Spontaneous Combustion Of Florida Pastor Just Sheer Coincidence, Says God

Pastor Jones - never one to play with fire

Today’s tragic immolation of controversial pastor and second-hand furniture dealer Terry Jones whilst restoring a table was nothing more than a curious coincidence, according to his very good friend, God.

“I’m sure if he wasn’t reduced to a single charred foot sticking pathetically out of a pile of ashes, Terry wouldn’t want to distract the world from the solemn anniversary of the deaths of a couple of thousand money dealers,” the supreme being told the press. “He wasn’t really one to make a fuss about anything, you know.”

According to God, who saw everything, the humble preacher had just finished planing down the top of a thirties bedside table and was reaching for the open pot of varnish when tiny wisps of smoke began curling from his collar. Seconds later his entire torso erupted in spurts of white flame, in a classic instance of that rare phenomenon, spontaneous human combustion.

Before his horrified Lord’s eyes, the hapless human candle stumbled around his Gainesville, Florida workshop, accidentally upsetting the pot of varnish all over himself and tragically mistaking a spraycan of furniture polish for a fire extinguisher.

“It was all over in seconds,” explained a shaken God. “I wish I could have intervened - but unfortunately that would deny faith, and Terry certainly wouldn’t have wanted that.”

“I think I can speak for my dear friend when I say that the best way to remember him would be to simply get on with remembering those members of the financial community who lost their lives in the Twin Towers nine years ago,” urged the creator. “Unfortunately, I can’t actually confirm this with him, as for some reason he doesn’t seem to be with me yet.”

“You know, it suddenly occurs to me that maybe he might have gone to the other place,” frowned God. “Well, I guess it just goes to show. You think you know somebody pretty well - then something like this happens, and you wonder if you ever really knew them at all.”

Kicking The Poor, Says Osborne – It’s What Dave’s Dad Would Have Wanted, Bless Him

You're paying their housing benefit, and they've all got bad backs

Chancellor George Osborne today unveiled new plans to kick the poorest even harder, in honour of prime minister David Cameron’s recently-departed millionaire father.

Announcing the hacking of an extra £4bn off a welfare budget already slashed by £11bn, Mr Osborne told cheering newspaper reporters: “Thanks to the loving wealth and bullying of his parents, Ian Cameron overcame disability to become as hugely rich as the rest of his family, enjoying a long career of gambling with little people’s livelihoods on the stock market. He died as he lived - on a fantastic holiday in the sun, paid for on the back of other people’s hard work. I can think of no greater tribute to pay to this colossus of financial speculation than to encourage today’s disabled to follow his example, by kicking away the crutch of a welfare state.”

“I urge you to go back to your news desks and make up some more fantastic fibs about huge families of fat-cat benefit claimants living in council palaces,” he urged, pausing briefly while Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre experienced a screaming orgasm at the back of the briefing room. “Why not something about a man who claims to have no legs being seen running a marathon, or some bastard in a coma flying their Learjet to Monaco for a weekly flutter?”

“See Andy Coulson for details,” he added. “He’s a bit under-employed right now, while David’s away talking about how best to dodge inheritance tax with his accountant.”

Britain Astonished As Businessman Recommends Selling Royal Mail To Businessmen

That cat can go, for starters. You're paying the vet's bills

A businessman asked by the government to examine future options for the Royal Mail has astounded everybody by concluding that the only possible course of action is to sell it to the business sector.

“Make no mistake, the situation is desperate,” said Richard Hooper, a former deputy director of Ofcom until the private sector opened its cheque book. “Royal Mail’s £10bn deficit is now even more unsustainable, whatever that might mean. The only possible way to save Britain’s postal services is by handing them over at a knockdown price to some philanthropic businessmen – by which I mean people like me, in fact very much like me – so they can throw money at it, which is of course what I, er, they want to do more than anything else in the whole world.”

“What is sorely needed is a massive capital injection,” he went on, “For the uninitiated, that means handing the entire operation over to some chaps in suits for absolute peanuts, so they can promptly sell it on to one of the big courier firms like DHL or FedEx for about fifty times what they paid for it. Then they can shut the damned thing down and be done with it. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

A life-sized cardboard cut-out of business secretary Vince Cable announced that privatisation of the Royal Mail would bring immediate and lasting benefits to the long-suffering public, just like the privatisation of British Gas, BT and the electricity and water companies had.

