Philip Kept Strictly In Background For Historic Handshake

Pope Too Pissed To Read God’s Memo re: Demotion Of St Patrick

Pope Benedict XVI is having such a whale of a time staggering around St Peter’s Square in his ceremonial pint-of-Guinness hat, challenging shit-faced celebrants of the Holy Feast of St Patrick to a fight and then hugging them, that he has completely forgotten about the memo God sent him this morning, red-faced red-robed cardinals admitted today.

According to the ‘Action immediately’-headed memo, God informs His earthly representative that He has finally lost patience with the patron saint of Ireland’s complete undermining of the Christian ethos of pious spirituality, and has busted him down to patron saint of street cleaners and urinal manufacturers.

What in the name of Christ makes you think this is a good look?

God is understood to have originally told St Patrick to rid Ireland of leprechauns, which the hapless holy man misheard as ‘reptilians’ after a heavy night on the fermented peat. The leprechauns subsequently exchanged their pots of gold for Diageo shares and fucked off to London to further their plans for world domination.

“While we’re on the subject,” God advises His oblivious vicar, “Paddy the Snakecharmer is not, and never has been, the patron saint of multinational corporations, so perhaps you could point out that his holy charm is not an enormous fucking hat. From now on, it’s a blue disinfectant cube. You might publicise this by dishing some out at Mass on Sunday, if any bugger manages to roll up.”

MTV To Screen Belfast’s ‘Troubles Festival’

No doubt there'll be a tasteful CD, too

MTV will be commemorating the needless slaughter of thousands with a huge rock concert in Belfast later this year, a spokesman for the music channel confirmed today. The gig is to be the centrepiece of the Ulster capital’s eagerly-anticipated Troubles Festival, which is being organised by city authorities to celebrate the unnecessary deaths of over 3000 innocent victims of Ireland’s once world-beating hatebuilding industry.

“Thanks to heart-warming blockbuster movies like Michael Collins and In The Name Of The Father, all the world knows the moving tale of a city divided by barriers of religion and bricks but finally united in death,” said the excited MTV spokesman. “We hope the whole world will not just watch, but join the forward-looking people of Belfast in dancing on these historic graves.”

Other events planned to boost Belfast’s global image include a play commissioned to celebrate the dedication and hard work of the people of the city where the Troubles were built, and an iPad app which will showcase rare footage of doomed bystanders being poignantly maimed by a bomb in a litter bin.

Alcohol A Factor In 44% Of Ulster Arrests, Claims Pissed Justice Minister

Mind how you go now, y'bastud

Northern Ireland’s justice minister, David Ford, gravely warned the Stormont Assembly today that drink was a factor in 44% of arrests in the province before slumping, insensible, to the floor and soiling himself.

“Ash I undershtand it, the proposhalsh for minimum unit prishing conshentrate on the health conshy… cuntsy… stuff. Hic,” he slurred to worried MLAs. “In my reshponsh to the reshent public conshtipation on thish issue I did, however, recognishe that there are pretentioush criminal jushtish benefitsh to removing cheap alcoholic drinksh, as the poleesh admit that the Guinnesh wash a contribatory fuctor in 44% of their arreshts. What the fuck are yoush looking at?”

A spokesman for the Police Service of Northern Ireland later insisted that the Nev Filter was his best friend in the whole world, several times, before trying to arrest it over the telephone.

Kiddy-Fiddler Palace Not Really A Proper Country, Suggests Ireland

Ireland has belatedly realised that Vatican City - the ancient sanctuary for sex-starved old pervs who want you to agree that touching another man’s bottom is an unpardonable abomination, but molesting small children is just a minor embarrassment – might not actually be a bona fide country at all, as it announces the closure of its embassy in a wing of the vast palace whose cellars and corridors are overflowing with the Pope’s looted riches.

Ireland's guide to how to spot a country

"This is really bad for the Vatican because Ireland is the first big Catholic country to do this, and because of what Catholicism means in Irish history," said a Vatican diplomatic source in a big red dress. “Er… not the history of serial child abuse we cheerfully covered up for decades. I mean getting rid of all those snakes, eternal damnation for divorcees - you know, the good stuff.”

