An Inspector Calls In Sick

A parlour in one of the great country houses of England. Several well-dressed dinner guests of LORD CAMERON are talking amongst themselves. A corpse lies on the tiger-skin rug.

LORD CAMERON: I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for this. The butler rang the police as soon as he discovered this unfortunate chap, and I’m sure they’ll get to the bottom of this little unpleasantness.

MR. HIRAM OBAMA, an American ‘gentleman of color’: There sure as hell better be, ya faggot Limey cocksucker.

LORD CAMERON (ingratiatingly): Er… ho ho, most witty, Mr Obama, if I may say so!

The Hon. GEORGE OSBORNE, an adolescent: Hear, hear! Why, Mr Bernard Shaw, our foremost man of letters, could scarcely have put it better himself!

VISCOUNT CLEGG: I say, does anyone know who the unfortunate blighter might actually be?

(A bell rings, and the butler appears, followed by one of Her Majesty’s finest.)

FRY (for it is he): Helloooooooo! Hello, helloooooooo! And may I unctuously invite you all to bid a warm QI welcome to… er… PCSO 49 Alan Davies!!!

PCSO 49: Evenin’, all. Now then, what’s all this about?

LORD CAMERON: It’s about this damned fellow bleeding all over my best rug.

PCSO 49: Right you are, chief, you leave this to me. (Walks over to corpse, kneels down) Now look ‘ere, sunshine, what d’you think you’re doin’, upsettin’ these fine gentlefolks wiv your shenanigans? Move along, now, or I shall ‘ave to escalate this incident and call for a real bobby to back me up.

INSPECTOR SAVAGE (entering via the French windows): I’m afraid it’s a little late for that, PCSO 49. This man is dead.

PCSO 49: Blimey, that must be why you’re a proper copper and I’m only wearin’ fancy dress, sir.

INSPECTOR: Perhaps we should begin by identifying the deceased. Turn the body over, PCSO 49, if you please.

PCSO 49: Beggin’ your pardon an’ all that, sir, but I kint lay a finger on ‘im. It’s more’n me job’s worth, see.

INSPECTOR: Ah, quite so. Might I borrow your servant, Lord Cameron?

CAMERON: Certainly, Inspector. Fry, if you would?

FRY: I shall do my level best to comply with your wishes, sir. (Turns corpse face up.)

CLEGG: Good heavens! It’s old Mr Cable, the dean of Brassneck College! Er… I’ve never seen this fellow before in my life.

INSPECTOR: Of course not, sir. Is Mr Cable perhaps not known to anyone else among you?

CAMERON: I think I speak for all of us, Inspector, when I say that although Dean Cable is known by reputation to all as one of our nation’s foremost thinkers, none of us here would claim to have ever made his acquaintance personally.

INSPECTOR: I quite understand, Lord Cameron. Nevertheless, it is my belief that someone present in this very room may be responsible for the dean’s unfortunate demise, and I must ask you all to remain here for the time being.

OSBORNE (stamping foot): Really, Inspector! It’s already past my bedtime. Nanny will be cross.

CAMERON: Now, young Georgie, play the game. This is a most serious business.

OSBORNE: Oh, well, if it’s business that’s a different matter.

PCSO 49: Beg pardon, sir, but weren’t the gentleman in all the papers recently? As I recall, ‘e were ‘avin a debate about keeping the riff-raff out of the varsity. Didn’t ‘e say ‘e was all for it, then change ‘is mind saying ‘tweren’t such a good idea after all, then in summin' up say’ ‘e were all for it agin? ‘Twere way above my ‘ead, sir, if you don’t mind me sayin’.

CLEGG: Indeed. A true master of rhetoric, such as the dean, should always be able to argue both sides of the topic; although he undoubtedly raised eyebrows at the Oxford Union by actually putting the theory into practice. I say! You don’t think it might have led to his unfortunate demise, do you, Inspector?

INSPECTOR: Er… I fear I don’t quite follow your line of thinking, your lordship.

CAMERON: By Jove, Nicholas, I do believe I see where you’re coming from. Inspector, didn’t I see you on the front page of the Times the other day, remonstrating with some oiky student in London?