Meanwhile, a part-time cleaner who claimed she heard muffled cries coming from a cupboard marked ‘Do not disturb’ in Mr Cable’s office has suddenly realised she must have imagined it, after receiving an unexpected promotion to head of services.

It’s Grim Down South

This wasn't ugly enough for Plymouth, so it's been replaced with something worse

Some craphole called Plymouth which is about as far south as you can get will be hit harder than most of the north, according to research commissioned by the BBC, but it doesn’t matter because nobody knows where it is, or cares.

“The really important thing is to pander to age-old stereotypes involving whippets and cloth caps,” said Tim Casio, an SQL manipulator at Experian who conducted the research. “Everybody knows it’s grim up north, it’s full of matchstick men and Manchester has so much to answer for. It’s a great excuse for the BBC’s news editors to rerun all that quaint old Pathé footage of back-to-back terraces and factory gates. But what scenes of grinding poverty can you pull up for Plymouth? They’ve got some pillock walking round in costume thinking he actually is Sir Francis Drake, for fuck’s sake.”

“I suppose they could rerun yesterday’s shot of that sodding great leylandii forest in an idiot’s front garden,” he added, “But I’m not sure that really proves anything, except that Plymouth is home to some truly exceptional fuckwits.”

BBC journalists were left scratching their heads for a while when Plymouth came up 319th in their rankings showing how well 325 areas of England were expected to weather the impending fiscal blitzkrieg, until somebody remembered that they have their regional TV studios there.

When asked about the effects of massive funding cuts on the impoverished backwater, Tory council leader Vivien Pengelly sucked on a plantain for a few minutes before declaring, “Oo bugger... oi doan rightly knooww, me ansum.”

A council PR spokesman later explained that what Mrs Pengelly actually said - when translated into English - was that Plymouth is the fairest place on God’s wide earth, according to the things that infest it, and if any late staycationers should feel the urge to spend their money wandering Britain’s foremost hope-crushing example of Stalinist architecture in the pouring rain of the city’s soul-destroying microclimate while polyester-clad ape creatures pester them for spare change, then Plymouth’s empty hotels still have plenty of vacancies.

Meanwhile, a Daily Mail hack dispatched to Portsmouth reported that the place didn’t seem as bad as it was painted at all.

Willetts To Allow Universities To Enslave UK Students

Emma has a 2:2 in Media Studies and is also damned handy with an iron, sir

David Willetts, the universities minister with two brains but no heart, today told delighted vice-chancellors that, in future, they would be able to enslave their English graduates and sell them as servants to international students.

“Graduates are already effectively signing their lives away to a mountain of debt they’ll never clear from the minimum wage the supermarkets pay them to stack shelves,” smiled Mr Willetts. “So I don’t see why you shouldn’t just double the fees overnight, have the students sign their worthless lives over to you in perpetuity, then jaunt off on another ‘partnership’ jolly to extol the virtues of a British university degree with servants thrown in free to the governments of the Far East - ideally, of course, somewhere with lovely beaches.”

A spokesman for the NUS said, “Naturally we are horrified at the government’s plans to increase the onerous and discriminatory tuition fees we kept mysteriously quiet about back in 1997, which our lord and master Tony cheerfully slapped on us before he’d even had time to sit down, after we’d busted our balls getting students to vote Labour.”

Science Cuts Will Usher In A New Dark Age, Say Scientists Who Analysed Dance Moves

Scientific analysis of Mr Cable's technique is currently focused on his wrist

Business secretary Vince Cable has been slammed – as well as boogied, macarenaed and funky chickened – by Britain’s scientific research community today, after unveiling government plans to cut spending on scientific research.

“Aaooww!” screamed evolutionary psychologist Dr Nick Neave, co-author of a ground-breaking study of the sexual attractiveness on the dance floor which was published simultaneously today in the Royal Society journal, Biology Letters, and Mixmag. “Vince Cable should get down – I said get, get, get on down – with the science homeys in the laboratories and nightclubs of Great Britain and see the fantastic moves our leading experts are making in the field of scientific endeavour, and the radical shapes they are throwing in the foam room.”

Mr Cable, however, insisted that the scientific community should do “more for less.”

“Too many of our universities are spending their research grants on ket in the chill-out room,” he opined. “There is no justification for taxpayers’ money being used to support research which is neither commercially useful nor theoretically outstanding. So if you want a grant, my advice is to either come up with a cure for death or demonstrate a working Unified Field Theory by the end of the month, else it’s back to lecturing thicky freshers for the lot of you.”

