seen anything of Mr Blair recently, Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas replied: "Who?"

Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown initially gave the same response. However, after being reminded that he served as Chancellor for ten years under Mr Blair, he grudgingly replied that he had heard nothing from him in months - adding that if he never heard from him again, he would be counting his blessings.

When the Pope was asked about Mr Blair - who converted to Catholicism after stepping down as Prime Minister - his press office issued a statement that His Holiness met many pilgrims while carrying out his duties and could not be expected to remember every individual whom he blessed. "Is he gay?" asked a papal nuncio.

Spokesmen from JP Morgan Chase and Zurich Financial Services confirmed that they had not heard from him since appointing him as a special advisor on globalisation. "We're beginning to wonder whether we should add Tony Blair to our long list of dodgy investments," said one.

Mr Blair's Faith Foundation, his Sport Foundation and Yale University - which gave him a visiting lectureship in faith and globalism - also admitted that there had been no contact with the former world statesman for some time.

Meanwhile, as Israeli bombs continued to rain down on Gaza, its beleaguered citizens issued a heartfelt plea to the elusive Peace Envoy: "Please, Mr Blair, won't you do for us what you did for the lucky people of Britain?"

Tits Out

An Australian MP is trying to introduce a private member's bill to ban topless sunbathing on the beaches of New South Wales. The Rev Fred Nile, a Christian Democrat in Australia's Upper House, told the Nev Filter:

"Strewth, mate, have you seen the baps on display on Sydney's beaches? Terrified youngsters, out for a day of innocent family fun building sandcastles on Bondi Beach run screaming at the horrifying sight of all those luscious... bouncing... nubile... firm... succulent... bronzed... perky... squeezable young breasts - excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom."

"It shouldn't be allowed," he added breathlessly, a few minutes later.

Most politicians in Canberra, however, poured cold water on Rev Nile's plans and added that they would be doing the same to Rev Nile himself if he started panting in the House.

New Year's Honours List In Full

Everyone you like from the telly has been knighted, as have a load of faceless suits you've never heard of. And some bloke down the road got an MBE.

Recession Definitely Caused By Jobless Scum

The unemployed have finally admitted that the current economic disaster is all their fault and nobody else's, after it was revealed in several tabloid papers that they are all raking in an absolute bloody fortune.

"Yeah, it's all thanks to us, innit?" confessed a typical bone-idle dosser as he climbed into his Aston Martin for his fortnightly visit to the Jobcentre. "I claim Jobseeker's Allowance and I get Housing and Council Tax Benefit, which gives me an income of, oh, about £12m every two weeks. Then there's the Child Benefit for the nipper -he's taken the helicopter to Eurodisney this week, with the live-in nanny - which is worth another £20,000 a week. On top of that I've got Big Car Benefit, Exotic Pet Allowance for the tiger and a low user rebate on the phone bill. I'm bloody quids in, mate."

"Listen, I'll tell you straight, sunshine - I wouldn't get out of bed for any job offer lower than director of a multi-national," he added. "Wouldn't be worth my while, see? OK, James, take me to the Taxpayers' Bank, there's a good chap - I've got to sign my name on the dotted line at 11.40 sharp. No rest for the wicked."

The decent, hardworking folk of England were outraged by the frank admission of responsibility from the unemployed, however.

"I knew it. I bloody knew it," said one estate agent in Islington. "Well, fuck 'em. They won't get any more sympathy and understanding from me, let me tell you. They ought to be bloody strung up, all of them."

He then shouted at his crying neighbour, who had just lost her job at Woolworths: "Oi, scrounger! Yes, you! Because of you, I'm going to have to spend my summer holiday trudging round the Lake District up to my arse in sheepshit, instead of sunning myself on the glorious beaches of Thailand. Happy now, you greedy, thieving cow? Well, are you? You deserve all that's coming to you. I hope Gordon Brown fucks up your life. You lazy, fiddling bitch."

Live Fast, Die Young

A report by the government's transport advisors has recommended that all cars be fitted with a speed-limiting device, claiming that the measure - if implemented - would cut road injuries by 29%.

The device, known as a 'copper', would be installed in the back seat of the car, and equipped with a 9mm handgun. If the driver were to exceed the speed limit of the road on which he was driving, the speed limiter would hit him over the head with the pistol and a voice would tell him: "Who do you think you are - Stirling Moss? You're nicked, sunshine."

However, campaign group Safe Speed has warned against the use of the device, saying that it might get carried away and empty the gun into the driver's head, just to be on the safe side.

The government says that no decision has been made on whether to implement the report, but it sounded like just the kind of nanny-state bullying that Gordon Brown would love.

'We Feel Much More Peaceful Now, Thanks,' Bomb-Dodging Palestinians Tell Israel

Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip are reported to be dancing in their ruined streets, as Israel continues to bring peace to the troubled region by carpet-bombing its towns.

So far, the Israeli Air Force has carried out demolition work on many military strongpoints - including the Interior Ministry, the Islamic University and police compounds - which have become obsolete symbols of hate in the climate of love and understanding which now prevails among the peace-loving Palestinian people.

Israeli ground forces are reported to be massing on the borders - leading to speculation that the armed forces are about to embark on a rapid goodwill tour of the shattered territory, distributing shells of peace and bullets of reconciliation among the enthusiastic populace.

The international community has been swift to respond to Israel's innovative peace gesture.

"I say," commented British Foreign Secretary Miliband One, while US President-Elect Barack Obama was seen to raise an eyebrow in a significant manner.

"Thank you, Israel, for bringing peace to the Middle East at last," rejoiced one maimed resident as he was pulled from the wreckage of his home. "How could we possibly continue to support these naughty, hot-headed militants who fire the occasional rocket into your illegal settlements, when you respond with such commendable restraint and tolerance?"

He was then dragged off to hospital on a donkey cart to have his crushed legs amputated without anaesthetic, thanks to Israel's compassionate blockading of fuel and medical supplies.

Soap Is Bad For You

Healthcare-for-the-rich provider BUPA has attacked soaps for their unrealistic depiction of unhealthy lifestyles, saying that TV companies "miss out health messages".

Top of their list was legendary chain-smoking Dot Cotton from EastEnders. According to BUPA, she ought to be coughing phlegm all over Albert Square's market stalls as she trundles past on her mobility scooter, with stumps where her legs used to be and her shrivelled, tar-dripping lungs dangling uselessly from her lips.

A more realistic portrayal of alcoholics like Emmerdale's Shadrach Dingle and Hollyoaks' Leo Valentine would see them taking ill-aimed swings at each other in the street, before falling arse over tit in the gutter and suffering multiple orifice evacuation, finally expelling their ruined livers and kidneys as their protesting digestive tracts finally shut down.

"As for the disgusting face-stuffers infesting our soaps - like Charlie Slater and pretty much every manky Northern gut-bucket in Coronation Street - they should be waddling around with buttons popping like bullets at every step, farting uncontrollably and spraying their disgusting sweat over everyone they meet, before keeling over with a coronary if they even catch sight of a staircase," said BUPA's assistant medical director, Dr Peter Mace.

"The next time anybody dies of something, their grieving family should sue these irresponsible producers," he continued, with froth foaming from his mouth. "They tell you that soaps are just escapist entertainment. I say they are nothing less than the vile propaganda of death. Switch off your television right now! Drop that rich tea biscuit! Don't do that! Whatever it is, stop it immediately, do you hear me? I hate you all and I want you to live!"

Men in white coats then surrounded him and hauled him away to have anger management forcibly inserted into the appropriate place.

Upbeat Brown Rouses Britain By Recalling Good Old Days Of Most Destructive Cataclysm Ever Inflicted Upon Mankind

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has outlined his vision for 2009, saying that the British people need to see the recession as a "test of character" and display the spirit of the Second World War.

"I am confident that we can steer Britain safely into the future by plunging headlong into the past," he told the nation on Sunday. "The next few years will see ruination visited upon our city centres, forced conscription for millions, the collapse of public services, vast numbers rendered homeless and many more of our troops lying dead and forgotten in far-flung corners of the world. But, I tell you, there is a ray of hope to sustain us through our dark ordeal. We have a great and powerful ally in the United States - which will not hesitate to come to our aid after it has brought us to the brink of national bankruptcy and then, when it's all over, present us with a truly colossal bill that will take half a century or more to repay."

When he was reminded that, in 1945, the country quickly and unceremoniously dumped its prime minister in favour of wholesale nationalisation, free healthcare for all, full grants for students and a raft of other socialist measures associated with a fairer society, Mr Brown raised two fingers in what may or may not have been a victory sign, and stamped out of the press briefing.

Evil Sorcerers Imbue Lennon Zombie With Travesty of Life

The lifeless corpse of former Beatle John Lennon has been dug up and reanimated by the sinister One Laptop Per Child Foundation, as part of an inhuman plot to transform an entire generation of African children into the call-centre slaves of the future.

Lennon's leathery cadaver - which is badly decomposed after 28 years in the grave - is being manipulated by malevolent sorcerers into urging the public to buy the brightly-coloured, but almost totally useless, £135 XO laptop for their children. For every cute-but-inadequate computer sold, another will be forced on an impoverished child in Africa.

The foul necromancers say their aim is to create a generation who have the barest level of computer literacy needed to perform simple, repetitive tasks for just enough of a pittance to keep them hovering indefinitely on the brink of starvation.

"Despite our best efforts, the average Indian's standard of living is rising steadily," hissed a serpent-like spokesman for the magicians' unholy cabal. "Soon they will be able to free themselves from the curse of stultifying wage-slavery. We have, however, discovered a huge, untapped stock of humans in Africa - and, as many of its nations offer the added bonus of being run by corrupt, easily-bought governments who care nothing for the lot of their people, these lost souls will be bound to us for the whole of their worthless lives. To get them used to the idea of serving the computer constantly, the human hatchlings will find that they must wind a handle constantly, just to supply it with electricity. Now begone with your insignificant questions, puny man-thing, lest you awaken our cosmic lord's insatiable thirst for blood-sacrifice."

The rotting, soulless Lennon-travesty is set to claw its way into the nation's homes this evening, when the stars are right, dully shrieking its sinister, but seductive, message: "Brains! Brains, brains, brains, brains, brains."

Labour Party Bashed By Bishops

Five senior bishops from the Church of England have launched a scathing attack on the government, accusing it of being "morally corrupt".

