World Stops Turning For Uncle Stephen Diversion Tragedy

All over the world today, work came to a standstill and streets emptied as billions focused their total attention on Twitter to hear the latest desperate news of the unfolding air-travel disaster crisis affecting their poor old Uncle Stephen Fry.

The universally-revered renaissance man, wit, raconteur, panel game host and bottom connoisseur’s ordeal began in Sydney, where he unsuspectingly boarded a doomed Qantas A380 Airbus. Halfway from its scheduled fateful stopover in Singapore on the way to the UK, however, disaster struck as one of the enormous flying deathtrap’s engines suddenly shut down horrifically – forcing the hapless pilot to make a life-or-death consultation of the manual about whether to land at Dubai or risk flying on safely on just three engines.

Really? How incredibly interesting

Tweeting frantically from his first-class seat via his faithful iPad, the terrified polymath heroically issued a frantic battery of updates on his unfolding ordeal to a shocked world. “Bugger,” he tweeted mellifluously, as he revealed his awful plight. “Forced to land in Dubai. An engine has decided not to play.”

With humanity now fully alerted to the crisis, thanks to his BBC employers clearing the schedules for non-stop coverage, a collective gasp echoed around the globe at his next desperate but exquisitely-worded communication: “My flight. Still on board. Not sure of [sic] we'll be bussed to the airport lounges or kept aboard while they work on it. Mnaah.”

As tragedy upon tragedy unfolded on the tarmac in Dubai, the undisputed master of verbal dexterity wailed plaintively: “Oh Jesus arsemothering fuck. I've left my wallet on the sodding plane. Hell's teeth this really isn't my day… I'm going to be siting [sic] here for ever and ever and ever… That's it. I'm fucked. Seriously fucked… It's at times like this a man considers taking up smoking again. Possibly with heroin, crack and MDMA mixed in & all washed down with vodka… Hurrah! I seem to have made Gulf News.”

Uncle Stephen’s appalling ordeal was finally ended five hours ago when panicking Qantas officials finally realised who he was, and decided his unendurable distress was sufficiently interesting to transfer him to an Emirates flight to London - where teams of trauma counsellors are waiting to help him as he tentatively attempts to pick up the tattered threads of his brutally shattered life.

Apple Founder In Fundamental Design Flaw Recall

Millions of people who are way cooler than you and I are deeply traumatised by the announcement that Apple founder Steve Jobs has been recalled by his maker over a basic design flaw which they thought had been fixed.

“I really thought they’d sorted out the fault in my beautiful little object of desire last year,” blubbered Apple fanatic Uncle Stephen Fry, all over Twitter. “Not being particularly boffin-minded, I didn’t want to bother myself with what a pancreas even looks like, let alone how it works. I just expected it to do lots of clever stuff in the background. I never imagined it might be something which would seriously detract from my everyday appreciation of Steve, or the warm feeling of smug superiority which he generously deigned to bestow upon me.”

Master... master... why have you forsaken us, master?

Former NME scribe Tony Parsons, who has since made a name for himself writing stories in which the characters recite lists of all his favourite stuff, sobbed: “For me, this tragic Steve defect has taken all the joy out of: (1) the iPhone; (2) the iPad; (3) the MacBook; (4) the PowerBook; (5) a complete matched set of original iMacs; (6) the Performa; (7) the PowerMac (including G3, G4 and G5 models); (8) the Quadra; (9) the Centris; (10) the Xserve; and, last but not least, (11) the glorious Newton PDA.”

Lord Sugar of Amstrad, meanwhile, paid a moving tribute to himself and the shit he used to put his name on: “The peculiar drag-and-drop interface, unfamiliar 32-bit colour, awkward ‘mouse’ accessory and paltry internal hard drive of the Macintosh II very nearly gave my pioneering PCW8256 word processor, with its ground-breaking 80 columns of green text and unique 3” floppies, a run for the money. Jobs – you’re fried!”

Finally, it fell to the lyrical talents of Dannii Minogue to poignantly sum up the shattered emptiness suffered by millions of shiny-thing addicts, with her deeply touching elegy: “#SteveJobs RIP”.

An Apple disciple later reassured weeping worshippers of cheaply-made gadgets with a reassuringly expensive price tag that, on the third day, an immaculate Jobs2, 3 or even 4s would rise again, rolling away the stone from the Foxconn crypt in China to hold out the redeeming promise of everlasting lifestyle accessories to his faithful followers.

New Zealanders Convinced Stephen Fry Must Be Some Other Articulate Bloke Off The Telly

A typical Kiwi struggling to say 'Go home'

Whilst in New Zealand for the filming of The Hobbit, British national treasure Stephen Fry complains of constantly being mistaken for any other television personality capable of enunciating all five vowels.