He then proceeded to strut his funky stuff in a manner which subtly transmits unmistakeable messages to the research community about his preferred method of sperm production.

Sacked Stig Threatens To Reveal True Identity of Jeremy Clarkson

Who - or indeed what - is really behind this two-dimensional caricature?

Following Jeremy Clarkson’s announcement that Ben Collins - who revealed himself as the Stig - has been sacked from BMW-fancying arseholes’ favourite, Top Gear, the driver is now threatening to reveal the real identity of the person who plays the nation’s favourite narrow-minded gobshite.

“To millions of people, for years this larger-than-life character has been known simply as ‘Jeremy Clarkson’,” said the third-rate racing driver as he queued at the Jobcentre. “But who is he in real life? I know the secret, because I’ve been round his place for drinks. The bullying prick insisted I kept my sodding crash helmet on and made me drink through a straw. What an arse.”

“No, it’s not Enoch Powell, even if his disappearance from public life did coincide with that bubble-permed bastard’s rise from obscurity,” he hinted. “And it’s not Martin Bormann, Hitler’s missing Minister of the Nazi Party – he’d be 110. But you’re getting warm.”

“No, it’s not Arnold Schwarzenegger either,” he snapped. “If you’re just going to pander to his Zeppelin-swallowing ego, I’m not playing any more.”

Stephen Fry Decides He Really Is Gordon Deitrich From ‘V For Vendetta’

Everybody’s favourite uncle, Stephen Fry, woke up this morning and realised that he really was Gordon Deitrich, the TV personality he played in movie ‘V For Vendetta’, he told Eve Hammond, a bemused Radio Times hack, today.

“I expect they’ll kill me for saying this, but I’m sorry to say I’ve remained silent for too long,” confessed TV’s Mr Polymath. “There really is a climate of fear at the BBC. There! I’ve said it.”

“A lot of the adventure and excitement have gone out of television programming and a lot of it is just down to fear,” he explained. “I do know of so many cases where executives would say, ‘What we want is something new, something different, something extraordinary!’ And they’re brought something new, different and extraordinary and immediately the executive gets cold feet and decides simply to water down QI and move it to just before the watershed on BBC1.”

“Crikey, I said to myself, surely the viewing public must be utterly sick and tired of seeing some baggy-eyed twit lazily indulging his fellow luvvies as they predictably churn out their hackneyed old gags,” he went on. “And I suddenly thought, ‘Hang on, isn’t that me?’ Well, no longer. I will speak out - even if it means the end of dear old uncle Gordon.”

Not so funny now, is it, funny man?

Viewers can look forward to a special edition of QI on Friday, in which the brave but doomed Mr Fry brilliantly satirises sadistic director-general Mark Thompson by having a debagged lookalike run around the set while the Benny Hill music plays, chased by Alan Davies, Jo Brand, Danny Boyle and Sean Lock. Mr Fry will then be brutally dragged from his home in the middle of the night by The One Show’s Jason Manford and Alex Jones, and no more will ever be heard of him.

Koran-Burning Stunt Not Entirely Helpful, Petraeus Tells Preacher

The US military commander in Afghanistan suggested today that a planned mass burning of the Koran might possibly upset a few Moslems, and perhaps even make his job somewhat more difficult.

Pastor Terry Hitler and the fifty fellow members of the Dove World Domination Center - his non-denominational church in Gainesville, Florida - are planning to throw copies of one of the holiest books in the world onto a bonfire as a sign of their solemn respect on the ninth anniversary of 9/11.

So far, thousands of outraged Moslems have demonstrated against the holy book-burning in Indonesia over the weekend, while on Monday 500 irate demonstrators chanted “death to America” in the streets of Kabul on hearing of the bonfire plan.

Bloodshed followed the 2008 revelation that a US soldier deployed in Iraq had riddled a Koran with bullets, and lives were also lost in the wake of reports three years earlier that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed the Islamic scripture down a toilet.

"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort," Gen Petraeus warned US media. "It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems, i.e. our troops getting their asses handed to them on a blood-soaked platter.”

Thanks for sharing

Pastor Hitler, however, remains unmoved.

“Christ Himself is asking us to demonstrate His redeeming love by desecrating the sacred word of the prophet Mohammed,” he told reporters. "We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam, which is all of them. We will no longer be controlled and dominated by their fears and threats. The mighty Lord Jesus is telling me that they are the ones who should be controlled and dominated by our fears and threats. Hallelujah."