In a series of interviews to be published in the Sunday Telegraph - a newspaper famed for its proud tradition of concern for the less well-off - the clerics accuse Labour of presiding over a nation torn by a growing chasm between rich and poor, together with increasing family breakdown and an unhealthy reliance on debt.

The Bishops of Manchester, Durham, Winchester, Carlisle and Hulme said that the party had sacrificed principled politics and long-term solutions in favour of vote-winning tactics. They also noticed that, somewhere along the line - and in stark contrast to Church of England clergy - its ranks seemed to have become exclusively filled with privileged middle-class types, none of whom had ever done a hard day's proper work in their lives.

"Er... howay man. Labour made a lot of promises, but a lot of them seem to have vanished into thin air," said the Right Proper Reverend Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, adjusting his cloth mitre. "We have not seen a raising of aspirations in the last 13 years, but instead there is a sense of hopelessness. Why aye."

The bishops issued an appeal to the Telegraph's socialist readership to show solidarity with their fellow workers, by voting Conservative at the next general election in order to ensure a return to decency and compassion in politics.

Sickening Christmas Violence Condemned

There has been an outcry over pictures showing Prince Edward brandishing a stick at his dogs, and apparently hitting one of them.

Animal charities accuse the Prince of setting a "truly sickening example" by his actions, as he attempted to break up a fight between several dogs over a pheasant that he, his father or Prince Andrew had just blasted out to extinction on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

"It is an offence to cause an animal unnecessary suffering," pointed out Andrew Tyler, president of Animal Aid. "Hitting a dog with a stick is a pathetic, cowardly and vicious act - though, strange as it may seem, hitting a pheasant with a twelve-bore shotgun is perfectly legal and sporting. No, I can't see the logic in that either."

A spokesman for the Royal Family asked if people would be happy if Prince Edward started hitting peasants instead, pointing out that the public seemed to be doing quite a lot of that for themselves these days, and especially over the festive period.

Alternative Speech Condemned

The British government has led widespread criticism of the controversial decision by TV executives to broadcast an alternative Christmas speech by one of the most feared and hated enemies of mankind the world has ever known.

Horror-struck viewers across the UK cowered behind their sofas as the living embodiment of evil filled their screens on Christmas Day and preached its twisted message to the nation.

"Hello, good people of Britain! Peace and goodwill to each and every one of you!" boomed the Cyber King. "You know, I sometimes wonder if the world wouldn't be a nicer place if people and governments gave a bit more thought to the teachings of Jesus. Merry Christmas, everybody!"

Politicians, religious organisations and human rights groups were swift to condemn TV bosses for giving airtime to the Cyber King, pointing out that the alien monster was well-known for its views on forcibly converting the world into Cybermen, and had a policy of ruthlessly deleting unbelievers in its home universe.

Channel 1 defended its decision to broadcast the message, saying: "As the leader of one of the most powerful armies of emotionless cybernetic killers in the Void, the Cyber King's views are enormously influential. As we approach a critical time in interdimensional relations, we are offering our viewers an insight into an alternative world view of an alternative world." 

Critics remained steadfastly unmoved by the argument, however.

"Who will deliver next year's Christmas message?" demanded Labour MP Louise Ellman. "Davros? Or the Master?"

Millions of traumatised viewers sought instead to pick up some crumbs of comfort from the Queen's traditional Christmas message - in which the monarch expressed her heartfelt concerns for the welfare of her subjects in Britain and throughout the Commonwealth, in the difficult times of economic uncertainty that lie ahead.

"I'm all right, Jack," she told her loyal supporters as she sat in one of her palaces, surrounded by the trappings of unimaginable wealth. "But mate, you're fucked."

Mythical Heroes Won't Save You, Says Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has used his Christmas sermon to tell the people not to waste their time waiting for larger-than-life heroes to bring comprehensive solutions to the ills of the world.

"Forget Superman, Batman, the X-Men, Hellboy, V, Klaatu, Watchmen, Jesus and so on because they don't exist," he told weeping churchgoers at Canterbury Cathedral. "Small and local gestures are more important - such as digging a deep hole in your back garden, stocking it with all your Christmas leftovers and sitting down with your huddled family members to wait for the impending end of the world."

Not to be outdone in dumbing down the sincerely-held religious beliefs of millions, the Archbishop of Wales called on people to heed the words of the prophet Nigella and have chips for lunch at Christmas, saying that the TV cook had revealed a "profound theological truth".

 "Well, what it is, you see, is that Christmas is not about perfection, viewed either from the human or divine perspective," said Dr Barry Morgan. "The trouble with us is that we are so hooked on looking for perfection that we are in danger of failing to understand the true meaning of this feast, isn't it? Now be a dear, Mrs. Evans, and pass the ketchup - there's lovely."

Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Liverpool (who is a Catholic Archbishop and therefore not really in the same league as the others, but it keeps the story going) told Scousers that the world was facing the "darkest night" - in the form of a strange, bat-like figure glimpsed leaping from building to building in the darkness.

"Who knows what this portends?" said the Most Unfeasibly Reverend and Maximally Unctious Patrick Kelly-Blimey-O'Reilly-Begorrah. "Only yesterday I saw the sky lit up with a beam of shining light, in the shape of a nasty, flappy bat. Is it perhaps a snarling fiend from the flaming pit, come to carry us all screaming down into the burning fires of Hell? Or - unlikely as it seems - could it be some kind of larger-than-life hero who will save us from the evil, grinning Joker in Number 10? Oi, you at the back there, laughing boy - are you gay? Fuck off out of my church, you cheeky mincing knob jockey."

Harold Pinter Pauses Indefinitely

The renowned playwright, Harold Pinter, is reported to have died on Christmas Eve after a long battle with cancer.

Some sources, however, suggest that his silent immobility may simply be a longer-than-usual Pinterseque pause before he launches into a particularly vituperative, expletive-laden outburst against his favourite war criminals, President Bush and Tony Blair.

Can You Spare A Guinea At Christmas?

The African Union has held an emergency meeting to discuss the republic of Guinea, following a military coup by junior officers shortly after the death of President Lansana Conte on Monday.

Many African leaders have been swift to condemn the junta's seizure of power from the poverty-stricken country's corrupt government.

"General Conte was a great man," said Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, "And he had a great bank balance to prove it. He was also a great democratic innovator, generously allowing only a complete nobody to stand against him in a mockery of a presidential election. I wish I'd thought of that, instead of letting that irritating bastard Tsvangirai run."

The National Council for Democracy and Development has named Captain Moussa Dadis Camara as its president, declared a curfew and warned generals loyal to the government not to use mercenaries to regain power. Captain Camara has stated that "free, credible and transparent elections" would be held in December 2009.

"That is something else that worries us," said an African Union spokesman. "It could set a bad precedent for the entire continent. Nevertheless, we are hopeful that a couple of months in power will work its usual magic on these idealistic young hotheads. Once they realise how easy it is to divert investment and tax income into their own pockets, no doubt things will settle down into the usual pattern."

Few ordinary Guineans appear to be unduly discomfited by the curfew - which has led to the closure of shops and petrol stations in the capital, Conakry - as most of them are too poor to shop much anyway, let alone own a car.

Meanwhile, the European Union and the United States have joined the AU in condemnation of the coup.

"It's all very well banging on about the democracy thing like it's some worthwhile goal in itself, or something," said President George W Bush. "General Conte may have been a thieving, dictatorial thug, but a few judicious bungs to him and his minsterial henchmen made Guinea a great place for corporate America to do business - and that's the bottom line, my friends."

"You wouldn't believe how little it costs to bribe a corrupt government," confirmed Gordon Brown. "A second-hand Jag with a built-in DVD player and a box set of old Arnold Schwarzenegger movies will keep a greedy cabinet minister on-message for a year or more."

And it's no different in Guinea, either," he added.

Accountancy Firms Delighted With Christmas Gifts

Delighted City accountants say that all their Christmases have come at once, as Father Christmas struggles to stuff their bulging stockings with bankrupt high-street chains.

"Thank you, Santa, for this wonderful Whittards of Chelsea tea-and-coffee set," said an excited Ernst & Young. "I've always wanted to see a huge wad of cash poured into my mug by a rich private equity firm. And thank you for all the brilliant CDs, DVDs and games that came with my lovely new Zavvi. I'm probably going to play with that for a week or two, before flogging it off to some greedy investors."

"deer santa you carnt immagen how hapie i wus toe reseev my nis orficers club outfitt," wrote little PriceWaterhouse, in a moving 'thank-you' letter. "it wuz juss wot i wantd and i hav oreddy sowed it on four a grait big stak of shinie coins. i am reelie looken forwod toe 20009."

The lucky little accountants were solemnly reminded to spare a thought those less fortunate than themselves at Christmas time, however. Unlucky Deloitte, for example, were only given cast-off Woolies and a broken Entertainment UK centre from the scrapheap - while poor MCR have received nothing at all for their unwanted MFI home construction set.

The misery of the financial have-nots failed to burden the excited accountants' minds for long, however, as they eagerly tucked into a splendid Christmas dinner feast of Bollinger at Quaglino's.

Pope Tells Non-Heteros: 'Jesus Would Rather Save A Tree Than You'

Pope Benedict XVI has issued his traditional Christmas message to homosexuals and transsexuals, telling them that Jesus hates them.

In his traditional end-of-year message to senior Vatican staff, God's favourite ex-Hitler Youth flak gunner emphasised that saving the world from a tidal wave of bum-fornication was at least as important as protecting the rainforests. He went on to say that gender theory was yet another example of the evils of rational thinking and, in his opinion, the Catholic Church made a big mistake when it stopped burning people at the stake for possession of a telescope. 

"The little baby Jesus was given to us to save the trees, the parrots and the monkeys," said God's vicar on Earth. "But I say unto you that leather-clad nancy boys, hairy-footed bull-dykes and those walking abominations with tits and willies in particular won't be sharing heaven with the monkeys. They will be screaming in well-earned torment, mincing about in the fiery pit for all eternity with red-hot pokers up their jacksies. Amen."

"Unless they happen to be Catholic priests, of course," he added. "In that case,  least said, soonest mended."

All across overwhelmingly-Catholic Brazil, well-hung ladyboys were reported to be in floods of tears - apart from the ones living in the rainforests, who said they were hoping for a blanket inclusion into the kingdom of heaven.