“No matter how devilishly I secrete myself within the scenic magnificence of this linguistically-challenged backwater, up pops some ruddy-faced sheepshearer, invariably jabbing a grubby finger in my face and making, ‘Ir, ir yi Jims Miy? Ir yi Jirmi Clrxn?’ noises,” groaned the lugubrious polymath. “To which I am naturally compelled to reply – and in doing so, if I may venture so presumptuously, with almost Wildean jocosity - ‘Oh, I am sorry. Would you by any chance happen to be terribly afflicted with lockjaw, my fine jolly swain, or is your unfortunate impediment caused by some sort of diet-related wiring?’”

“That’s usually when they hit me,” he added ruefully from his hospital bed.

Mr Fry’s ongoing attempts to write a script for Peter Jackson’s long-delayed ‘Dambusters’ remake, meanwhile, have met with frustration as he struggles in vain to find a New Zealand actor who can pronounce Eder, Möhne or Sorpe without dislocating their face.

Japanese Ambassador Now Demanding Apology For 31 Episodes Of ‘Tenko’

Following the BBC’s craven apology for mentioning the war, Japanese Ambassador Keiichi Hayashi has issued the perpertually penitent broadcaster with a slew of demands for grovelling acts of contrition for 31 inflammatory instances of internment-camp drama ‘Tenko’ broadcast in the 80s, 109 deeply-insulting airings of ‘Tora, Tora, Tora!’, 157 unpardonable showings of ‘From Here To Eternity’, 26 cynical counts of ‘Empire Of The Sun’ and an embarrassing one-off screening of ‘Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence’.

To propitiate the hurt feelings of the Japanese people, all of whom watch QI in solemn contemplation every week, BBC bosses have promised to push the notorious racist, Stephen Fry, into a cramped, airless box for a week to atone for his bigoted slur that double A-bomb survivor Yamamoto Tamagotchi was “either the unluckiest man alive, or the luckiest, depending on how you look at it”.

However, this is not enough for Mr Hayashi, who claims that the BBC has for decades been implementing a cynical policy of lying repeatedly to the world about Japan’s unfortunate involvement in World War II.

Here's what started it

“Every Japanese schoolchild is taught the truth about the West’s attempt to subjugate our traditionally peace-loving country,” he screamed to hastily-assembled ranks of sweating BBC producers. “Namely, that the US forces - led by a sex-crazed Burt Reynolds - callously and without provocation opened fire on the 353 aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s aerobatics team during their dazzling display at the 1941 Pearl Harbor Air Show, the ensuing explosions shaking loose their dummy bombs and torpedoes. Insane with bloodlust, however, many frenzied US gunners accidentally dropped anti-aircraft shells onto the decks of their own ships, causing superficial damage which the cynical warmonger Franklin D. Roosevelt secretly manipulated using an early, analogue version of Photoshop to inflame world opinion against our peace-loving nation.”

“Japan’s naturalist expeditions, boating enthusiasts and sun-seeking holidaymakers struggled for four miserable years to make their way home safely from all over the Far East,” he shouted, as he brandished the traditional ceremonial sword of admonition at neck height. “Meanwhile, ungrateful white imperialist squatters were occupying Hirry Hitin’s many popular holiday camps all over the Pacific, selfishly making their lives intolerable for their unfortunate Khakicoat hosts.”

The Chinese Ambassador then rang the doorbell and politely asked his Japanese counterpart if, since apologies seemed to be on the agenda, he wouldn’t mind asking his government to apologise for murdering half the population of Nanjing in 1937 – an incident which the Japanese authorities have for years stoutly maintained was caused by an atrocious lack of hygiene in a takeaway restaurant.

BBC Director-General Mark Thompson eagerly stepped forward, however, and volunteered to take the blame for that as well.

Fry’s Harry Potter Leak Threatens Entire World, Insist Producers

Producers fear they will now have to scrap this set, or the movie magic will be lost forever

Film producers have warned that the safety of the world may now be under threat following the posting of a few snapshots of the Harry Potter sets on Stephen Fry’s Twitter page.

“The magic has gone,” wailed Alan Smithee, the film’s 2nd horrified deputy executive assistant associate producer. “Now nearly two million people know that Hogwarts school is destroyed in the final battle between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort, the secret is out and the on-screen magic will be permanently nullified.”

When Fry innocently pointed out that anyone who had read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows since its publication three years ago would already be well aware of the school’s destruction, Mr Smithee opened a bulging briefcase, letting the weighty tome fall with a thud onto his desk.

“Read that crap?” screamed Mr Smithee. “Who does this Fry guy think he’s kidding? Even the scriptwriters got bored and gave up after fifty pages.”