Saturday 4 July 2009

BT Spares Trauma of Redundancy By Inviting Staff To Starve

Ailing phone company BT is offering staff the opportunity to starve to death at home, rather than going to work and fucking things up even more.

"Twenty years ago, BT was modestly going about its business of making £97 a second by graciously allowing people to have a telephone line," sobbed the company's teenage chief executive, Ian Livingston. "Then one day, after a superb lunch at Les Quat' Saisons, the board of directors suddenly decided to sell off our mobile phone offshoot just when it was starting to turn a profit and pretend to be a networked software provider instead. Don't blame me for that, I was busy learning to use a potty at the time."

"BT studied leading players like EDS and Fujitsu, who were getting rich on lucrative government contracts by half-heartedly tweaking programs that patently didn't work and never would," he continued, "And we looked at our home-grown CSS database, which we abandoned for being utterly unfit for purpose after three miserable years, and thought, 'Hey, we can do that!' Unfortunately, something else it turned out we couldn't do was negotiate a contract. So, unlike the other companies involved in the NHS computer fiasco, we have to pay the government a penalty for every day we put back the completion date. It's not my fault - I was sulking at the time after being told to tidy my room."

"Unfortunately for our shareholders, in a fit of spectacularly ill-advised enthusiasm we agreed to pick up the other companies' indecipherable coding when they were finally kicked off the job," added Mr Livingston, "And the earth will be consumed by its dying sun long before the bloody program stops filling every data field with nines every time a doctor issues a prescription. I wasn't responsible for that decision either, actually. I was spending most of my working day in the executive washroom, after discovering the joys of playing with myself."

Staff are being invited to stay away from their jobs for a year on 25% of their pay, in the hope that the program will somehow become self-aware and remedy its own failings.

"I have absolutely no idea how that might happen," admitted Mr Livingston. "After all, I am the chief executive of British Telecom, and I didn't get where I am today by understanding things. But that shouldn't stop me from collecting my £850,000 salary, nor indeed my £680,000 performance bonus."

Ecclestone 'Gets Things Done', Says Hitler

Adolf Hitler has been granted temporary leave from the fieriest pit of hell to give a newspaper interview on the subject of Formula One.

Speaking with difficulty due to his lips being crudely stitched together with a burning coal in his mouth, the unrepentant architect of Nazism mumbled candidly about his admiration for F1's owner, Bernie Ecclestone.

"Say vot you like, zat liddle mop-top shortarse ist ein great dictator," said Hitler, looking a little the worse for wear after enduring 64 years of intimacy with red-hot skewers. "I vos screaming mit Saddam Hussein only yesterday during zer daily genital-roasting, und ve both vish ve had his ability to command a lot of peoples und to get things done."

"He is der only vun who can control der Formula Vun," explained the smouldering führer. "He moves into countries und he has no idea of kultur, he just takes all zer cash zer corrupt governments throw at him, tells zem vat he vants und zey build it. Zer are peoples starving in Afrika, und he sits back - alzough he might be standing, it's hard to tell - and does nudding except count his moneys. Vot a guy!"

Stifling sobs of agony caused by the dozens of pins stuck into his eyeballs, the former leader of Nazi Germany urged Mr Ecclestone not to get taken away by the rebellious F1 teams and persuaded to do things he had no idea could be done or not - such as letting them spend their own money on their own cars as they see fit without his bloated lackey, the black-uniformed Josef Mosley, inflicting his insane race theories on them, such as ordering all cars to be fitted with at least one square wheel.

"He says he vants a Jewish black female in zer sport to boost zer appeal," added Herr Hitler hurriedly, as a deep, booming voice recalled him to hell for his daily flensing. "Zat vould indeed make zer excellent trophy for zer vinning driver."

Friday 3 July 2009

Dead Woman Proves Economic Model Now Independent of Human Involvement

The business community was rejoicing today over the news that an Edinburgh woman, Isabella Purves, continued to function successfully as a contributing economic unit for up to five years after her death.

"Obviously we're deeply upset to learn that Mrs Purves' dessicated remains have been discovered, lying forgotten in her flat, by police," said her bank manager. "After five years of automatic pension payments, with no withdrawals except for direct debits to the utility companies, her current account had built up a healthy credit balance and earned us a fair bit of interest."

A representative of the power companies agreed, pointing out that, as Mrs Purves' consumption of electricity and gas had fallen off sharply after her death without them feeling any pressing need to lower her direct debit payments accordingly, they too had made a tidy profit from her.

"In monetary terms, we have now reached the happy place where we can dispense with tiresome, unreliable human beings entirely," explained an analyst from the Economic And Social Research Council. "Not only has Isabella Purves proved that the system can function perfectly well without the need for actual, physical customers; but, as she has not once troubled a customer services department since her lonely demise, companies should be able to substantially reduce their staff costs."