Teachers Keen To Teach Any Old Rubbish

One in three UK schoolteachers supports the teaching of mumbo-jumbo in science lessons, according to a survey published today.

The Ipsos Mori survey also shows that 65% of primary and secondary school science teachers still say there is no place in their lessons for creationism - the flimsy, pick-and-mix argument that says that the evolution of the human eye is far too complicated for its adherents (including President Bush) to understand, and therefore cannot have come about by natural processes, despite the fact that the 26 other perfectly good types of eye have somehow managed it.

"Creationism, as an alternative to the evolution of species, has long been thoroughly discredited by rigorous analysis of data," explained Professor Chris Higgins, vice-chancellor of Durham University. "One might as well teach astrology, flat earthism, alchemy or a geocentric universe."

Many teachers seized on Professor Higgins' additional suggestions with enthusiasm, however, saying that they would happily teach anything that soothed the blind prejudices of their students and did not conflict with parental indoctrination.

However, the survey continues to attract criticism from prominent atheists in the scientific community.

"Any reasonable person with the slightest aptitude for rational thought will surely want to remove these thick-headed idiot teachers immediately - and not just from the classroom, but from the gene pool of the human race," commented popular TV God-baiter Richard Dawkins, through clenched teeth. "My message to these so-called educators is: read a book, for fuck's sake - preferably one of mine, available in all good bookshops."

"But not SPCK bookshops, obviously," he added, after pausing to hurl abuse at a visiting neighbour who wished him a Merry Christmas.

Sorry, Says Assistant Commissioner Frightened By Conservative Party

Little Bobby Slow, the Assistant Commissioner heading the probe into the Metropolitan Police raid on Tory MP Damian Green's Commons office, is reported to have dried his eyes and climbed out from the drain in which he was hiding from the Conservative Party.

On Sunday, Mr Slow dramatically burst into tears and ran away from home, claiming that the "spiteful" Conservatives and  "their press friends" were intimidating him.

After an extensive operation in which community support officers in the neighbourhood used loudhailers to shout, "It's all right Bobby, the nasty Tories have gone now, come and have a cuddle from DCI Savage," Assistant Commissioner Slow finally emerged timidly from his hiding place this morning, streaked with tears and covered in shite, and asked for his favourite teddy.

"I'm ever so sorry for all the trouble I've caused," he said later. "Mummy says I was very silly to think that the horrid Mail on Sunday was in any way connected with the nice people at the Conservative Party."

Little Bobby added that he was hoping to pick up the threads of his totally impartial investigation into whether his best friends in the Met Gang were in any way biased when they burst into the House of Commons without a warrant and arrested a Conservative MP for doing his job. But before that, his relieved family said, they would be taking him to McDonalds for a special treat - although Mr Slow told reporters he hoped he wouldn't meet Ronald McDonald.

"The scary clown man came over to our table on my birthday," he explained. "I didn't like him and I weed in my pants."

Brown Unveils Exciting Plan to Work Jobless To Death

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told readers of the Daily Mirror of his plans to spend even more money he hasn't got on pointless job creation schemes, saying that it isn't a proper recession if unemployment figures can be fiddled below the two million mark.

"We have already delayed the building of two aircraft carriers - which are essential to Britain, if we wish to keep pretending to ourselves that we are still a major world power - for two years, by telling shipyard workers to take a tea break every ten minutes instead of the usual half an hour," he wrote. "Now I propose to force these useless mouths out of the Jobcentres and into exciting New Labour camps, where they will perform worthless, futile tasks such as digging holes and filling them in again, painting lumps of coal white, and peeling vast tubs of potatoes and then glueing the skins back on."

"And then painting them white," he added.

Mr Brown explained that his scheme offered Britain a final solution to its ongoing financial collapse. He added that the workforce would not actually receive any money, as he was afraid that if he gave money to poor people the sky would fall down. Instead, he proposed to offer his good friends in the business community large sums of borrowed money to run the camps as they saw fit. The power industry is already reported to be interested in the possibility of incinerating the jobless to generate electricity.

"We see the unemployed chiefly as a major renewable fuel," said a PowerGen spokesman.  "They are a resource which is unlikely to run out for the foreseeable future."

"The reason I am in politics is because I saw unemployment in the 1970s and 1980s," said the PM. "I am determined we are not going to treat people the way the Conservatives treated them. In fact, we're not going to treat them as people at all. The Archbishop of Canterbury warns us that Britain must learn the lessons of Nazi Germany in dealing with the effects of the recession. Well, don't worry - I have."

Christmas TV Ruined By Boringly Non-Fatal Crash

Traumatised television executives seeking a traditional horrific pre-Christmas tragedy were consoling each other today, as it emerged that all 112 passengers and crew survived a plane crash at Denver International Airport.

As it was taking off, the Continental Airlines Boeing 737 veered off the runway, crashed down a ravine and burst into flames.

The news media rushed to the scene, to find passengers escaping from the inferno via the emergency exits in an orderly manner, under the calm supervision of the cabin crew. Heroic reporters risked their lives trying to close some of the exit hatches, whilst colleagues bravely rushed down the steep slopes waving cigarette lighters and tried to ignite dazed, fuel-drenched survivors.

Despite the best efforts of the press, however, many of the survivors remained shaken but unhurt. Patrick Hynes, chief of the city Fire Department's Airport Division, said that 38 of the 112 survivors had been taken to hospital.

"Injuries ranged from broken bones to significant fractures and bumps and bruises," he told shocked, weeping journalists.

Back in the newsrooms of the world, red-eyed editors were forced to give horror-seeking viewers blanket coverage of the Lockerbie crash, which happened 20 years ago but at least had a suitably mind-numbing body count.

"It's a disaster," said a BBC spokesman. "At Christmas time, viewers have come to depend on terrifying scenes of random death and destruction on a massive scale, so they can count themselves fortunate that their own suffering is limited to indigestion, the in-laws and waiting for January's credit card statement. But this year we have nothing but repeats to take their minds off it all."

New Government Scheme To Hit The Poor - Literally

A consultation document for the Department of Work and Pensions has suggested that the government should stop lending emergency interest-free credit to the impoverished needy at the bottom of society. Instead, it says, the loans should be made by credit unions, offering the meagre savings of other desperately-poor people at an APR of 26.8% - a rate matched only by loan sharks and store cards.

"No decision has been made yet," said a government official. "Nor will it be, while the media are sniffing around. The social fund provides affordable credit to worthless pieces of shit whom nobody cares about. We are now exploring how we can make it more widely available to working people instead, who don't need it anyway as they can always run up an overdraft with their bank."

Asked whether Gordon Brown would personally go round with a cricket bat and break the legs of any pauper defaulting on an instalment, the spokesman said that, although the Prime Minister's legendary hatred and contempt for the poor knew no bounds, the responsibility would be best left to the friendly local credit unions - along with any resulting bad publicity.

Christmas Charts Full of Cohen

The Christmas Top 50 is comprised exclusively of the light, frothy hits of songwriter Leonard Cohen, it was revealed tonight.

Covers of the cheery "Hallelujah" occupied the top spot and number two, with X-Factor karaoke winner Alexandra Who narrowly pipping the long-dead Tim Buckley to the coveted number one position. A re-release of legendary party animal Cohen's original version from 1984 was at number 36.

Other fun-packed festive Cohen covers filling the charts this Christmas include "Ain't No Cure For Love" by Beyonce, "Death of A Ladies' Man" by Boyzone, "There Is A War" by Leona Lewis and "Paper-Thin Hotel" by Take That.

"Pop fans can look forward to an unforgettable singalong party Christmas in 2008," said Radio 1's Vernon Kay, as he looped a tinsel noose around a light fitting.

Red Planet Was Fizzy, Says NASA

NASA is a step closer to discovering whether life may once have existed on Mars, after the discovery by its Reconnaissance Orbiter of carbonate rocks on the red planet.  All of the necessary ingredients for the rocks exist on Mars, so their apparent absence was an ongoing mystery.

Some scientists think that their rarity may be due to high acidity levels in Mars' now-vanished waters. However, a new theory from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggests that Mars was once covered with seas of cherryade, providing a neat explanation for the redness of the planet, and the present absence of life.

"If Mars has carbonate rocks, then it must have had carbonated water to make them," explained NASA's excited chief rocket scientist, Randy von Braun. "As everybody knows, the main occurrence of red carbonated water on Earth is in cheap supermarket cherryade - and God only knows where it all comes from or how it's made. My theory, then - get this - is that all of the cherryade in the universe originally came from Mars. Yeah? Check it out."

Dr von Braun went on to surmise that cherryade would have occurred naturally on Mars millions of years ago, through the random molecular interaction of molecules and stuff. Vast oceans of cherryade swiftly covered the entire surface of the planet and, for a while, other civilisations flocked to the planetary soda fountain and spread the new wonder-beverage throughout the galaxies.

However, after a period of time - which may have been several million years, says Dr von Braun, or more likely a day or two - the oceans of fizzy pop went flat, as the now-located carbonate rocks absorbed the carbon dioxide. Interstellar interest in our solar system swiftly evaporated - as did the fizz-free cherryade, leaving behind only an unpleasant-tasting residue which has stained the entire planet red.

Researchers are studying the theory with interest, and are already talking about a mission to Jupiter, to see if its thick atmosphere conceals vast oceans of Coca-Cola.

Met Police Reject Calls For Inquiry Into Staggering Incompetence

The Metropolitan Police have said there is no need for an inquiry into why they fitted up an innocent man for the 1994 killing of Rachel Nickell, when the real killer - Robert Napper, a convicted rapist and murderer - was under their noses all the time.

"No inquiry is needed, as we are fully aware of what went wrong here," said Assistant Commissioner John Yates. "Our investigation methods have changed since the 90s. Colin Stagg got banged up for a crime he didn't commit and he just  wouldn't bloody shut up about it, which maintained public interest in the case. That scenario simply wouldn't happen now, as we'd have shot him in the head thirteen times when we went to arrest him. Nothing to see here. Move along."

MEPs Vote To Abolish Slavery In Britain

European parliamentarians - including most Labour MEPs - have voted today to end Britain's jealously-guarded right to treat ordinary working people like slaves, despite stern opposition from Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The move means that the EU directive limiting the working week to 48 hours will finally come into force in Britain - unless the UK government can successfully argue that its citizens are some kind of sub-human race, unworthy of being treated with the basic decency and dignity that most European nationals take for granted.