The Irish government, for its part, insists that the embassy closure has been ordered purely on cost grounds - further irritating the Vatican, which is proud of its vital role in promoting civilised human values such as damning women for the wicked sin of thinking about family planning, or displaying the divine spirit of Christian forgiveness towards priests who, it insists, are understandably led astray by the constant, shameless flaunting of smooth young bottoms by sinful children entrusted to their pastoral care.

Experts believe it can only be a matter of time before the God tells the Pope to retaliate, by pastorally excommunicating the republic until it comes crawling back in a suitably chastened spirit of repentance with an offering of tempting, fresh young winkies.

Belfast Celebrates Worst Bit Of Shipbuilding In History

Go off an' drown some English, y'dorty great bastard now

Ulster today celebrated the centenary of the shoddiest attempt at building a ship the world has ever seen, marking the ill-fated launch of the doomed Titanic from the forever-tainted Harland and Woolf shipyard with cheering and blaring boat hooters. The city also unveiled a tragic exhibition of personal effects formerly owned by those condemned to drown in the icy waters of the Atlantic by the appalling example of Irish craftsmanship at its worst.

The party kicked off with a religious ceremony as a priest pointed out that, if Noah had been Irish, then the world would be pretty damned quiet nowadays. The crowds then held a moment’s silence in respect for the 1,517 passengers and crew they killed with their hideously unseaworthy vessel, followed by 62 raucous seconds of cheerfully inappropriate self-congratulation as they imagined their monstrous death tub creaking down the slipway into the dark waters that would swallow it within the space of a year.

“For too long Belfast’s role in the Titanic story has been neglected,” said Niall O Donnghaile, the city’s lord mayor. “But attitudes have changed since those far-off days, and generations have now grown up in this city feeling that being associated with pointless and entirely avoidable slaughter is nothing to be particularly ashamed of.”

“Look, how the fuck else are we going to persuade foreigners to visit Belfast?” said a spokesman for Tourism Ireland. “It was either this or The Authentic IRA Fun Palace.”

Joyful Dublin Welcomes Queen’s Historic Visit With Traditional Bomb Threats And Security Blockades

The queen thinks this is what all Irish people wear

Dubliners have taken the Queen’s historic visit of peace and reconciliation to their hearts today, responding in the best traditions of legendary Irish hospitality by joyfully proclaiming bomb warnings and erecting ceremonial security barriers around the warm, welcoming heart of Dublin.

On her arrival at a military airfield dressed in an emerald green cylinder, the Queen was welcomed by Irish president Mary McAleese with the charming Gaelic greeting of “Iair taoichian dair fechian pis ai.” When she later took part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Garden of Remembering What Youse Bastards Did So to acknowledge the victims of British rule, however, she had changed into a tubular white outfit. Prince Philip, meanwhile, showed his respect by wearing the full ceremonial dress uniform of a Black and Tan.

Gardai helpfully cleared the streets of central Dublin, enabling Her Majesty to indulge in a walkabout, for once delightfully unhampered by tiresome commoners trying to stick ghastly little flags up her nose. Elsewhere, citizens demonstrated their enthusiasm for Britain’s ruling monarch by releasing hundreds of black balloons.

Later, she was driven to the president’s residence at a stately 3½mph, due to the weight of two-inch armour plate added to the car to prevent the driver from getting carried away with enthusiasm.

The queen is said to be delighted with the extraordinary efforts made by the Irish people to accommodate her family’s well-known love of uniforms; indeed, she is unlikely to see anyone not wearing one at any time during her state visit.

“Things have changed, to be sure,” commented one happy Dubliner. “In the old times, we were dirt poor and the filthy English were rolling in it. Now we’re dirt poor and so are they, the murdering Protestant shites.”

War Against Peace Not As Useful As War On Terror, Insists NI Police Chief

Chief Constable Matt Baggott says dissident Republican terrorists suspected of planting the bomb which killed 25-year-old Constable Ronan Keir are fighting a “useless war against peace” they cannot possibly win - unlike the war on terror which he and the combined security forces of Britain and America have been fighting with outstanding success for the last ten years.

“How can you fight an abstract concept?” demanded Mr Baggott. “It’s just absurd.”