"Obviously, it's not a perfect system when we are paying out state benefits to dead people, just so the private sector can get rich simply by doing nothing," admitted chancellor Alistair Darling. "We'd beat the recession a lot quicker if we could just funnel the money straight from the Treasury into companies' coffers. Unfortunately, this is not really feasible in an economic model which still takes into account the living. Rest assured, however, that we are working tirelessly to introduce measures which will streamline the system by eliminating them from the equation completely."

A grateful business community has nominated the late Scotswoman for the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics. Meanwhile, bank and utility staff have been seen in numerous graveyards, armed with laptops and furiously tapping in the names of the deceased.

Huge Queues Form At Top Gyms

Exclusive health clubs in London have been beseiged by applications for membership, following Tony Blair's appearance at an awards ceremony sporting a black eye which his former publicist Alistair Campbell later said the former prime minister had received in the gym.

Mr Blair's movements are a closely-guarded secret as, for some reason, a lot of people want to hurt him badly. However, members of the public eager to tell him what they think of his New Labour project now it approaches its natural conclusion have been organising themselves into teams, covering every possible location where Mr Blair might conceivably spend ten minutes on a Nautilus.

Although prices at top people's health clubs are kept astronomically high to keep out the riff-raff, devastated communities are clubbing together to pay for three-month trial memberships for long-term unemployed men, who will cover each gym in shifts, hanging around the hot tubs and plunge pools until one of them spots Mr Blair - at which point they are expected to twat him severely, on behalf of everyone back home.

"Of course, the smarmy little shit could just avoid gyms for a while," admitted a former Rover worker from the Midlands. "But we're relying on his colossal vanity to drive him back into his exercise regime the moment he finds himself having to breathe in a bit to button his trousers."

"Funnily enough, although we haven't spotted Blair yet, several of our scouts in different locations have noticed Gordon Brown skulking about with his arse out the back of a threadbare towel, apparently with the same intention in mind," he added. "If you see him limping about nursing his bollocks - that was us."

Wednesday 1 July 2009

Loss of Identity

The recently-appointed home secretary, Alan Johnson, has confirmed that the government will not be forcing ordinary, decent British people to carry ID cards, but promised that they would still be imposed on evil, moustachio-twirling foreigners.

"Some might think that this was the perfect opportunity to save the country an absolute bloody fortune in the costs of developing an ID card scheme," he told a hastily-convened press conference in the airing cupboard of the Home Office. "Unfortunately, if there's one thing these useless software companies can do right, it's writing a watertight contract with eye-watering penalty clauses for cancellation."

"Since we're stuck with a bloody useless database regardless, we figured it would be a shame to waste it," he continued. "So we thought how well it would read in the tabloids if we just inflicted it on foreigners - who, as we all know, are the real problem facing Britain today and in the future."

"And the beauty of it is that you won't read about all the inevitable cock-ups in the papers," he added. "Well, not the British ones, anyway."

Nationalised Express

Lord Adonis, the mythical god of transport, has announced that he will be taking direct control of the East Coast rail franchise, and is furiously trying to wrestle current operator Hornby Express away from a transformer with a big knob on the front.

As an ageing toy InterCity 125 grinds intermittently round the oval track - labouring under the weight of dozens of successive coats of paint, and emitting sparks from its rusty wheels - a glistening Lord Adonis put the franchisee in a headlock and told reporters that he was also seeking to take control of the railcars and puffing billies of Hornby Express' other franchises, East Anglia and c2c.

However, the purple-faced operator gasped that the East Coast franchise was in fact run by a completely separate Special Purpose Vehicle, set up under the relevant Department for Transport rules in order to provide the parent company with minimal financial liability and legal responsibility, and warned that if Lord Adonis tried to take any of its sister companies' rolling stock out of their sidings he would be up in front of the fat cat controller.

"You can keep your manky old East Coast line anyway," it huffed angrily as it broke free. "There's a dead connection in the tunnel, so you have to poke the train out with a ruler - and the curves still aren't nailed down, so if you take them at any sort of speed the track comes apart, the train falls off the table and the cat goes shooting up the curtains out of fright."

Lord Adonis carefully rearranged his flowing locks and pranced out of the attic to design what he promised would be "a dynamic new colour scheme fit for the train operating companies of the 21st century". Meanwhile the untended model train jumped the buffers at Edinburgh Waverley Station, sending sections of platform skidding across the bare board.

"I just want a train that goes as fast as they used to in the days of steam, arrives roughly when it's supposed to and doesn't require a sodding mortgage for the privilege of being wedged into cattle class with an intimate view of somebody else's dandruff," said one long-suffering passenger as he sat patiently on a platform bench." Or is that too much to ask?"

