NatWest Death Toll Rises

Warning: contains scenes of heartbreaking inconvenience

Experts warn there is no cure in sight for the ongoing tragedy of NatWest customers dying needlessly in droves from the minor nuisance of having to use their credit card instead of their debit card.

Cash machines weren't built to handle this much customer dissatisfaction

The disaster began to unfold this morning, when a software glitch caused fatal bother and terminal vexation to 12 million innocent NatWest victims by freezing their current accounts.

By 10am, customer aid workers at NatWest branches were already overwhelmed by queues of pathetic refugees pouring out of clothes shops - many of them pitifully reduced to begging for compensation for the unbearable pain of being told “Your payment was not authorised. Please contact your card supplier” by a numeric keypad.

“My salary didn’t go through, which means that NatWest have effectively reduced me to slavery,” whined one haggard casualty, who had to drag her injured pride all the way up the high street from H&M. “My Visa card had already been thrashed black and blue. Without the essential new dress I need to go out in tonight, I know I will just die.”

“God in heaven help me, I don’t have any money to get pissed with either,” she moaned, before fainting through lack of ready funds.

“I was so moved by radio reports of the NatWest victims’ terrible plight, I ran ten miles to the nearest town in order to transfer a week’s wages (16,000 shillings, or £6.21) to Britain. I hope this will help to relieve their unimaginable suffering,” said Hassan, a subsistence farmer in Somaliland. Tragically, however, his potentially face-saving donation has also not gone through yet.

‘Overpriced Shit’ Business Model Not Quite Working Out For Sony

Baffled Sony executives are today struggling to understand how they could possibly lose money by slapping a shiny casing with their name on it around an LCD made by Samsung, telling their customers the resulting TV is Like. No. Other and charging 25% more than the equivalent Samsung model.

“In just 15 years, Apple soar from wiping shameful parts with shares to most valuable company on planet by shamelessly helping selves to wallets of technology junkies with more money than sense,” wept chief executive Hirai Kirai, as he solemnly reported a record $6.4bn loss. “But Sony fashionable innovator too!”

Inspiring, elegant, aspirational: how easily the world forgets Elcaset

“$2000 Aibo make digital water on inexpensive Roboraptor! Millions marvel at Rolly on YouTube when manic MP3 player on wheels fall off desk! How you forget life-changing MiniDisc?” he screamed. “Apple magic formula not work to Sony's advantage. Why? Why?”

The contrite Mr Hirai then attempted to slice himself open with a stylish but eye-wateringly priced Sony sword. Unfortunately, it was far too needlessly complicated for him to figure out how to access its ‘ritual suicide’ function.

Which? Magazine To Relaunch as WTF?

MacBook-owning Which? readers are particularly cross

Leading consumer magazine Which? today announced that, in a 21st-century makeover reflecting the financial competence of the British public, it will rebrand itself as WTF? after unveiling this month’s shocking exposé of the widespread scam known as ‘trade’.

“If you sell a lappy to someone yourself, right, you get more wonga than like if you sell it to some dealer what sells it to someone else innit,” explained the group’s chief investigative reporter, Jakey Boy. “Even if it was yours, yeah, and you didn’t like nick it or nothing. I mean, WTF? Random.”

“Seriously, bro, I’m telling you, like check it out,” he added indignantly. “I shit you not.”

A spokesman for the second-hand retail sector later attempted to explain its key concept of ‘profit’ to the baffled public: “Right Baldrick, let's try again. This is called ‘retail’. If the market value of your knackered MacBook Pro is four beans and I don’t want to starve, how many beans should I give you for it?”

Sony Creates Tiny Fan To Replace Millions Of Displeased Customers

Dissatisfied fans

As hordes of irate Japanese PlayStation Vita purchasers catalogued defect after defect in the newly-launched handheld console and a class-action lawsuit was filed in California by PlayStation Network users against the gagging clause the corporation has inserted into its terms and conditions, Sony engineers defiantly unveiled the only fan which still has reason to be grateful to the consumer electronics giant – a tiny two-inch propeller which is driven by the electricity generated by a battery containing paper-digesting enzymes.

Satisfied fan

“You ungrateful bastards,” announced project engineer Yuichi Tokita. “We transform your miserable existence with our revolutionary inventions, like portable colour televisions and the Walkman - and this is the thanks we get? Once again, out of the kindness of our hearts, we have sweated blood to improve your pathetic ant-like lives with this beautiful three-bladed propeller, but all you can do is moan. Well, fuck you. From now on, all future research will be directed solely towards selling Sony products to this nice, uncomplaining little fan.”

The press conference was then brought to an early close as the enzyme-powered generator – like previous Sony batteries – suddenly exploded.

Turkish Fridges Added To Ever-Growing List Of Shoddy Crap That Is Trying To Kill You

Bargain

An estimated 500,000 homes are thought to be in imminent danger of exploding in flames, warn safety experts, thanks to their pauper occupants’ touching faith in the quality of Turkish electrical engineering.