“Islam is violent and repressive,” he raged, thumping the pulpit for added effect, “Unlike Christianity which is, of course, founded on love.”

“And death to all heretics, of course,” he added. “That’s a very important part of Christ’s message of hope.”

Blair Kindly Cancels London Signing To Spare Police The Inconvenience Of Holding Back His Loving Fans

Mr Blair's fans will be so disappointed

Ex-prime minister and novelist Tony Blair has pulled out of a book signing in London, claiming that it was not fair on the Metropolitan Police to expect them to restrain the surging hordes of fans who desperately wanted him to sign copies of his fantasy tale.

“I’m really sorry that the vast majority of the public, who desperately want to meet me and tell me how wonderful I am, will not be able to because I’m such a kind and caring guy that I’ve cancelled this signing purely out of consideration for London’s wonderful bobbies,” wailed Mr Blair on ITV’s hard-hitting new breakfast TV show, ‘What Would You Like On Your Toast Today, Dear?’ “But they can take solace from the crate of signed copies I’ll be sending round to Waterstones later. Don’t bother buying at half price from Amazon, by the way. They’re clearly having trouble shifting their stock because they don’t have my glorious signature in them. That means they lack the miraculous power to heal the sick, obviously.”

“To be frank, I am concerned… If people want to have a book signed, people should protest but not try and physically prevent you doing it," he added, demonstrating the mastery of language that marks him as one of the world’s top orators and writers.

At a press briefing later, when proper journalists pointed out that the people who were protesting were not in fact trying to jump the queue for signed copies of his rotten collection of fibs, Mr Blair looked at them blankly for a minute.

“These crowds get all the publicity, but I’m the one who’s paying the PR consultants’ fees,” he complained. “It’s not fair. I should get a refund off the public.”

Londoners Aghast At Having To Use Bus, Car or Walk Like Everyone Else

Jeremy Paxman may well die here if somebody doesn't rescue him

The world officially came to an end at 5pm today, as a Tube strike cruelly forced people who work in the media and other Londoners to use the same modes of transport as the rest of the country.

“I’ve just walked two sodding miles out of my way to North Finchley bus station,” a puce-faced sub-editor from the Guardian roared at a hapless Metrolink driver. “No bugger saw fit to inform me that I could get on at that funny stick thing just round the corner from my house. Why isn’t this kind of essential information available to the travelling public? Oh, you are so going to get shit for this in tomorrow’s edition, my friend.”

Similar tales of misery were being repeated all over the capital, as bolshie bus drivers not only flatly refused to take credit cards, but even had the sneering impudence to ask if passengers had anything smaller than a £20 note.

Meanwhile, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman has officially been reported as missing. He is believed to be trapped on a circling bus because of a tragic inability to say ‘excuse me’ to standing passengers blocking his exit.

Ex-Army Chief Throws Inadequately-Funded Toys Out Of Pram

The Taleban wouldn't have liked this up 'em

The former Conservative head of the army, General Richard Dammit, today fired an ineffectual broadside from a rusty popgun at Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – accusing the pair of cynically underfunding Britain’s armed forces despite sending them to fight two foreign wars.

In his book ‘Leading From The Right’, Gen Dammit accuses Gordon Brown of “malign intervention” by refusing to fund sun cannon, crater guns and flybots for the armed forces, and claims Tony Blair “lacked the moral courage to impose his will on his own chancellor.”

“Thanks to those communist CND hippies, for the first time in its illustrious history the British army went into battle without every single item on its fantasy wish list,” he huffed from his camouflaged pram.

The retired general contrasted the Labour government’s parsimonious attitude with previous military operations like the Battle of France, in which the Germans were swiftly overwhelmed by grav tanks armed with multi-lens pulse lasers and orbital-drop troops equipped with power armour and man-portable fusion guns, bringing the Second World War to a swift end in 1940.

This crap is all that Gordon Brown would pay for

“The general staff knew all about winning in Afghanistan, from three previous victories back in the days of empire,” continued the red-faced general. “A devastating frightfulness-and-wonder assault with tacnukes by Queen’s Own G-carrier Division, followed up with the elite 14th Psionic Shock-Lancers’ mopping-up operation soon sorted out Akbar Khan and his fractious tribesmen.”

“Yet even such steampunk technology was callously turned down by those peacenik trots in Downing Street,” snorted Gen Dammit over a stiff G&T. “Instead, brave Tommy Atkins was sent into battle with nothing more than a recoilless rifle and a moped. Vote Conservative.”