INSPECTOR: Only carrying out my solemn duty, milord. These student anarchists are fomenting nothing less than total class warfare, and it’s my job to ensure that the social order is maintained at all costs. It’s not for me to take sides, of course, but occasionally I might need to explain the limits of democratic freedom to radical sympathisers with a certain amount of, shall we say, emphasis, if you know what I mean.

CLEGG: Ahem… You wouldn’t happen to have your truncheon about your person at this moment, would you, Inspector?

INSPECTOR: I seem to have left it at the station, sir.

CLEGG: I only ask because poor Mr Cable appears to have several long dents in his skull.

PCSO 49: Lumme… If you’ll forgive me sayin’ so, guv’nor, them notches in the old geezer’s bonce don’t arf look about the right size.

GARDENER (appearing at the French windows holding charred truncheon): ‘ere, which one o' yew hoity-toity buggers bin chuckin’ stuff in moy bonfire?

INSPECTOR: Er, might I trouble you for the use of your telephone, Lord Cameron?

(CAMERON nods to FRY, who brings candlestick telephone over on silver platter.)

Hello, operator, get me Scotland Yard… Inspector Savage here, commissioner - sir, I regret to inform you that, due to a sudden attack of the old complaint, as of this moment I shall be on indefinite sick leave… thank you, sir, you’re very understanding.

PCSO 49: If you’ll accompany me, sir, to the Black Maria, I’ll drop you off ‘ome.

(Curtain)

We Clean Forgot Top-Secret Military Space Plane Was Up There, Insists USAF

The US Air Force is steadfastly insisting that it clean forgot all about its top-secret X-37B space vehicle, leaving it innocently orbiting the Earth for seven months, until a telesales operator from NASA cold-called them to ask if they wanted to book any more launches.

Nothing sinister about the X-37B at all

The unmanned X-37B spacecraft was launched on a secret mission from NASA’s Cape Canaveral site back in April; but, according to a USAF general who declined to give his name, shortly after the nine-metre craft entered orbit its mission controller was distracted by the arrival of a health and safety assessor, and the vehicle and its unspecified mission subsequently slipped his mind completely.

“We’re currently debriefing the poor schmuck,” admitted the general, “But for the life of him he can’t recall what he sent it up there for. Well, now that it’s landed safely at one of our airbases in California, he can open it up – we found the key at the back of his desk drawer, thankfully, at the bottom of a box of rubber bands – then take a peek inside the cargo bay and, with a bit of luck, see if there’s anything there that might jog his memory.”

Sceptical amateur astronomers have claimed that the X-37B may have been on some underhand surveillance mission, however, pointing out that it has been orbiting at an altitude of 255 miles - a zone typically reserved for spy satellites - and passing over trouble spots including North Korea and Afghanistan once every four days for the full seven months.

“My, my,” gasped the general. “Has it really? Now ain’t that the damnedest thing.”

Mick Hucknall Apologises To Millions Of Imaginary Women He Slept With

Who wouldn't?

Ginger potato man Mick Hucknall today issued a heartfelt apology to the millions of imaginary women he insists he pleasured in the 80s.

“Between 1985 and 1987, I would - you know - do it with about three ladies a day, every day,” the Simply Red singer told a heroically straight-faced Guardian reporter. “Not at the same time, obviously, because that’s a bit naughty.”

“A red-headed man is not generally considered to be a sexual icon,” he admitted, “But the sight of my carroty pubes and little pink willy drove them wild, I tell you. They’d show me their lady parts and everything, and after I cried and and told them I was an unwanted ginger child they’d eventually take pity on me and let me put it up them.”

“They know who they are,” he replied defensively, when his struggling interviewer finally let out a snigger and asked if he could maybe recall the name of one of his mystery legion of blind, philanthropic nymphomaniacs.

THRUSH Picks Secret Volcano Island Base, Sun To Host World Cups

Angry UK football fans are furious with The Man From AUNTIE, blaming international crime syndicate THRUSH’s controversial choice of a secret base inside a hollowed-out volcano and the surface of the sun for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup competitions on Napoleon Solo’s hard-hitting undercover report.

Bloody investigative reporters

“The overwhelming evidence of massive THRUSH corruption gathered by the dashing Mr Solo and his trusty fellow reporter, Ilya Kuryakin, at great personal risk to themselves surely proves that this was a perfectly legitimate topic for investigation,” retorted AUNTIE’s Director-General, Mr Waverley, in response to demands from irate football supporters for the immediate shutdown of his organisation. “Besides, by 2018 Britain will be buried forever under a glacier half a mile thick.”