“A fridge freezer from Germany, where the fundamental incompatibility of electricity and water is generally understood, normally costs about £600,” said a spokesman for the London Fire Brigade. “A Beko will typically save you a whopping £350, as long as you don’t mind waking up sweating with terror every night, convinced that your kids are choking to death on billowing toxic fumes.”

The elementary design flaw, which has led to at least 20 fires and caused a blaze in a London tower block only last week, allows water to seep into a timer switch, shorting it out and causing nearby plastics to burst into flame.

A spokesman for Beko said the company had asked Allah, who is responsible for its quality control, to contact at-risk customers and fix the fault if it was his will that they should live.

Ethical Consumers’ Travel Plans Now Totally Screwed

With the RAF taking delivery of its first Airbus A330 Voyager tanker and troop transport, ethical purchasers are now totally fucked as far as their holidays are concerned.

Yeah, dream on, flyboy - it's just a big tube with wings

“OMG there must be an airliner somewhere that isn’t made by an arms manufacturer,” sighed an aghast Starchild Moonflower - whose real name is Sue - to her Facebook commune. “Airbus, Boeing, British Aerospace, Bombardier – well, that goes without saying – fuck it, even the bloody Brazilian one’s part and parcel of the murdering military-industrial complex!”

“What about Aeroflot? Tupolev… Antonov… I might have known,” she continued. “Sorry, kids, looks like it’s a sodding Margate caravan park for the rest of your childhood.”

Meanwhile, aviation experts are placing bets on what the RAF will call the long-delayed A400M troop transport, if Airbus can ever get the damned thing to work. The bookies’ choice is currently ‘Tardis’ at 3-2, with ‘Millennium Falcon’ the second favourite at 3-1, ‘Eagle Transporter’ at 6-1 and ‘Noddy Car’ a long shot at 33-1.

OFT To Re-Examine Extended Warranties Now That All Electrical Items Break on 366th Day

As inevitable as night following day

The Office of Fair trading today announced that it would be reinvestigating the extended warranty market, after noticing that everything that runs on electricity is now manufactured in China with an inbuilt self-destruct mechanism which kicks in on the day after the normal guarantee expires.

“We introduced legislation in 2005, forcing shops to make it clear to customers that these extended warranties were actually a super-expensive ticket for a lottery, in which you fervently pray that your toaster will explode,” said the OFT’s Claudia Berk. “We looked at the market again in 2008, and found that the average member of the public’s understanding of the laws of probability meant quite a lot of them were still cheerfully handing over enormous sums of money, in the hope that some dullard who left school at 16 with a ‘stiffcut’ will poke about randomly inside their valuable electrical purchases with a soldering iron and a pair of garden shears and bash the naughtiness out of it again.”

However, since 2008 the number of shoddy electrical goods which really do contain designed-in naughtiness has risen to 100%, she added, meaning that a £150 extended warranty for a £300 laptop might, incredibly, now actually offer something approaching value for money.

Toy Train Crash Horror

The happy world of 3D animation was reduced to utter carnage this morning as the Lloyds toy train jumped the track at high speed, scattering wreckage all down the bank.

“It is my solemn duty to confirm that the Lloyds train experienced a catastrophic derailing incident when, without warning, it suddenly struck the headlines at 0903 this morning,” confirmed a harassed-looking fat cat controller from the Financial Services Authority at the scene of the disaster. “Although most of the passengers are experiencing no more than a mildly unpleasant shock, I am saddened to report that a small proportion of them have become casualties. 288,717 of them, to be precise.”

The casualties appear to be suffering either from mis-sold and overpriced tickets, a severe shortage of information or a variety of other severe complaints, he added.

They'll need a crane, they'll need a crane, to pick the broken ruins up again

Meanwhile, reports are coming in from Legoland of another tragic toy-related incident, in which a Spanish boy fell off his red brick bicycle and lay unattended in Santander Road for over eight weeks.

A representative from the British Bankers’ Association of Toytown Operating Companies sought to downplay the bad news, however.

“What you have to understand is that these toys are very, very big,” he smiled as he tucked into a big bag of gourmet crisps. “When you look at a mere few hundreds of thousands of incidents in context, you’ll see how the people actually affected are very little indeed.”

Regulator’s Startling Claim: Two Out Of Six Energy Suppliers Might Be Telling The Truth

Energy salesmen are working on new, improved lies

Consumers have reacted with shock and amazement to the disturbing claim by energy regulator Ofgem that two out of the six leading domestic suppliers of gas and electricity may not be lying through their teeth when their aggressively fast-talking wide boys doorstep you.

“We investigated a complaint made to Consumer Direct helpline by one elderly householder in the South West,” said a spokesman for the regulatory body, “And, to our great surprise, we found that the people who lived round the corner really had just switched suppliers to the one that was being rammed down the complainant’s throat by the thug in an ill-fitting suit who wouldn’t shut up and go away.”