Northern Ireland Water Goes Into Hiding After Martin McGuinness Says ‘Heads Should Roll’

Down with this sort of thing

Everyone on the payroll of Northern Ireland Water has disappeared today, after deputy First Minister and former IRA deputy commander Martin McGuinness told the Stormont Assembly that “heads should roll” for leaving 80,000 people without water for days.

“We can neither confirm nor deny that the holding cells of every police station in the province are crammed full of water workers demanding protection,” said a spokesman for the PSNI. “Nor can we verify reports that every flight out of Belfast today was standing-room only.”

When it was pointed out to him that NIW is a state-owned utility and therefore, ultimately, the responsibility of the government, Mr McGuinness swiftly excused himself from the assembly chamber, then reappeared half an hour later wearing a reinforced polycarbonate neck brace – much to the chagrin of Ian Paisley, who had turned up outside with a hacksaw.

Dublin’s Toddlers Already Signing Book Deals

Meet Dublin's new literary elite

Publishers are forming orderly queues along the banks of the Liffey today to sign up the Irish capital’s toddlers for lucrative book deals, in which Dublin’s under-threes will write bestselling feel-bad paperbacks about growing up in unimaginable poverty.

“Sure and we all thought them English were all set to corner the market,” smiled Mrs. O’Leary, who has already sold her washing machine and replaced it with a washboard and fearsome iron mangle, with which her children Niamh, 3, and Conal, 2, will be expected to injure themselves repeatedly. “But thank the Lord for granting us a crippling economic collapse.”

“Conal want Niamh to die of something really really bad,” shouted her cherubic son excitedly. “The Penguin man told me I can get a great big guilt trip out of that. What’s a sub text? He said I have to have one. I want lots and lots of them!”

“If I don’t die of measles or whooping cough ‘cos mummy can’t pay the doctor man,” explained bright-eyed Niamh, as her father flung her pink TV and her Disney DVDs into a skip, “My nice agent says I’ve got to have a baby when I’m 12, so mummy and daddy can call me the whore of Babylon and throw me into the gutter, which is in front of our house where the car doesn’t live any more.”

The advances received from major publishing houses are expected to cover the costs for Ireland’s few remaining schools to beat basic literacy skills into the nation’s aspiring authors, whereupon their schooling will be brought to an abrupt end and they will be handed over into Father Donnelly’s wandering hands for the obligatory heart-rending chapter on being touched up during preparations for their first communion.

“To be sure, I thought I’d be the last Irishmen ever to weave a jaw-droppingly grim page-turner about childhood deprivation,” grinned Mr. O’Leary – whose recently-issued memoirs, Me Mam’s Coughing Blood Again, are providing for the all-important years of brutal, Guinness-fuelled alcoholism necessary to complete his offspring’s nightmarish suffering – as he ripped out the bathroom fixtures to make room for a manky, wheezing horse. “Thank you, sweet baby Jesus, for raising up such a glorious bunch of bumbling wastrels to govern us.”

Osborne Gives Ireland £7bn To Go Away

Clutching his nose to prevent the stench of poverty from filling his nostrils, slum landlord George Osborne today handed the bankrupt Irish Republic £7bn to put its belongings in a supermarket trolley and get the hell out of his neighbourhood.

As the wretched pauper state began arguing loudly with itself, Mr Osborne put on a feeble air of false bonhomie, telling Ireland: “Yah, I’m feeling the pinch somewhat also, mate, I don’t mind telling you. With interest rates as they are, my little trust fund most certainly isn’t ticking along quite as I might wish.”

This is a decent neighbourhood, you know

“Look here, my man, I’m telling you this as a friend,” he added. “With this cash, which I made by kicking out some of my ghastly tenants and selling their furniture, you could start a splendid new life for yourself somewhere lovely and sunny like the Mediterranean, where I’m sure you’ll get along famously with Spain and Greece.”

“I’m awfully sorry, but frankly you’re making the whole area look frightfully shabby,” Mr Osborne called over his shoulder, as he returned to his condemned property overlooking the rubbish tip, next to the rusting gasometer.