"I'd much sooner travel by Scalextric any day," he added crossly, "But some bastard appears to have glued me to my seat."

He was then eaten by the cat.

Labour Seeks To Reassure Middle England Over Founding Principles

Communities Secretary John Denham has been wheeled out by the government to reassure Middle England that, just because the Labour Party is abandoning its totalitarian ID card scheme and renationalising a large chunk of the railways, it has still forgotten its founding principles.

"I want to tell the South East not to panic - all that old lefty claptrap about narrowing the gap between rich and poor is as dead as a dodo," he told the Fabian Society. "Harriet Harperson can huff and puff all she likes about equality - but don't worry, she's only there to appeal to those elderly cloth-capped northerners who get dusted off and wheeled to the polling stations every few years because they fondly believe that nice Mr Attlee is still in the driving seat."

"Between you, me and the security gate, we're all selfish, greedy middle-class professionals nowadays," smiled Mr Denham. "The Labour Party was built on the blood, sweat and toil of the working class, who struggled to build a future in which their descendants would have a better life. Well, we're their descendents and we're having a high old time - I mean, look at how much we've been fiddling on expenses. Rest assured, Middle England, we're just like you."

Tuesday 30 June 2009

Empire Lost, Says Controversial New Report

An influential think tank has uncovered evidence that Britain may no longer have a mighty globe-spanning empire, the like of which the world has never seen.

The report from the Institute for Public Policy Research - whose authors include Lord Ashdown and former defence secretary Lord Robertson - reveals that many states whose protection once required the most powerful navy in the world are, in fact, completely independent of Britain and now have armed forces of their own.

Senior military figures are said to be stunned to learn that not only is the Third Reich no longer the threat it once seemed, but Japan has renounced its plans for a Far East Co-Prosperity Sphere based on the subjugation of its neighbours - and furthermore, Comrade Stalin appears to have gone very quiet lately about his plans to export revolutionary communism by all available means.

"The empire now consists of about two dozen small islands - the largest being Great Britain - which nobody really wants, including us," said Lord Ashdown. "In the light of this, you might begin to wonder whether we really need to plunge ourselves further into irretrievable bankruptcy by throwing borrowed billions into two new aircraft carriers bigger than any battleship and a brand new stockpile of intercontinental ballistic missiles with multiple nuclear warheads."

The government, however, reacted swiftly to rubbish the IPPR report.

"In the language of international relations," it said, "The UK has a really, really massive cock."

Police Warn of Upsurge in Royal Begging

The public are being urged not to give money to the Queen, if she approaches them in the street asking for a pound for Buckingham Palace's roof.

Police say they are receiving more and more complaints from members of the public about royal harassment as the recession bites deeper.

"'Ello, 'ello, 'ello. The Queen can often be found sitting outside 24-hour convenience stores with a corgi on a string to elicit sympathy from shoppers," warned community policing spokesman PCSO Dixon. "But she will also shamble up to vulnerable-looking people walking alone, demanding larger and larger amounts of money and becoming increasingly abusive and threatening. First of all it's a quid to repair a leaky hole in her bedroom ceiling; but if you reach into your purse for a pound she's straight in there, asking for another 50p for fresh lead for Windsor Castle, then another pound to unblock the loo at Sandringham - the list seems to be endless."

"The irony is, if only you knew, she lives the life of Riley on public handouts," he continued. "If you follow her, you'll see her unashamedly stocking up on fags and booze, which she liberally shares out to her fellow heads of state when she gets back to her pad - which is rather more fancy than what most of her victims go home to."

"Don't be fooled by the frumpy, dowdy old rags she wears in public," he added. "She's got more fur in her wardrobe than Longleat Safari Park. Evenin' all."

Monday 29 June 2009

Britain's Economic Woes Solved By Mint Error

The entire population of the UK is frantically checking pockets, upending purses, smashing piggy banks and mugging passers-by in a desperate search for valuable 20p coins, after rare coin traders the London Mint Office revealed that coins lacking a date - from a defective batch which the Royal Mint failed to spot - were worth up to £50 to collectors.

Between 50,000 and 200,000 of the coins - the exact figure is unknown, as nobody at the Royal Mint is familiar with numbers - are believed to be in circulation.

When the new coin was designed last year, the date was supposed to be moved from the obverse to the face of the coin - but the old, undated face design was used by mistake.

"We're at a loss to understand how this wasn't spotted," said a spokesman for the Royal Mint from his cell at the Tower of London. "We ran it through the spell checker and everything."

Plans to sever the hands of the entire staff of the venerable institution with axes were cancelled, however, by the direct intervention of Gordon Brown. The relieved coiners were driven back to their workplace and told to begin designing a series of limited-edition botch jobs for every coin of the realm.