Fans, however, still insist that Mr Solo’s microfilm, rather than monumental bribery on an international scale, was responsible for THRUSH’s perverse decision – despite strenuous refutals from the organisation itself.

“Our decision to award the hosting of the 2018 World Cup to a secret island base somewhere in the Pacific Ocean was based entirely on the imaginative presentation by SPECTRE bid leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld of $500 million in unmarked banknotes,” said an anonymous THRUSH operative. “His evil henchmen are already hard at work constructing a dozen underground stadia which, they promise, will be filled to capacity by football fans kidnapped from all over the world.”

“These fans will be held hostage for four years,” he explained, “At which point they will be delivered by a series of rockets straight to the next host venue, the sun, in return for exclusive rights to all forms of solar energy, the profits from which Mr Blofeld’s organisation has kindly offered to split 50/50 with us.”

“It’s ingenious, diabolical and exploitative,” he added. “I wish we’d thought of it ourselves.”

Dr Who To Face Deadly Sock Puppet This Christmas

Worse than cybermen

Matt Smith, the child actor who plays much-loved TV character Dr Who, has spoken of his excitement over doing battle with one the time-travelling hero’s deadliest enemies from the past – a sock puppet known to the Doctor’s forty-something fanbase as Lamb Chop.

In the series’ keenly-anticipated Christmas special - which producers created by tearing random pages out of Charles Dickens’ famous seasonal story, A Christmas Carol, and changing a few names – the popular Time Lord will come face-to-hand once more with his terrifying cotton nemesis, whose chillingly mild-voiced dialogue will be spliced together from old recordings of deceased sock-puppeteer Shari Lewis.

“Sure, the Doctor fought Lamb Chop in the sixties,” said Smith, 9, in response to critics’ claims that the money-spinning series’ production budget had been reduced by BBC bosses to a shoestring. “Apparently it’s one of those fuzzy Patrick Troughton episodes that the BBC taped over in the seventies. Ask Frazer Hines, he was in it.”

“Probably,” he added.

Former Archbishop ‘Not Ashamed’ To Believe In Daily Mail

They'll be banning the Gospel next

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, today launches a campaign aimed at encouraging those who believe in the Daily Mail to speak out about their faith.

“In spite of having contributed so much to our civilisation and providing its foundation, the Daily Mail is in danger of being stealthily and subtly brushed aside,” he shouted at arriving MPs outside parliament. “The cards that used to carry Christmas wishes now say 'Season's Greetings'. It’s something to do with the EU, apparently. The local school nativity play has parts reserved for immigrant children, or disappears altogether and is replaced by readings from the Koran about stoning women. The local council switches on 'winter lights' in place of Christmas decorations. Bin men are routinely sacked for wishing each other a Merry Christmas. It’s true, I read it somewhere."

“The three wise men are considered sexist and patriarchal by social workers, they’ll take your kids into care if you breathe a word about them,” he fumed, angrily waving a crozier at foreign-looking taxi drivers as they passed. “Nobody is allowed to play the back end of the donkey in the stable - some jobsworth or other says it’s ‘traumatic’ – and the Virgin Mary has to wear a niqab. Council snoopers evict tenants if they catch them trying to sneak a turkey into their flats.”

"I am proud of our tradition of intolerance and our historic commitment to blaming the stranger,” he shouted at a passing bus. "Yet what many people don't realise is that it is faith in the Daily Mail that underpins these great strengths and that has enriched our nation in so many other ways - like fearlessly allowing the blessed Melanie Phillips to preach the shocking truth about witches, who are the greatest threat to civilisation this glorious nation has ever faced. Yes, laugh if you like, but don’t come crying to me when they come to sacrifice your children.”

“I could go on,” he added, “And believe me, I will.”

Ragnarok Is Upon Us, Declares BBC

Delayed air travellers have expressed some disappointment

The dreaded Fimbulwinter has begun, according to the BBC, and the final apocalyptic battle of Ragnarok will soon claim the lives of the Norse gods, resulting in a cataclysmic flood which will cover the entire face of the earth.

