Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Now Official Romanian Currency

In Bucharest, this is a month's wages

Chewing gum stolen from Britain’s supermarket shelves has been formally adopted as Romania’s official currency by the former Communist state’s government, consisting of the Gypsy King and his dancing troupe of violinists.

“Ever since I shot the Communist dictator Ceaușescu and his ugly wife, my country’s economy has been based on the fraudulently-obtained t-shirt,” said the Gypsy King. “But, in recent years, the UK’s economic woes have led to a significant shortfall in the number of households willing to contribute unwanted clothing to what they fondly think is some sort of charity collection.”

“This has led to runaway inflation here in Romania, with the result that this rare Download 2007 Festival t-shirt I’m wearing represents 2% of our capital reserves,” he explained. “My sultry young daughter Rosa, the finance minister, thought about making goat droppings into a monetary unit, but the fiscal markets of the world are strangely reluctant to exchange our beautiful sacks of shit for dollars. It wasn’t a problem at all as far as the euro was concerned, but frankly we’d rather keep our abundant goat crap, thanks, because we get a bit more warmth out of that when we burn it.”

Meanwhile, as gangs of enthusiastic Romanian currency dealers continue to strip Britain’s shelves clean of gum, chancellor George Osborne is said to be keenly examining what economists are already calling 'the Romanian economic miracle' as he formulates his latest austerity budget.

“I’d strongly advise everyone to stock up on Tic Tacs,” predicted Rob Blind, a senior global currencies dealer at Sainsbury’s Bank. “We’ve got a 3 for 2 deal on mint multipacks this week. It could be the investment opportunity of your worthless lives.”