Taking time out from drawing up redundancy lists, British business leaders were quick to deprecate the decision.

"This is an insult to our great nation," said a spokesman for the Confederation of British Industry. "Way back in 1993, the Conservative government successfully argued that the UK should retain its sovereign right to ruthlessly exploit its workforce. Ever since, the Labour Party has seen fit to maintain the time-honoured position that the average British worker is nothing but a resource on the balance sheet, to be cynically worn out and discarded at our whim."

"It's my traditional British birthright, as a loyal subject of Her Imperial Majesty the Queen, to be driven like a common beast of burden until I am ground down to a burned-out husk by years of relentless, soul-crushing overwork," said one haggard worker as he set fire to a European Union flag, generously given to him in lieu of a day's pay by his bosses. "Who do these jumped-up Eurocrats think they are, putting my physical and mental well-being over the profits of my employers? It's just another victory for Hitler."

"Don't worry," the Prime Minister told the nation. "Before this can be brought into UK law, we will engage in negotiations with the European ministers. I am confident that these talks will outlast me, you and possibly all life on this planet. Until then, it's back to work, scum. Get back up those chimneys."

Lost City Unearthed

The remains of an entire ancient city have been uncovered on the remote Atlantic coast of Devon, say excited archaeologists.

The city is thought to date from the Lary culture which ruled Britain in the mid-1980s, although some structures may date back as far as the 1950s.

The city - which was abandoned and buried by successive governments - shows macabre evidence of human sacrifice, with tens of thousands of victims of defence cuts unceremoniously dumped on the rubbish tip.

Excavators say the city enjoyed a once-thriving maritime culture, but its primitive rulers maintained a rigid, short-sighted attitude that failed to change with the times, resulting in cultural and economic stagnation. The city died a lingering death, and its forgotten inhabitants degenerated into a life of savage ignorance.

Among the rare finds that have been uncovered are ceramics (in the form of thousands of empty glasses and bottles), unfashionable cheap clothing bearing a variety of logos of yesteryear, and the remains of a young woman, still poignantly clutching a pregnancy testing kit.

The media were briefly stirred by the momentous discovery and hastily checked Wikipedia for references to the tragic lost city of Plymouth, before forgetting all about it again for another couple of thousand years.

Banks Urge Government To Reclaim Pensions-Error Money, Give It To Banks

The government is facing calls from the banking sector to claw back £126m in overpayments made to public-sector pensioners since 1978. Although it is to amend future payments, the government has said it had no plans to reclaim money already paid out - estimated to average £1300 per pensioner.

In a joint letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the heads of Britain's leading financial industries said that the money would be much better spent on them instead.

"What are these former pen-pushing civil servants, lefty teachers and time-serving grunts spending this misbegotten cash on?" they asked. "Werther's Originals, subscriptions to Reader's Digest and People's Friend, mountains of cat food and bloody scratchcards, in all probability. What the hell is the good of that? It is only thanks to our sheer brilliance and unstinting hard work that Britain is the country it is today - this money should be going into our pockets, not somebody else's."

Low-paid workers who have been pushed deeper into poverty by the government's relentless pursuit of tax-credit overpayments in the last few years also expressed their outrage that the government was allowing the pensioners to get off scot-free and keep the money.

"Well, perhaps if you'd voted Labour as regularly and uncritically as your elderly relatives, we might give a shit," said a Treasury spokesman.

'Use Our Leaky, Rotten Browser Or Face The Consequences', Microsoft tells Web Users

Computer software giant Microsoft has urged net users to ignore the advice of internet security experts, who have strongly urged people to use alternatives to  Internet Explorer until Microsoft pull their fingers out of their arses and get around to fixing the browser's latest security flaw.

The latest in a never-ending catalogue of security breaches is said to mainly affect IE7, though Microsoft admitted that all versions were at risk from a trojan virus which - as usual - exploits yet another undocumented flaw in the browser to steal the user's passwords.

"Our research shows that the majority of PC owners are sheep-like morons who automatically use Internet Explorer without thinking, thanks to our highly-successful policies of filling schools with our heavily-discounted software and bribing the media with freebies to write cheerily uncritical puff-pieces on our product launches," said a Microsoft spokesman. "However, some smart-arsed heretics out there use rebel browsers like Firefox and Chrome, which aren't illegal but should be. Our constant fear is that one day the world will wake up and realise that non-Microsoft products might actually be as good as - or indeed better than - ours. Now here's God - and I warn you, he's not happy."

The scowling face of Bill Gates then appeared on every screen in the world to tell web users that their personal details were already common knowledge to dodgy computer frauds, and that if any disloyal traitor should use a non-Microsoft browser and subsequently wake up one morning to find their hard drive mysteriously full of underage porn and their house full of insane vigilantes wielding meat-cleavers, he certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

Patriotic Plymouth Bucks Decline In Traditional British Punch-Ups

Violent crime in the National Mental Isolation Unit (formerly known as Plymouth) is up by a worrying 58%, according to figures obtained by the local parish magazine.

Front-page headlines in the Herald highlighting the disturbing rise - which bucks the national trend - sparked punch-ups in newsagents and supermarkets, and spontaneous rioting was reported in the city's three traditional fight arenas of Union Street, Mutley Plain and the historic Barbican.

"In other parts of the country violent crime is on the wane, thanks to high-visibility policing and Gordon Brown's inspired fiddling of the statistics," Vivien Pengelly, leader of Plymouth City Council, told the Nev Filter. "However, in Plymouth there is a large population of ignorant fuckers who are genetically closer to bonobo chimpanzees than human beings. When they get excited they either fight or fuck. Or both at the same time."

"Y'want some, wanka?" she added. "Come on, then."

"As a matter of urgency, we are implementing an action plan to deal with the escalating violence in Plymouth," warned the Chief Constable, Stephen Otter. "We are putting extra officers 'on the beat', which means they will beat seven colours of shit out of every fucker that crosses their path. That should teach them. Got a problem with that, y'cunt?"

Concerned community leaders from notorious flashpoints such as the Barbican, Barne Barton, Cattedown, Chaddlewood, the City Centre, Crownhill, Derriford, Devonport, Efford, Eggbuckland, Estover, Ham, Hartley, Higher and Lower Compton, Laira, Manadon, Mannamead, Marsh Mills, Mount Wise, Mutley, North Hill, Pennycomequick, Pennycross, Plymstock, Plympton, Southway, St. Budeaux, St. Judes, St. Peter's, Stonehouse, Tamerton Foliot, West Hoe and Whitleigh are meeting up in North Prospect to discuss the problem with an assortment of clubs, knives and broken bottles.

The Nev Filter sent a work-experience trainee out onto the streets of the city to canvass local opinion. After being repeatedly asked what the fuck he thought he was looking at, he is now continuing his investigations in the A&E unit of Derriford Hospital, another well-known hot-spot for fights.

Meanwhile, local tourism chiefs tried to talk up the city's unfortunate reputation as the arse end of Britain with the slogan: "Come to Plymouth and Fuck Off."

Unmutated Child Found In Plymouth

In the culmination of months of quality journalism, Plymouth's local parish magazine has finally announced the winner of its Non-Mutant Baby of the Year Competition.

The winning baby, Sammy-Leeanne, was praised by judges for having two eyes, one nose, one mouth and a pair of ears, and all in the right place.

"Of course, the photographs only show the baby's face," said the Herald's editor, "For all we know, little Sammy-Leeanne could have fins and a prehensile tail. Still, at least she has a humanoid head, which is an improvement on most of the population round here."

The rare, human-faced baby and its low-radiation mother are to receive tickets out of Plymouth.

Unions Urge Brown To Prop Up Woefully Mismanaged Car-Makers

Unions have added their voices to calls for the UK government to throw some more money it hasn't got into the gaping chasm of business finance.

"Since you're giving it away like there's no tomorrow, Gordon, how about a bung to what we in the trade laughingly refer to as the British car industry?" said Tony Woodley, joint leader of Unite. "Otherwise the few remaining workers who serve the mighty robots might lose their jobs. Sod everyone else - if the bastards hadn't stopped buying cars, we wouldn't be in this mess."

Senior figures in the motor industry squealed their agreement and pointed to their gaping beaks.

"Admittedly the continued existence of the UK motor industry is entirely at the mercy and whim of the American, Japanese, Chinese, French and German companies who actually own it," added Mr Woodley, "But I'm sure they wouldn't turn down a couple of billion of taxpayers' cash to cover their embarrassment at making long-term financial plans predicated solely on the somewhat fanciful notion that the economic boom would last forever. Go on, widoncha. It's not like it's your money, is it?"

Outrage Over Plan To Bury Dead Body With Other Dead Bodies

Widespread public concern was expressed today over the announcement that Christopher Foster - the millionaire who murdered his wife and daughter before setting fire to their mansion and killing himself - will be buried in a family plot next to his victims.

"His evil spirit will torment the corpses of his wife and daughter for all eternity," said one shocked non-relative. "What kind of sick justice is that?"

Another person entirely unconnected with the family suggested that, in the event of a zombie outbreak, the reanimated cadavers of Jill and Kirstie Foster would suffer the unspeakable horror of embarking on their flesh-eating rampage in the company of the callous husband and father who so brutally snuffed out their lives.

Headlines such as "Will Their Suffering Never End?" and "Bury This Monster On A Landfill Site" screamed out from the tabloids.

"Oh, for God's sake grow up," said a bishop this morning. "They're dead, OK?"

"And a Merry Christmas to You," Bush Thanks Iraqi For Thoughtful Shoe Gift

As he flies home from his unannounced photo-opportunity in Iraq, US President George Bush is reported to be very pleased with the gift of a nice pair of shiny shoes from a local journalist.

The unnamed Iraqi reporter delivered the early Christmas present at high velocity at a press conference. He was immediately surrounded by an appreciative group of security guards, who congratulated him on his seasonal offering by good-naturedly slapping him on the back, face, groin and kidneys while the beaming president looked on.

Mr Bush had previously been participating in a festive party game with the Iraqi government on Saturday to see who could come up with the silliest word. The US team were declared the winners, after Defense Secretary Robert Gates reduced players to tears of laughter with his straight-faced claim that the process of "drawdown" had begun.

The Truth? You Can't Handle The Truth

A wicked teacher, who left a group of Year 3 pupils shocked and upset after gratuitously telling them a fact, has been sacked by Oldham Council.