“Snow is coming in from all directions,” reported George Alagiah from the frozen wasteland of Liverpool Lime Street station. “Brothers are already killing brothers here.”

Meanwhile, over on BBC News Channel, Gavin Esler reported that conditions were harsh at Gatwick airport, with whoredom rife - while Huw Edwards told cowering viewers that, with many school gates remaining shut for another day, sisters’ children were defiling kinship all across the north and east of the country.

On the BBC Breakfast couch this morning was leading Norse god Odin, who told Bill Turnbull and Kate Silverton he was really excited about his forthcoming role in the end of all things.

“It’s non-stop hero action from start to finish,” he gushed. “By the end, I’m dead and so are Thor, Tyr, Freyr and Heimdall. But, of course, there’s a happy ending of sorts, because the world will be reborn.”

“I really enjoy playing the villain,” smiled Loki, his co-star in the legendary epic. “Up to now it’s all been friendly banter, but at last the gloves are coming off. By the time I cash in my chips in the final scene, only two people are left alive to repopulate a new, fertile world.”

LibDems Make Soothing Baby Noises At Students

Don't wee all over Mr Clegg, now

As protests continue today over proposals to hike tuition fees, there are signs that senior LibDem members of the coalition government are making efforts to patronise students. Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg leaned over this morning, put a finger to his lips and made amusing burbling noises, while business secretary Vince Cable made a sad face and offered them a sweet.

“I don’t like that man with the scary big forehead,” NUS president Aaron Porter told reporters, “He told me one or two students from really poor families might have slightly smaller debts than everyone else, but that’s no help to me and my friends.”

“And the baldy man thinks I’m going to gurgle with delight because he said he might not vote for his own silly idea,” he scowled. “Well, I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m 2, and I’ve got a badge that says so. The Lib Dems must think we’re stupid.”

A Lib Dem spokesman later asked why, if students weren’t stupid, they had believed that voting Liberal Democrat in May’s election would change anything.

“Besides, we’ve had a look at the A-level curriculum they all got A* grades in,” he added with a grin. “I ran it by my dog. He doesn’t even realise his tail is attached to him until he sinks his teeth into it, and he got Bs.”

Nation Faints On Learning Duke Of York Takes After His Father

A chimp off the old block

The population of the United Kingdom swooned en masse this morning, on hearing that Prince Philip’s congenital lack of a brain has been inherited by one of his sons.

According to leaked US diplomatic memos, the duct tape somehow fell off his Prince Andrew’s mouth as he was amiably shaking hands with Kyrgyzstan’s leading murderers, blurting out a string of half-assed opinions before shocked aides managed to bundle him into his padded limousine.

The most spectacularly unformed thought to have seeped out of the Duke of York during the brief scuffle saw him calling the police “idiotic” for having the bloody cheek to look into British Aerospace’s jaw-dropping bribes to his very good friends, the Saudi royal family.

Business secretary Vince Cable later apologised for the Duke of York, stressing that the British government took bribing the Saud family very seriously indeed, which was why it squashed the investigation.

“Look, nobody in their right mind would buy BAe’s crappy jet fighter-bombers without a sodding great kickback,” he pointed out. “We would like to assure our corrupt Saudi friends that future nine-figure bungs will be hushed up just as before.”

“Would you like the Duke’s tongue cut out?” he offered helpfully.

Obituary: Comic’s Death Inspires Tragic Comments

The death of actor Leslie Nielsen has been marked by a vast outpouring of tragic repetitions of the name Shirley, by which he was not known.

Nielsen - who passed on yesterday, confounding fellow players who were convinced he was going to twist – was born young, in the backwoods of Canada. His family later moved to the middlewoods; but, before he could reach the frontwoods he longed for, he was caught up in the Second World War - an eye-watering experience, which women can never fully understand.

Nielsen joined the Royal Canadian Air Force despite being legally deaf – fortuitously, as he later learned that volunteers whose deafness was deemed illegal faced up to six years in a military jail. Serving as a tail gunner, Nielsen soon won recognition in the pilots’ mess for his smooth pouring of drinks from inside a hydraulic turret. As an aerial gunner, he was decorated for shooting the radar aerials off enemy night fighters; the citation refers to the coolness of his pastel wallpaper, and his dedicated Feng Shui advisor.