Signing Demo A Huge Publicity Boost For Blair Novel

Fans of political memoirs always dress like this, no really

Gardai sealed off two main shopping streets in the centre of Dublin today, enabling former British PM Tony Blair to sit in an empty Eatons bookshop signing copies of his novel, ‘A Journey’ for a circular procession of Eatons staff.

Hundreds of anti-war protesters, frustrated shoppers and literary critics were held at bay by the police cordon, although some shoes were thrown at Mr Blair in what his entourage suggested was some sort of shoppers’ request to visit the shoe shop down the road and tell them what they had in those sizes.

Eggs were also hurled, which Mr Blair chose to interpret as a joint request from book lovers to hurry up and hatch another best-selling work of fiction.

Anti-war protesters had one success, however. A tanker full of blood was unable to push through their massed ranks, forcing Mr Blair to sign his name in red ink instead.

“I would like to thank the concerned citizens of Dublin for the welcome publicity they have given my book,” grinned the former prime minister. “£25 from all amoral bookshops, or already knocked down to £12.50 on Amazon.”

Dissident Republicans Anxious To Learn Whether Injured Children Were Protestants

A spokesman for the dissident Republican terrorists who detonated a bomb without warning in a Lurgan street yesterday has roundly denounced the Northern Ireland Police Service for cruelly refusing to divulge whether the two 12-years-olds and a two-year-old injured by flying debris were evil, murdering Protestants.

“Our brave boys who heroically planted the bomb in a bin have got the champagne on ice, but they can’t go ahead with the celebrations as long as the brutal Protestant security forces cynically continue to sit on this vital piece of information,” he explained defiantly. “That’s why we’re encouraging the local Catholic community to engage them with petrol bombs until they apologise for this atrocity.”

Guinness Factory Burns Down - English Undergraduates Inconsolate

Stand-up comedians across the UK are desperately stuffing their fists into their mouths tonight, in a politically-correct attempt to prevent themselves from making the obvious comment that springs to mind concerning the accidental torching of the Guinness plant in Dublin by inept construction workers who - perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight, unwisely - used a blowlamp on felt roofing.

As news of the inferno on the banks of the Liffey spread, millions of comedy Irishmen were left desolate and contemplating suicide - most of their ranks comprising the sub-species of English undergraduate who firmly believes that marking the holy day of St Patrick by drinking themselves inside out on watered-down treacle whilst wearing a stupid great big green hat in some way inducts them into the ranks of Brian Boru's heroic descendants.

Meanwhile, the native population of Ireland consoled themselves with plentiful supplies of the Emerald Isle's traditional tipple - namely, a few drops of chemical cider at the bottom of a glass containing most of the Ross Ice Shelf.

Boyzone Reunited With Singer Gately In Death

In a touching mark of respect for their fellow bandmate, the remaining members of Boyzone - Ronan Keating, Thingummybob, Whatsisface and the other one - today accompanied the tragically dead Steven Gately into the afterlife.

Gately - the best-loved, prettiest mime artist ever to move his lips in front of a dummy microphone - met his tragically untimely end on Saturday due to entirely natural causes which had absolutely nothing whatosever to do with the extremely mild piss-up from which he had just returned.

His pretty bandmates flew out to Majorca last night, where they were movingly slaughtered and laid out side-by-side in matching caskets, prior to the tragically poignant flight back to Dublin - where they are to be buried tomorrow in a moving, tragic ceremony led by Ireland's foremost ex-teapot, Bertie Ahem, who is one of the world's foremost boy musicologists.

It is reported that, before they were lovingly and tragically put down, the grieving Boyzone members received identical tattoos. It has not been reported what the tragic tattoos represented, although 'Do not resuscitate' and 'Please dispose of plastic packaging thoughtfully' have been mentioned by music industry insiders as possibilities.

Back in Britain, Peter Kowalczyk - the man who punched Leona Lewis in the head at a book signing yesterday - has been unexpectedly released from custody, given a boxing glove and a horseshoe and put on a flight to Dublin, where music lovers are hoping he will do his level best to hospitalise numerous pretty pop luminaries as they line up tomorrow to pay their last respects to the tragically deceased Gately.

"Madonna could be a tough opponent, if she turns up," said someone with real flesh-and-blood ears. "She's like the Incredible Hulk from the neck down. Let's all hope and pray that Lily Allen is ahead of her in the queue."