Planned future 'mistakes' are likely to include £2 coins with the centre missing, circular 50p pieces, 'Every One A Winner!!!' replacing the script around the edge of the £1 coin and Mohammed Fayed's profile replacing the queen on the 5p coin.

"If every single coin in circulation is worth £50, regardless of face value, Britain can repay my enormous borrowings in a year or so," announced the Prime Minister. "Why, I went out this morning and bought my regular copy of the Daily Mail to see what my policies for the next year would be - and, as luck would have it, my change from a fiver is worth more than ten times what I tendered. Imagine how much it would be worth if every single coin had a value of £50. Especially if I asked for it in pennies."

"Vote Labour," he added. "You know how good we are at cocking things up."

Fantasy Murder of Girls Aloud Commended By Court

A former civil servant has been cleared of obscenity charges after publishing a 12-page fantasy blog in which he imagined the kidnap, rape and murder of Girls Aloud.

Darryn Wanker walked free from Newcastle Crown Court after being found not guilty of breaching the Obscene Publications Act after his barrister successfully argued that he was only putting into words what every music fan was already thinking, apart from the rape bit.

"They are, after all, a bunch of manky slappers," pointed out Tim Owen QC. "Would you want to soil your todger with Sarah Harding, your honour? The defence rests."

Mr Wanker, 35, later told reporters that not only had he lost his job after being charged, but people were strangely reluctant to shake hands with him any more.

"I just want to rebuild my sad life," he said. "I have already rung my newsagent and asked him to put back a copy of the Sport, and I shall be stopping off at Tesco for a bumper pack of tissues."

"Then I hope I can get reinstated into the job of my choice in the civil service," he added. "I quite fancy running the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. Who's up for Jade Goody's disinterred corpse taking a non-stop bukkake fountain on the spare plinth in Trafalgar Square?"

Sunday 28 June 2009

Keep Taking The Stone Tablets

God-bothering doctors are demanding the right to seize their patients by the head during consultations, force them to their knees and tell them that their health is dependent on sorting out their relationship with their personal saviour Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever hallelujah.

Members of the Medical Fellowship of Jesus Freaks are to raise the issue at the British Medical Association's conference in Liverpool on Monday.

"Sadly, as a cancer specialist, I am used to seeing the anguish on the faces of the unsaved when I break the news to them that they have a malignant, inoperable tumour which is going to kill them," witnessed Dr Bernadette Bullwinkle. "I would feel so much better if I could point out that, in the light of their imminent departure from this world of sin and sorrow, now might be a very good time for them to accept God into their hearts and acknowledge Christ as their only hope of life everlasting."

"Yet, thanks to the influence of the Father of Lies, the government still sees fit to prevent me from offering them the very real hope that, if they only acknowledge Christ's victory over death and dedicate their lives to prayer, it may well be His will to take away the cancer," she added. "Amen. Thank you, Lord. Amen."

Some patients, however, have expressed reservations about doctors interfering in their spiritual lives.

"I think I'd be a little worried if I was referred to a specialist who, in all seriousness, believes implicitly that the human body is a lump of clay given life by the breath of some nebulous deity," said a man we interviewed in a hospital waiting room. "And my wife, who is in labour, hasn't stopped screaming since discovering that her obstetrician insists that the agony of childbirth is merely God's just punishment of womankind for Eve's apple-related transgression in the Garden of Eden."

Not all doctors share the views of their happy-clappy colleagues, either.

"My objections to the introduction of a spiritual element into the field of medicine are twofold," explained a research consultant specialising in DNA analysis. "Firstly, I would question the scientific principles of any doctor who fails to acknowledge the inherent conflict between the biblical account of creation and the ever-growing body of evidence supporting evolution."

"And secondly, of course, as a senior medical practitioner I am God," he added.

Schools To Tackle Disruptive Parents

Schools will be given the right to discipline the parents of unruly children, under proposals announced today by Schools Secretary Ed Balls - who explained that the move is aimed at the small number of parents who disregard existing home-school agreements, which define what is expected of parents and pupils in the education system.

If the schools white paper is passed by parliament, teachers will have the power to bring parents before a court, which will have the power to make them attend parenting classes in detention, write out 'I must not encourage Sammi-Jo to call the art assistant a fucking whore' five hundred times or, in persistent cases, receive six of the best in front of all the other parents.

The white paper is also likely to contain plans for remedial one-to-one tuition for children lagging behind in maths and English, and the removal of centralised standards for literacy and numeracy - conveniently making it next to impossible to define 'lagging behind' in any meaningful sense, and thus sparing the government the trouble of finding and funding the tens of thousands of teachers who would otherwise be required for one-to-one tuition.