Parents were beside themselves with anger when their children stumbled home in tears after the evil, twisted supply teacher at Blackshaw Lane Primary School told them that Father Christmas wasn't real, and their presents were just bought for them in a shop by their parents.

"It is not for teachers to contradict any child's fondly-held beliefs with inconvenient facts," said a spokesman for the council, adding that the head of the school had been ordered to write out 'My staff must not tell the truth' 500 times.

"I'm bloody fuming, like," said one local parent. "Next thing, some bastard might be telling my precious little darling that the world doesn't actually revolve around him, or he might need to work a tiny bit harder if he doesn't want to look forward to a life of stacking shelves. That would just break his little heart. The next teacher I run into is going to get a right lamping, so help me God."

Other concerned parents agreed, saying that if this sort of thing wasn't stamped out, their little men and princesses might even get the impression that, far from mummy loving daddy and dearly wanting to start a family, the harsh truth was that they were no more than the unwanted result of a furtive, fumbling shag behind the pub after an ill-considered night of pissing it up on the Bacardi Breezers.

The Nev Filter asked some typical seven-year-olds what cherished beliefs they held to be true - but, unfortunately, all we gleaned from our research was that they were all a bunch of hopelessly self-deluded little gits.

Voter Disillusion Spreads To TV

Millions of reality television fans expressed their total disgust with the democratic process, as they heard the news that all three couples in Strictly Come Dancing were allowed through to next week's final after a tie in the judges' decisions effectively nullified the viewers' votes.

"It's a bloody fix innit?" said one former fan, speaking for many. "If voting changed anything, they'd ban it."

Angry fans were divided on the way forward, however. Some favoured anarchy, with all dancers performing simultaneously until they individually decided to stop dancing and do something else. Others said that what was needed was the emergence of a strong, no-nonsense leader who would simply tell people which dance couple was the best, and execute the rest.

One older viewer, who suggested that each pair should dance to the best of their ability and be awarded prizes according to their needs, was laughed at by all the others and told to wake up to the reality of reality shows in the 21st century.

All Wrongs Righted Forever By Facebook Event

Hundreds of concerned but simplistic Facebook users are marching today from one place to another as part of a protest organised through the popular social networking site, which is certain to ensure that no other child anywhere in the world with a single-letter name should ever again suffer the tragic fate of Baby P.

"Our group is Justice March for Baby P but we are not forgetting babies A-Z," declared Dolly Barton, one of the organisers. The group is seeking urgent - though unspecified - changes in child protection laws and social services, and begs supporters: "Please let's stop this happening again and again. A little stroll through town on Saturday should sort it."

The nationwide protests will culminate in the delivery of petitions to 10 Downing Street, demanding that the government act immediately to stop really bad things from ever happening again.

"What we want is... er... I dunno reely," said Plymouth marcher Sammy-Leanne, 19, who had left her three children at home in the care of a Playstation 2. "It's all the bloody Social's fault, yeah? They ort to take babies off child-murderers, right, before they like murder them and that, shouldn't they? Obvious."

The march is expected to save the lives of trillions of at-risk children - and all thanks to the mighty power of Facebook.

Police Operation Results In Unfortunate Deaths of Entire Menezes Jury

The jury in the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest have all been mistakenly killed by heavily-armed police officers, seconds after delivering a damning open verdict on the death of the Brazilian electrician at the hands of the Metropolitan Police three years ago.

Surviving eyewitnesses reported that the jury foreman had just told coroner Sir Michael Wrong: "Since we've been royally stitched up by you, mate, we the jury would like to point the blame squarely at the murdering bastard police in the only way available to us, by returning an open verdict. You know exactly what we mean."

Moments later, dozens of anti-terrorist experts from the elite Bastard Squad burst into the courtroom, causing pandemonium. Terrified jurors were pinned to the floor by burly officers in flak jackets while their colleagues emptied their automatic rifles into the jurors' heads. Amid scenes of uproar in the public gallery, a gore-spattered senior officer stood up and apologised to the coroner for the unfortunate incident.

"All right, guv'nor? I'm sure you heard me clearly shout to the jury - whom we understandably mistook, in the heat of the moment, for a highly dangerous cell of al-Qaeda martyrs - to stand perfectly still," he told a nodding Sir Michael.

The coroner told the officer that he quite understood, and looked forward to presiding over the subsequent inquest into the slaughter.

Britain Responsible For Non-Existent Epidemic, Claims Mugabe Ally

A close ally of President Mugabe, Disinformation Minister Sikhanyiso Nvodlu, has blamed the UK for the outbreak of cholera which does not exist in Zimbabwe.

The country's liar-in-chief told the world's media that the non-outbreak - which has killed 792 fictitious people - was "a calculated, racist, terrorist attack on Zimbabwe."

President Robert Mugabe has already claimed that the Western powers have deliberately infected him with a terrifying strain of megalomania, causing a massive outbreak of pathological lying and leading to a fatal disdain for his people's welfare.

"Zimbabwe's sewers contain nothing but pure spring water with a slight zest of lemon, and our hospitals are closed only because nobody in this Earthly paradise ever needs one," he told reporters. "You see? There I go again. I can't help myself."

Other African nations, however, are still clinging to the fond belief that all of Zimbabwe's problems will magically disappear, if only Mr Mugabe and his political rival Morgan Tsvangirai would just shake hands and sort out their minor differences of opinion.

Meanwhile, the British government has poured scorn on Mr Nvodlu's claims.

"If we had really been developing cholera as a biological weapon, rest assured that it would have accidentally leaked out into the population of Britain by now," pointed out Foreign Secretary Miliband One.

Britain Reported Lost in Moral Maze

The tabloid press was today diagnosed as suffering from acute schizophrenia, in the wake of the savage torture and murder of a convicted child sex offender by a vicious mob of moral paragons.

Readers were left stunned and confused, as odd-numbered pages condemned the brutal lynching, whilst pages on the left continued to whip up their raging paedo-frenzy.

"I don't understand," said one slack-jawed Sun reader. "For years I've been led to believe that we need to bring back the death sentence to deal with these sick perverts, and they want to have their goolies cut off. Some bunch of decent, public-spirited vigilantes have done the coppers' jobs for them - i.e. cut this bugger's goolies off and topped him - and now the papers are calling them a baying mob of murdering thugs. I don't get it. My moral compass is all over the place. Somebody, please, tell me what to think."

More blindly self-righteous members of the public were unmoved, however.

"The law in this country's a sick joke these days, innit?" snarled one concerned parent. "If they get nicked, these heroes - these saints what's walkin' among us! - are looking at twelve years minimum. Twelve bleedin' years! They ought to give 'em all bloody knighthoods! I hope they all went straight back home after, all covered in perv blood, and told their little angels what they done on their behalf! They done 'em proud, if you ask me. Gawd bless 'em! Makes me proud to be British."

"Know what I think?" she went on. "We ought to abolish the police and the courts - cos they're a joke, right - and take the law into our own hands. There's single mums on benefits just down the road, living the life of Riley and laughing at the likes of decent, hard-working folk like you and me, and it really pisses me off. I'd sew their fannies up, I would straight. That'd stop their little game. Same with the unemployed, the lazy buggers. I'd round them all up, hand them a shovel each, force them to dig a bloody great hole, then shoot them all. Except for me dad of course, it's not his fault he's got stress and a bad back, is it?"

"As for them Muslims," she added, "Don't get me started."

"We're currently at an early stage in our enquiries, and are keeping an open mind about the circumstances of this man's death," commented DCI Nick Gent of the Metropolitan Police. "It could be a particularly vigorous form of suicide, for example, or maybe Mr Cunningham could have tripped over and fallen into a large box of knives - possibly twenty or thirty times."

'Stop Crapping Everywhere and Prepare For Colonialist Invasion', Mugabe Tells Zimbabwe

President Robert Mugabe has told his starving, diseased populace that Britain and America are scheming to persuade the United Nations to invade Zimbabwe, in the wake of the ongoing cholera epidemic.

“The colonial arch-imperialist Brown and his lackeys, the Americans, want to annexe our beautiful, prosperous country on the trumped-up excuse that some of you have a mild case of the trots,” said the 84-year-old dictator. “Now is the time for all loyal Zimbabweans - that means everyone, by the way - to put on a big nappy, pick up their AK47 and shoot the first white racist bastard they see coming down the street.”

“I’m pleased to see that eighteen - and counting - human rights activists and MDC advisors are so eager to repel the white peril that they have gone to ground, presumably to form a Vietcong-style resistance movement in the event of foreign occupation,” he added. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if more and more of them turned out to be occupying holes in the ground in the next few days.”

Ordinary Zimbabweans suffering from the rapid spread of cholera - caused by the total breakdown of the bankrupt nation’s neglected infrastructure - were deeply moved by their President’s appeal.

“Until recently, I couldn’t give a shit about anything Mugabe said,” said one dying Harare resident sitting on a bucket. “Now I give a shit about every five minutes. If the neo-colonialist invaders are coming, could they bring a few hundred sanitation engineers, a convoy of antibiotics and about fifty million water purification tablets, please?”

People Are Drinking at Xmas Parties, Announces Horrified Government

Almost half of young people attending their workplace Christmas party will need to consume alcohol in order to avoid telling their boss to stick their crappy job up his own rectum, according to a government nanny.

According to a poll conducted for the government’s Alcohol Is Really Very Bad campaign, 43% of drinkers aged between 18 and 34 said they needed to get absolutely shit-faced before mustering the necessary confidence to throw a glass of cheap tanker wine in the face of their smug superiors and give them a piece of their mind.

Of the remainder, 44% said they didn’t need any Dutch courage, they’d do it anyway and the other 3% said, “See me in my office tomorrow, 9 o’clock sharp. And don’t bother packing your lunch.”

‘I Hate You And I Want You To Die,’ Purnell Tells Jobseekers

Work, Slavery and Pensions Minister James Purnell today announced the government’s much-heralded shake-up of the benefits system, with the launch of a White Paper aimed at forcing the jobless to jump through hoops and perform tricks for the entertainment of Middle England - or face eviction, starvation and a pitiful death in a back alley.

“Lissen up an' lissen good, scum,” snarled the minister. “We graciously gives you a fat handout every fortnight to piss up against the wall, see? Well, now we wants something in return. From now on you’re gonna have to work or starve. Some of you crafty beggars might get orf light wiv some noddy course in pick-pocketry, but I expect most of you will be put to work stacking shelves in my good friend Mr Fagin’s supermarket.”