Lewis' tragic fans, meanwhile, have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Would Tony Blair Really Want To Be Awarded Unquestioned Mastery of 500 Million People?

As voters in the Irish Republic flock to the polls to say whether they would prefer to be ruled by a gang of corrupt European thieves rather than the home-grown variety, Tony Blair is maintaining an enigmatic silence over media speculation that he is to be handed the job of Supreme Ruler of Europe on a plate.

"The last time the Irish electorate was allowed to accept the wonderful Lisbon Treaty, the silly sods voted 'no' instead of 'yes'," said an European official with a blank mask of skin where a face should be. "This time the ballot paper has been simplified. Voters can vote 'right' or 'wrong' - 'right' meaning they want the treaty and 'wrong' meaning they realise they made a ghastly mistake last time they voted."

Tony Blair, meanwhile, will also be offered the opportunity to vote on whether he wants to be made President of Europe, with expanded, wide-ranging powers whose exact nature is buried so deep within the 30 million pages of the Lisbon treaty that several teams of researchers have been reported lost without trace.

It is thought that, despite earning millions a year telling two international banking conglomerates that labour costs in the developing world are attractively cheap, reaping a fortune on the US lecture circuit by telling wealthy people whatever they want to hear and running a foundation which urges everyone to accept without question the absolute authority of a remote, all-powerful being over all aspects of their everyday lives, Mr Blair might be feeling a little nostalgic for the days when he could turn on the television and see his smug, beaming face spouting a never-ending stream of empty platitudes, morning, noon and night.

Cherie Blair, meanwhile, is said to be occupying her time in between well-rewarded court appearances by doodling designs for an imposing costume on the back of legal documents - often including such understated elements as croziers, shiny black uniforms, gold-embroidered robes and jewel-encrusted crowns.

Saatchi Gallery Offers £2m for Stormont Attack

Michael Stone - the former loyalist terrorist who has described his attempt to force his way into Ulster’s seat of government as “an act of performance art” - has been offered £2m by Charles Saatchi, who hopes the attack will form the centrepiece of the soon-to-be-reopened Saatchi Gallery in London.

 

“Mr Stone’s post-modern performance masterpiece - in which he symbolically tried to run past Stormont’s security guards, dressed like a tramp and carrying nail bombs, a pretend gun and a concealed sponge - speaks to us all at a deeply instinctive level,” said a straight-faced Mr Saatchi. “You can laugh at the shambolic, yet strangely visceral attempt to kill the Sinn Fein leadership, or you can laugh at his impressively self-referential, straw-clutching narrative in court. But you can’t ignore it.”

 

Mr Saatchi denied rumours that he was also preparing a bid for the Metropolitan Police’s famous public performance at Stockwell Tube Station, in which they symbolically executed harmless Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes in an ironic comment on the public’s perception of the thoroughly-outmoded concept of law enforcement.

Brits In

European foreign ministers, meeting in Luxembourg today for crisis talks following Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, believe they have found a solution which will mean the controversial treaty can legally go ahead as planned.

In a surprise move, the foreign ministers have unanimously agreed not to recognise the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which created what was originally called the Irish Free State. Far from being the culmination of a centuries-old struggle by the oppressed Irish population under the British imperialist yoke, they say, the Anglo-Irish Treaty was in fact extracted at gunpoint from a Britain exhausted by the slaughter of World War One, followed by two violent years at the hands of a gang of ruthless terrorists, and as such cannot be regarded as a legitimate document.

“Some of our citizens – OK, most of our citizens - will find this a bit hard to swallow,” admitted Irish foreign minister Micheál Martin. “But as our major parties are all for the Lisbon Treaty, this minor rewriting of history will get things moving again. Now all we need is for the British government to rubber-stamp the Lisbon agreement on Wednesday, then invade Ireland. Our forces will offer no resistance, as the Irish army is on holiday at Disney World, the navy is having barnacles scraped off its bottom and the air force is painting his shed. Having re-established direct rule, London will then immediately devolve it to a de facto local administration, i.e. us.”

“Of course, our forefathers who suffered under the heel of the British will be turning in their graves,” he added, “Which should provide us with a clean source of energy for years to come.”