On leaving the RCAF from a great height, Neilson initially went into radio – sets were bigger in those days, he once reminisced – playing records live on air in New York. Moving into television (“Ah, room to stretch out”) and cinema (“Hey, let’s throw a party!”), Nielsen swiftly realised that playing records had suddenly become a lot harder to pull off, unless you happened to be black, flat and circular, so he opted to play people roles instead.

It's going to be an interesting funeral

After making over a hundred television appearances, the aspiring Leslie Nielsen was forced to give up his conjuring act when one accidentally fell out of his jacket. He then went to Hollywood to make a film – a lucky choice, as it turned out that legendary director Michael Curtiz had also gone there with the exact same idea. Curtiz offered to do the film-making, if Nielsen would walk about in front of the camera making yap and waving his arms around.

The result was an MGM contract – a surprise to Nielsen, who was expecting several cans of film – which saw him catapulted to stardom in ‘Forbidden Planet’ as the captain of a spaceship driven by a powerful catapult. The daily rigours of being hurled across Los Angeles in the name of entertainment, some believe, are the reason his hair turned prematurely white, although Nielsen always insisted that he hadn’t pencilled in a specific date for it.

The lean years of television that followed sent a variety of nondescript roles Nielsen’s way, all of which he dutifully ate in the required leaning position. However, a fight in a print shop saw him cast against type and, as the deadpan doctor in comedy hit movie Airplane!, Nielsen became a legend by delivering The Funniest Line Ever Spoken In The Entire History Of Comedy According To People With An Atrophied Sense Of Humour as he bravely struggled to bring a pan back to life.

Although Police Squad! flopped on television, it was successfully cleaned off with a damp sponge - and, in three hit Naked Gun movies, Nielsen again reduced many comedy fans to tears by picking up the part of plain-clothes detective Frank Drebin, putting it away and zipping it up too fast. An eye-watering experience, which women can never fully understand.

Leslie Nielsen, comic actor (1926-2010)

Happening Of Shit Revealed By Wikileaks

250,000 classified US documents laid bare today by Wikileaks have confirmed to a shocked and disbelieving world that shit does indeed happen.

The stench down here really is appalling

Among the catalogue of shitty happenings, which have confirmed the worst fears of billions around the world whose alimentary canals have no exit, are disturbing indicators that:

• The Chinese government is not a model of probity;
• The Saudi monarchy still does not quite see eye-to-eye with the ayatollahs who overthrew the Iranian monarchy;
• In Russia, kleptomania is not entirely incompatible with a successful career in politics;
• Accounting standards in Afghanistan leave something to be desired;
• Corrupt, power-crazed egomaniac Vladimir Putin gets along famously with corrupt, power-crazed egomaniac Silvio Berlusconi.

Meanwhile, heroic Wikileaks founder Julian Asswipe claims that his website has suddenly come under deliberate and sustained attack from the US government, millions of whose lackeys all around the world are making a concerted effort to crash the site by trying to download and read the documents he has so bravely posted.

Snow And Ice Not Ideal Tractive Road Material, Reveals Met Office

God help them if you're coming the other way

Motorists have been warned tonight by Met Office scientists that the reason roads are traditionally made of tarmac and concrete, not snow and ice, is that snow and ice offer substantially lower grip than tarmac and concrete.

“We thought we’d better make this crystal clear,” said a weather forecaster, “Because although you might think you have a brain, every passing day adds to a growing body of evidence that, in fact, you don’t.”

“Take that stick thing behind the steering wheel,” he suggested. “If you flick it up or down, it makes pretty orange lights flash on your car which give other road users some idea of your intention - thus allowing them an opportunity to give you the necessary space to complete your manoeuvre safely. Unfortunately, the only communication which you appear to understand is a loud honking noise which tells other drivers that you are, like the rest of them, a complete fuckwit who doesn’t use the stick thing. They in turn honk back in agreement, acknowledging your status as a fellow fuckwit.”

“So forgive us if we sound a bit patronising,” he added. “Next week - if your heads can take it - I’ll explain how you can see the road a bit better by pointing your headlights at it, instead of employing them to blind the driver who has had the bare-faced cheek to put his car between you and what you seem to think is your due entitlement to first place in some sort of death race.”