The draconian scheme does not, however, extend to decent gentlefolk from the home counties who might be experiencing the unlooked-for embarrassment of finding themselves, through no fault of their own, temporarily bereft of employment due to the global economic situation. Instead, such worthy, deserving cases will be given access to free Master’s degree courses, with the fees paid out the universities' funds.

“Course, all that rough talk wot I was giving out earlier, that’s just for them working-class shirkers, innit guv? It don’t apply to the likes of you an’ me,” Mr Purnell told a packed House of Commons. “Dare I say it, a lot of us ‘uns is goin’ to be down the social usselves in a year or so’s time. Coo, fancy me with a Master’s in Political Science, eh? Lavly jubbly!”

Several rebellious backbench Labour MPs have, however, expressed outrage at the minister’s proposals, and are threatening to create a storm of protest until they are bought off with some token promises. Some went so far as to claim that the government was, in effect, turning its back on the welfare state.

"When them bloody Trots dumped a cradle-to-grave welfare state on Britain in 1945, amid all the general hoohah about a fairer society an' all that tosh they must of clean forgot to exclude all them working-class buggers," Mr Purnell went on. "Now it's time to fix that good an' proper. Stands to reason, dunnit?"

All over the south east, the middle classes were reported to be frothing with delight at Mr Purnell's announcement.

"This not only promises unnecessary misery and humiliation for the hoi polloi," said a futures trader from Kingston who had recently received a P45, "It reassures people like me that we're not like them at all."

He then shouted over the garden fence to his neighbour: "What's that subject you teach, Bryan? See you in class tomorrow!"

Government To Sweep Cigarettes Under The Counter

The government today announced life-saving plans to pretend that cigarettes don’t exist.

The lethal death-sticks will be hidden from sight at counters up and down the country, a move which health campaigners say will prevent the exceptionally stupid - whom they define as young people - from purchasing them.

“If cigarettes are removed from public display, people will just walk past the supermarket’s fag counter, assuming that it only sells lottery tickets,” said the BMA’s Dr Benito Hitler. “Of course, the counter will have to be six feet high to contain all the fag packets, but that will be an extra disincentive to buy these deadly hell-tubes. Especially for the short, who are particularly at risk as there is less of them to be eaten away by cancer.”

Ministers are also minded to replace counter staff with uniformed police. Furthermore, smokers will be banned from mentioning any brand names, forcing them to request the tar-and-nicotine cocktail of their choice in code. Examples include:

20 B&H: “I have a huge wart on my private parts”;

A multipack of Marlboro: “I touch small children”;

A packet of Rizlas: “I am wearing a bomb belt.”

Smokers will also have their photographs and fingerprints taken, with the details being added to the police database under the heading ‘sociopathic recidivists and probable criminal masterminds'.

The ghost of record-breaking multi-instrumentalist Roy Castle, speaking through a British Medical Association-approved medium, endorsed the new measures, saying: “I speak for all non-smokers when I say my death was entirely caused by breathing other people’s second-hand smoke, despite an annoying-but-irrelevant lack of evidence for this belief. Anyone who dares to question me is a dangerous subversive and should be reported to the authorities immediately. Buy Niquitin, kids - it’s a record habit-breaker!”

RAF Still Infallible, Say RAF Chiefs

The Defence Secretary, John Hutton, confirmed this morning that RAF top brass are by nature infallible, refusing to accept that the Mull of Kintyre helicopter crash was caused by anything other than blatant pilot incompetence by Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Rick Cook.

Relatives of the dead crew have long maintained that the 1994 crash - in which a Chinook HC Mk2 helicopter carrying police and military intelligence staff from Northern Ireland flew into a fog-covered hillside, killing all 29 on board - may not have been caused by the pilots being too stupid to check the radar, as the RAF Board of Inquiry insists.

They suggest instead that, with known failures of the type’s Textron-Lycoming FADEC engine management system causing engines to shut down or surge, leading to a catastrophic loss of control, the Mk2 Chinook may perhaps not have been the safest aircraft ever to take to the skies. This view, they claim, may perhaps have been on the experts’ minds at RAe Farnborough when they refused to test-fly the type.

The Defence Secretary, however, unequivocally dispelled all doubts in his statement.

“The workings of the Ministry of Defence are mysterious and wonderful to behold,” he said. “When it comes down a choice of whether to pin the blame on the top brass or a couple of convenient dead guys, the top brass are united in telling me that the only sensible course of action is the latter - all the more so since Textron-Lycoming have such a pro-active legal department.”

“History and experience shows that the powers-that-be would never show such callous disregard for the lives of serving personnel as to push defective equipment into service,” he added. “The Snatch Land Rover, the SA80 rifle, the Nimrod, the Hercules - the list of utterly safe, well-designed kit is endless.”

Reassured citizens are reported to be queuing up outside recruiting centres today, keen to join up now that they know their welfare is indeed the paramount consideration of the chiefs of staff.

British Raise Eyebrow at Volatile Antics of Excitable Foreigners

The great British public were moved today to raise a collective eyebrow at continuing scenes of anti-police rioting in Greece - now in their third day - following the shooting of teenager Alexandros Andreas Grigoropoulos on Saturday.

Despite the arrest of two police officers - who had claimed that they only fired warning shots - over the shooting, the hot-headed protests show no sign of abating.

All over Britain, viewers were tutting in disapproval at their televisions at the embarrassing public displays of emotion by rioting Greek anarchists.

“We really don’t go in for that kind of thing over here, you know,” said Acting Chief Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson of the Metropolitan Police. “Look at what happened when our boys shot that Brazilian chap: absolutely bugger all. And he wasn’t chucking rocks, either - he was just minding his own business. Any other country in the world, you’d have had riots in the streets, and the officers concerned would be hung out to dry by the courts. Thank God for the legendary phlegmatic national character of the typical Brit.”

Sir Paul was interrupted, however, by the news that a group of protesters in London was attempting to storm the Greek embassy.

“Right lads, time to unwrap the Tasers,” he announced. “Let’s see how they protest when they’re shitting themselves with 10,000 volts up the arse. Everyone got their headcams? This’ll look bloody hilarious on YouTube.”

‘Climate Change Action Needed,‘ Says Miliband, ‘But Not Like That’

57 environmental protesters brought widespread disruption to Stansted Airport this morning, hours after Climate Change Secretary Miliband Two called for world action to protect the environment.

The protesters from campaign group Plane Stupid occupied a taxiway 50 metres from the main runway, chaining themselves to concrete blocks to draw attention to the aviation industry’s 13% contribution to total UK carbon dioxide emissions, and bringing chaos to the air travel industry for five hours before they were removed.

Delay-hit passengers said they were generally sympathetic to the issue of climate change, but said they would rather their own flights had left on time, all things considered.

“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want my children to grow up on a toxic, barren, dying planet,” said one impatient traveller. “But I also don’t want to sit around here twiddling my thumbs when I could be shopping in Paris. Why can’t they just take off anyway? One or two protesters sucked into a turbofan is a price worth paying for my God-given right to buy things in the European capital of my choice.”

Miliband Two later issued a statement clarifying his position on climate protests.

“When I told the papers I wanted to see a global mass-protest movement to pressure world leaders into tackling climate change, what I meant was that campaigners should go to China or India and politely wave the odd placard or two at their politicians,” he intoned. “I certainly don’t condone inconsiderate actions like this, which aim to upset decent British people by suggesting that the ruination of the world’s fragile environment may, in some way, be related to their privileged lifestyles.”

A spokesman for Stansted operators BAA reassured travellers that the airport was rapidly returning to normal levels of service and pollution.

Book Pile, with guest reviewer: Gordon Brown

First of all let me say a big ‘Hullo!’ to all you discerning readers of the Nev Filter. Thanks to my growing database, I feel that I almost know you personally. (I certainly know where you live!)

I think the biggest literary influence on my life (and by extension, yours) has been George Orwell. I believe that the first of his books I ever read was probably ‘Keep The Aspidistra Flying’, during my student days. It’s all about a young professional man of staunchly egalitarian principles, who wilfully descends into a squalid, futile life of poverty before necessity finally forces him to abandon his cherished beliefs and rejoin the suburban middle classes. I took Orwell’s message to be simply this: why bother with principles in the first place? It took me a while to get them all out of my system, of course, and you’ll find me in the eighties coming out with the occasional line of socialist dogma in interviews; but you can see my heart isn’t really in it!

Actually, now I come to think of it, I must have read ‘Animal Farm’ as a small child. That, as I’m sure you’ll recall, is the one in which Orwell described how a humble pig could rise to the top by pretending to be some kind of socialist. I don’t know why, but that book must have really spoke to me on an instinctive level because I’d quite forgotten that I ever read it. It’s as if its message has permeated every atom of my being. Memory can play strange tricks - as any of you who think you remember me admitting to talking like a socialist in the eighties will surely agree!

Talking of the eighties, that’s when I got round to reading Orwell’s masterpiece, ‘1984’. I remember thinking, “What a perfect vision of society!” and decided to dedicate my life to making his utopian world a reality. I explained the book to my then-friend Tony Blair (naturally, he was too lowbrow to actually read it) and together we set about making it happen. Even before the historic 1997 election, we had created a party in which dissent was ruthlessly quashed, so we were able to hit the ground running. Eleven years on, and just look at our achievements:

TV cameras monitoring people’s daily lives: check!

Permanent state of war: check!

Faceless, unaccountable bureaucracy: check!

Rewriting history to airbrush out embarrassing incidents: check!

The proletarian masses kept docile by beer and undemanding entertainment: check!

Regular media-led Hates to harmlessly dispel the people’s frustration with their powerlessness: check!

Creating an artificial language devoid of all meaning (e.g. ‘New Labour’, ‘war on terror’, ‘patient choice‘, ‘lessons have been learned’, ‘Private Finance Initiative‘, ‘credit crunch’, ‘Employment and Support Allowance’): check!

Job pretty much done, I think you’ll find!

Anyway, recently I’ve been finding the time to read some more of Orwell‘s works. ‘The Road To Wigan Pier’, for example, painted a fascinating picture of how people in the thirties had such a community spirit, despite living in abject poverty. So, as I recreate a similar level of poverty, I’m sure that we’ll soon see a return to the happy, thriving streets of yesteryear! I’ve also taken Orwell’s uncertainty about council housing to heart - which is why I’m encouraging local authorities to flog them all off cheap to private landlords. High rents and the constant fear of eviction certainly gave people a mighty powerful incentive to stick at their soul-destroying, poorly-paid jobs, working all the hours God sent just to keep a roof over their heads.

Finally, having just turned the last page of ‘Down And Out In Paris And London’, I’ve been inspired to rack up the pressure on the jobless. I’m looking into all manner of new ways to cut off their benefits as a means of encouraging the feckless workshies into the welcoming clutches of big business. Those of you who can still afford to drive can look forward to seeing armies of the unemployed shuffling along the highways and byways of Britain in a desperate search for work of any kind or, if they’re humble enough to grovel, maybe a grudgingly-given charity handout. Eventually, I hope, they will sod off to France or one of our other European partners and cease to be a blight on the landscape of this wonderful country of ours.

Of course, as an author it has to be admitted that Orwell has his failings. He adopts a hectoring, superior tone at times which I, for one, find seriously irritating. It’s as if, having created and defined a perfect world, he can’t be happy unless he finds some minor fault with it! Honestly, some people are never happy, are they?

Finally, somebody mentioned to me the other day that Orwell also wrote a rather  unpleasant book called ‘Homage to Catalonia’, in which he described a nation wracked by bloody civil war, in which the population rose up in favour of socialism - only to find themselves riven by petty internal divisions, brutally crushed by the dark forces of inhuman authoritarianism and subjugated mercilessly under a pitiless, cynical dictator for the next forty years.

Although I must say I don’t really have a problem with the ending, as such, nevertheless the starting premise of this book sounds highly dodgy to me. Fortunately, though, it wasn’t anywhere to be seen on the bookshelves of my local Waterstones - and if they want to be on Peter Mandelson’s list of businesses in line for a life-saving windfall courtesy of the taxpayer, they’ll keep it that way!

Happy reading!

Absence, Honda - Sorry, Can’t Think Of A Headline For This One

The world of Formula One was left reeling today by Honda’s announcement that it would be withdrawing from the competition and putting its team up for sale.

“Credit crunch definitely to blame, not three years of crappy results,” explained Honda’s unfortunately-named president, Takeo Fukui. “You want Jenson Button? He real cheap. He boring drip, but possibly make good tea. How about Barrichello? He nice guy, he do washing up. He washed up at Honda for years.”

FIA President Max Mosley said there was a “serious danger” that other teams might follow Honda, although traditionally that was a position only taken by Force India and Super Aguri.

“Unless we can get costs down, the Formula One community is going to feel a lot of pain in 2009,” he said. “Personally, I can’t wait.”

Power-crazed midget Bernie Ecclestone was sanguine about the news, however, pointing out that there were plenty of motor manufacturers in the developing world, eager to raise worldwide awareness of their products.

“I’m sure the grid would be shaken up by exciting new cars like the Hindustan Ambassador and the Mahindra Jeep,” he said. “And the introduction of a little electric runabout like the G-Wiz would certainly break the deadlock over engine restrictions.”

Lord Wogan Abdicates Eurovision Throne

The BBC has ended months of speculation by announcing that, after 35 years in the role, the revered Lord Wogan has decided to end his reign as silly-commentator for the Eurovision Song Contest. His place (and sherry) will be taken by Graham Norton, another irritating Irishman well past his sell-by date.

“According to a little-known rule of the European Broadcasting Union, the UK’s commentator must come from Ireland,” said a BBC spokesman. “Sadly, that puts Nick Griffin of the BNP out of the running. Don’t be too upset, though - the same rules mean that eleven other countries must have British commentators moaning about the entries, the hosts, the sets, and the voting system. For example, the considered opinions of art critic Brian Sewell have the Russians crying with laughter, while Germany ponders the uproarious wit of Basil Brush, Serbia respects the brutal authority of glaring slaphead Ross Kemp and Israel is just plain baffled by Mark Lawrenson. Meanwhile, the French get Jeremy Paxman, and serve them right.”

Vulgar camp stereotype Norton had to beat off stiff competition from other Irish funny-men to grab the proud post, however.

“Dylan Moran was ruled out at an early stage, as his brand of nihilistic despair might lead particularly grief-stricken viewers to commit suicide,” explained the spokesman, "And while Dara O’Briain’s whimsical sarcasm might fit well, many of our older viewers tend to confuse him with Uncle Fester from the Addams Family. Conversely, thanks to his starring role in My Hero, Ardal O’Hanlon is a firm favourite with that age group - but millions of Father Ted fans would like to kill him, for the same reason. And anyway, he’s already been hired by Lithuania.”

Easily-pleased, cloth-eared Eurovision addicts are already bouncing up and down with glee in anticipation of next year’s contest, leading to record advance sales of tranquilisers in the residential care sector.

Meanwhile, Lord Wogan issued a statement calling for “a bloody good war“.

Consumers Warned Over Deadly Exploding Pseudo-Nintendo

Customs officials have warned consumers against buying cheap counterfeit Nintendo DS consoles for their children this Christmas.

“These fakes are absolutely 100% lethal,” said a stony-faced official. “You might as well put a grenade in your child’s hands and pull out the pin. All right, so you might have saved yourself sixty nicker - but can you live with the certain knowledge that your misguided thrift will leave your precious little darlings blind and limbless for the rest of their lives? What kind of a sick Christmas present is that for a child? You callous, penny-pinching bastards. I hope you get hit by a bus.”

The police told stingy consumers not to panic if they had bought a fake Nintendo for £40, but to dial 999 immediately, remain stationary, breathe very softly and wait for the bomb squad to arrive and demolish their home.

A spokesman for Nintendo explained that the danger lay in the fake console’s external power supply being of inferior quality, leading smarter skinflints to conclude that a £6.99 adaptor from Maplin’s ought to do the trick.

Queen’s Speech Causes Uproar

The Queen caused a serious breach of protocol today by cracking up in the middle of delivering her speech, during the State Opening of Parliament for five minutes before it closes again for the Christmas recess.

Her Majesty had been visibly struggling to keep a straight face during the reading of the proposed ‘Get A Job - Win A House!’ Bill. Next, as she made an heroic effort to deliver the line, ‘My government's overwhelming priority is to secure the stability of the British economy', she tittered for a few seconds before bursting into a fit of uncontrolled laughter. Members of Parliament and peers of the realm shuffled about in embarrassment as the monarch slid from her golden throne to the red carpet, with tears in her eyes.

Having glowered furiously through five minutes of sobbing laughter, Prime Minister Gordon Brown strode forward, hauled the helpless Queen to her feet and frogmarched her from the chamber. Before flummoxed royal footmen could intervene, the PM threw her unceremoniously into the corridor and slammed the door.

After several minutes of guffawing heartily and gasping for breath, the still-giggling Queen was picked up off the floor by flunkies, pushed into the royal carriage and driven off to Buckingham Palace, leaving a little puddle behind on the carpet.

Meanwhile, Parliament had descended into uproar, with the cabinet and many Labour MPs demanding an apology from the palace for what they called ‘a shocking display of contempt for the authority of parliamentary authority’, while senior Tories were calling for the Prime Minister to be summarily executed for laying hands on the reigning monarch. Constitutional experts say that the only precedent for such uproar is the dissolution of Parliament, to be followed by a period of intense civil strife.

The police are reported to be uneasy, saying that some of them have not yet been issued with 10,000-volt Tasers. Meanwhile, the armed forces have yet to declare for the monarch or parliament - although many of the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq were said to be looking forward to coming back to Britain early, and drawing lots to see who could have the honour of tying the Prime Minister to a post and shooting him with a chain gun.

US Military Unveils Revolutionary New Land-Based, Laser-Firing Airliner

The US Missile Defense Agency has reported the first successful test-firing of an anti-ballistic missile laser gun mounted in a converted Boeing 747.

The crucial test was conducted on the ground at Edwards Air Force Base, with the multi-megawatt Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser beam travelling the length of the aircraft at 670,000,000mph before emerging from the nose-mounted turret and striking a diagnostic array, which lit up and flashed ‘TILT’.

“Gott in himmel!” exclaimed project leader Dr Strangelove. “This is a glorious day for the fatherland. This system will soon be able to shoot down Soviet - I mean enemy - missiles in the early stages of their flight trajectory, by superheating their fuel and causing the missile to explode.”

Twelve years into the project, one problem the team have yet to overcome - or indeed recognise - is the practical difficulty of getting a lumbering, subsonic airliner close enough to the missile within the first few seconds of its launch. Dr Strangelove was, however, undaunted by doubting voices.

“At the moment, ja, we are only capable of shooting down parked vehicles and nearby buildings,” he shouted, “But this revolutionary system has many other uses. For example, my evil brainchild could be used to devastating effect against particularly unmanoueuvrable enemy aircraft. It would also shoot down any UFO foolish enough to loiter in its immediate vicinity, as long as the alien invader remains in the forward arc of the 747 and doesn‘t move around much."

“Finally,” he screamed, “This scheme will also create jobs in a time of recession - which ought to be enough in itself to justify any defence project, no matter how outlandish. Already I envisage the setting up of a matter-teleportation division within the nation’s motor industry, securing employment for up to ten thousand car workers whose jobs are at risk, albeit mostly in Mexico. Heil Dubya!”

Menezes Coroner Rules Out Blaming Police

The jury at the inquest into the fatal shooting of innocent Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes by the Metropolitan Police has been instructed that it cannot deliver a verdict of Unlawful Killing. Instead, coroner Michael Wrong indicated that he would only consider a verdict of either Alive or Missing.

“I have heard with great sympathy the moving testimonies submitted by my very good friends, the police,” said the former high court judge, “But I have to say that I am extremely disappointed by the contemptuous disregard shown for this hearing by Mr de Menezes, who has not bothered to turn up once, let alone give his version of events. We have all squirmed uncomfortably in our seats at the sight of his poor mother, sitting here every day under her sombrero, cruelly abandoned by her uncaring and unspeakably foreign pot-head of a son and reduced to uttering piteous cries of ‘Ay! Caramba!’ at intervals.”

“As the only evidence, plausible or otherwise, has come from our dedicated upholders of the law,” he continued, “I must direct the jury to cast from their minds any emotionally-clouded thoughts of the credit crunch, Baby P and the disgraceful pronouncements of Mr Barroso regarding the pound and the euro; these matters are beyond the scope of this inquest. I am, therefore, instructed by the Home Secretary to rule out any possibility of accepting a verdict of Unlawful Killing. In its deliberations, the jury must restrict itself to the pertinent facts in the case, which are these: Mr de Menezes is either sitting comfortably at home in Brazil with his feet up, laughing at the colossal waste of time and effort he has caused by dragging Britain’s glorious forces of law and order through a degrading farce of accountability - or he is lying low somewhere, probably as part of some nefarious plot to defraud his insurance company. I therefore direct the jury to deliver one of two possible verdicts: Alive or Missing. Then we can all go home and let the police get on with their public duty of hunting down those desperate criminals and enemies of the state, the Conservative Party.”

The coroner also lambasted the Crown Prosecution Service for not issuing an arrest warrant for Mr de Menezes over the theft of seven bullets from the Metropolitan Police.

Pop-A-Bye Baby

Modern mothers are turning their backs on traditional lullabies, according to a poll by the Baby Website, preferring instead to frighten their babies to sleep with tuneless renditions of unspeakable chart pap.

Spokesman Kathryn Crawford said the results suggested that “most mums put the radio on when at home with the baby and the banal, tedious lyrics make it impossible to sing anything else at bedtime.”

She also stressed that the results were limited to those mothers who had enough basic intelligence to browse the internet. “Christ knows what some of the fuckwits out there are singing to their unwanted brats,” she added. “Perhaps they’re delivering some twisted rap about offing cops, dealing drugs and beating up hoes. God help us all.”

A senior paediaphile said that babies needed rhythmic, ambient sounds that reminded them of being in the womb, and recommended Simian Mobile Disco’s ‘Sleep Deprivation’. “Not only will its repetitive analogue bleeps and squeals calm the baby to sleep, but the fact that it is entirely instrumental means that no child need be disturbed by its tone-deaf mother’s tortuous caterwauling.”

“Rammstein are good, too,” he added. “German is such a soothing language. Try ‘Herzeleid’ on your child tonight.”

Net Fraudsters Finally Target Smug Mac Users

Apple users are being told to install anti-virus software, in the wake of increasing online attacks directed against Mac users.

“Until recently, Mac owners could laugh at the plight of lowly, common Windows users and their constant battle against cyber-criminals,” said an Apple spokesman. “However, it seems that the world has finally had all it can take of Mac users’ insufferable smugness. Even previously law-abiding net users are feverishly writing viruses that will wrest control of a Mac and write “Wanker” all over the screen.”

Apple are recommending McAfee VirusScan and Norton Anti-Virus to their army of self-satisfied customers.

“These security programs cost way over the odds, just like your Macbook did - so don’t worry, you can still sneer at your scummy, proletarian PC-owning friends who are so unspeakably poor that they have to rely on charity handouts of free anti-virus software like AVG,” said the spokesman. “We would also like to reassure our discerning, creative users that we are working day and night on launching a dinky little lapbook Mac, because we realise how galling it must be for you to have some chavvy underling banging on about how their stylish little ultra-portable that runs on Windows or even - ugh - Linux makes your treasured MacBook Air look like a ruddy great, overpriced brick.”

You May Not Actually Be Worth It, Claim Scientists

In a shocking report that spells certain death to the cosmetics industry, a team of scientists from University College London has suggested that women who frantically trowel gallons of cream onto their creased, pock-marked faces may not look 17 forever after all.

The researchers manipulated the genes of nematode worms into eliminating so-called super-oxides, or free radicals, from their bodies - but found that the test subjects still aged at the same rate as unmodified worms.

“Look out, girls, here comes the science bit,” said Dr David Gems, a bespectacled man in a white lab coat with an aluminium clipboard. “That bollocks you keep hearing about anti-oxidants means absolutely sod all, since all available evidence indicates that women are not in fact susceptible to rusting.

“It may also come as a surprise to many of you, but even those eye-wateringly expensive ones in tiny jars that you buy in wanky boutiques are as predictably useless as the glorified wallpaper paste your gran buys by the bucket in the pound shop.

“Anti-oxidant diets? They’re a load of absolute arse, too,” he went on mercilessly, pointing to an impressive computer animation of a kidney bean morphing itself into a pair of saggy bum-cheeks. “You can eat beans till they’re coming out of your ears, ladies. Just because you’re farting like a herd of cows that’s overdosed on Rennie, it doesn’t mean you’ve magically reacquired the wrinkle-free skin of your childhood.”

Tragically for middle-class women who read the Guardian, this is just as true of macrobiotic fair-trade beans grown by happy, indigenous hill-farmers in Africa as it is of a tin of GM crap from the Tesco Value range.

The UCL scientists say they are planning to move on to researching whether painting your hair matt black makes you look like anything other than a wizened old crone who still thinks in guineas and believes that buying lottery scratchcards in bulk is in some way a valid use of the little time remaining to her while she waits for her long-overdue appointment with the Grim Reaper.

“You are getting older. We all are. Get used to the idea,” urged Dr Gems from under a tropical waterfall, before hurrying off to explain to a cute, wide-eyed toddler that there was no such person as Father Christmas.

Inverness Chosen As First UK Site For Mass Storage of Souls

In a joint venture with Satan, the Prince of Darkness, Microsoft has chosen Inverness as the location for the UK’s first cloud computing centre. Central to the revolutionary concept is the idea that people should give Microsoft unrestricted access to their souls, rather than having to go to all the bother and expense of storing them on their own computers.

“Personal soul storage has never been so expensive,” explained a fork-tailed spokesman for Alchemy Plus. “Why go to all the trouble and cost of a memory stick or a pack of DVDs when, just by signing a simple contract with a tiny drop of your blood, you can let us keep your soul totally secure forever on a giant, multi-user web?”

Inverness was chosen partly because of its chilly climate, which will help to cool the vast banks of computers needed to store all the souls.

Stewart Nicol, chief executive of Inverness Chamber of Horrors, said: “This project will really put the city on the map for developments in damnation technology. And living in Inverness is pretty close to hell anyway.”

“Ow! Careful with that pitchfork, ye wee red bastard,” he added.

Met’s Finest Sent To Help Mumbai Police

British police officers have been sent to Mumbai to help their Indian counterparts, in the wake of this week’s terrorist attack, Scotland Yard revealed.

“Our top anti-terrorism officers are giving the local police the benefit of our accumulated knowledge and experience,” said Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair. “We have already told them to look out for any Brazilians with multimeters, and recommended that future attacks can best be prevented by arming all their officers with Taser grenade launchers.”

“Meanwhile, back in Britain we have discovered disturbing links between the gunmen and the Conservative Party,” he added.

Mandelson To Identify Businesses Worthy of State Lifelines

With the economic downturn growing worse by the day, Business Secretary Peter Mandelson is reported to be drawing up a list of businesses that the government will consider bailing out with taxpayers’ money.

“No-one can foretell how short or long, how painful or painless, the recession is going to be,” he explained. “On the one hand Woolies has gone tits up - never set foot in one myself of course, but very popular, very popular with the little people, I’m told; and yet on the other some mad doctor cheerfully blows a quarter of a million on a very nice kennel for her dogs, would you believe? All quite, quite contradictory; markets very edgy; businesses looking for guarantees, looking to government for leadership.”

Rather than consulting the Treasury or the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, Lord Mandelson is understood to have taken the unusual step of asking the Labour Party’s treasurer, Jack Dromey, for a list of corporate donors and sponsors.

“Lots of work to do; very busy, very busy identifying key players,” said Lord Mandelson. “Early days yet, of course; but I think it’s safe to say that Sainsbury’s and Tesco will turn out to be pretty recession-proof, along with British Aerospace, Shell, Nestlé, Patrick Stewart and Banksy’s art dealer. And if Eddie Izzard should happen to find his credit lines a bit over-extended in these trying times - not saying that he is, of course; very astute chap, Eddie, very ethical; a bit too much make-up for my tastes, but each to his own - well, it’s only right that the taxpayer should support this world leader in the cross-dressing comedy export industry.”

Leading Scientist Michael Caine Solves ‘Italian Job’ Cliffhanger

As the Royal Society of Chemistry launches a competition to find the most plausible solution to the ambiguous ending of classic British movie ‘The Italian Job’ in an attempt to raise public awareness of science, Sir Michael Caine - the 70-year-old star of the film - has claimed that he knows how his character, Charlie Croker, and his gang escaped from their deadly predicament, teetering on the edge of a cliff in their precariously-balanced getaway coach.

“I crawl up, switch on the engine and stay there for four hours until the petrol runs out,” he said. “The van bounces back up so we can all get out, but then the gold goes over. Strangely, it wouldn’t occur to me that, if I should somehow manage to crawl to the front of the coach, the others could follow and we could all jump out safely and recover the gold later,” he went on. “And, now I come to think of it, the Italian police would probably have caught up with us long before I burned off all the fuel, wouldn‘t they?”

“Sorry,” he concluded. “I‘m a complete tit. Not a lot of people know that.”

Terrible Urban Carnage Fills Newspapers

This morning’s front pages were filled with brutal images of grisly, wanton slaughter in the streets, bringing shocked Britons face-to-face with the horrifying, random death of Woolworths.

With urban streetscenes all over the country transformed into deserted war-zones, the latest outrage saw over 100 innocent tat-shops twitching in their death-throes after the latest outbreak of senseless market blood-letting. Numbed citizens walked around in a daze, asking themselves how a loving God could allow such awful carnage to happen.

“I can‘t believe this could happen here,” said one white-faced bystander. “One minute I was cheerfully wandering around, looking for a cheap Britney Spears calendar, then suddenly prices were dropping all around me. I hid in the bargain basement until it was all over. When I came out, Woolies was just a bloody mess.”

Crap chipboard-wardrobe emporium MFI was named as another victim of the market attack. The DIY store tried in vain to make it out of town, but was ruthlessly cut down nonetheless.

The gruesome images of high-street destruction flashed across the world, bringing messages of support from as far away as India.

“What kind of shadowy, irresponsible organisation could be behind such a tragedy?” asked one Mumbai hotelier, his mundane routine of scrubbing blood from his bullet-riddled lobby momentarily forgotten as the ghastly images of much-loved stores slumped lifeless in the street seared themselves forever into his paralysed mind.