Intrigued Ofgem investigators sifted through the files and discovered that a similar case existed, but had not been drawn to anybody’s attention at the time because the investigator didn’t think anybody would believe it.

“We apologise to our customers for this uncharacteristic lapse,” said a spokesman for British Gas, one of the firms caught telling the truth. “We realise that we have fallen far short of the standards of behaviour people expect from a large corporate giant. We take lying about our services very seriously, and the miscreant has been identified and dismissed for gross misconduct.”

“We are, of course, aware that customers who change suppliers do so, not in any realistic hope that the service will be any better or cheaper, but simply because they’ve fed up to the back teeth with the gang of thieves they’re currently saddled with,” he continued. “We fully appreciate that they would gladly sign a 12-month contract with Hitler, fondly imagining that the withdrawal of their custom will send shockwaves of imminent financial collapse to the directors of their existing supplier.”

“We would therefore like to take this opportunity to assure the public that, in future, all of our door-to-door and telesales associates will only feed them the usual crock of horseshit they have come to expect,” he added.

TV Manufacturers Threaten To Bring Godawful 3D Crap Right Into Your Living Room

All of the big exhibitors at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today threatened to unleash evil 3D televisions on the public, if sales of their defective, unnecessary products failed to pick up sharpish.

"You might have thought that the awful sight of Jedward's smug, vacuous faces filling the wall of your front room was bad enough," warned a horrible, horrible bastard from Sony. "But I promise you now that Simon Cowell's next abomination will be inches from your big fat face unless you fuck off to Curry's right now and slap a broadband-enabled e-book Reader, a BluRay-compatible phone and a blog-ready camera on your groaning credit card."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" he snapped.

"Our exciting new GT240 Social Android phone will be in the shops in April," threatened an insufferable prick from LG. "Anybody who hasn't pre-ordered one by next Friday will come downstairs one morning to find their living space filled by Jeremy Kyle's enormous floating head. And don't think for a minute that we wouldn't dare."

Everything You Own Is Trying To Kill You

The public were today urged to throw every single object they own out of the nearest window before it inflicts fatal injuries on them and their loved ones.

The alarming advice came after mobile phone giant Nokia revealed that over a million chargers were likely to have a potentially lethal electrical fault, and Maclaren USA warned parents to stop using their baby buggies immediately if they wanted their children to grow up with hands.

"I've already encased my iPhone in concrete, after hearing that the battery might explode without warning," said harassed consumer Josh Geake. "I was thinking of using it as a headstone to mark the spot at the bottom of the garden where I buried my similarly explosive MacBook. Now I'm too scared to move. How many other household gadgets want me dead?"

A spokesman for the British Retail Consortium appeared on television to explain why everything you buy is shoddy. Unfortunately, however, due to ongoing problems with Freeview reception nobody could understand a single word he said.

Apple CEO Undergoes Cool Transplant

Apple has today revealed that its chief executive, Steve Jobs, underwent transplant surgery several weeks ago.

Mr Jobs, who co-founded the computer company in 1976, is understood to have had his soul removed and replaced with a cold block of granite.

"When you think Apple, you think Steve Jobs," said a cool dude spokesman. "To many of our customers, Apple stands for stylish design, instant street cred and a feeling of superiority. However, the fact is that Steve's soul began withering away to nothing as early as 1997, when we threw him a huge salary to tempt him back and give people the impression that we weren't really being run by a bunch of corporate suits. As we've relentlessly reduced what used to be a quality alternative to beige boxes to nothing more than a flashy PC with a garish, headache-inducing operating system and an eye-watering mark-up, Steve has been there to reassure you all that you are the creative elite."

"Just when some of you were starting to suss it, along came Steve with the iPod, a wonky white hard drive with a headphone socket that wasn't any different from any other MP3 player, except it forced you to pay through the nose for our iTunes downloads," he went on. "Then we fixed a couple of the bugs and sold it to you again. Then we made a smaller one that was so attractively thin it snapped if you put it in your pocket, and you still loved us. On the back of that, we relaunched our sluggish laptops by making a big issue of the fact that they were an incredibly stylish 1mm thinner than anything ever seen before - and when the batteries exploded in flames, you just went out and bought a new one. Clever, clever you. All your friends are in awe of you.

"Now Steve has managed to flog you three iPhones, just by launching them with half an operating system - and not once, but twice. You're all so hip and trendy, it hurts. I'm sure you all wish him a speedy recovery - and we hope that, with the last vestiges of his soul ruthlessly excised by the surgeon's knife, he will continue to pull the wool over your eyes for many years to come."

However, it was later reported by doctors that Mr Jobs' new granite soul had been found to have several chips and cracks, and would be replaced by slightly-improved, thinner versions on Tuesday and Friday.

Were You Fooled By Julia Bradbury? Call Watchdog Now

The BBC presenter Julia Bradbury is taking time off from fronting Watchdog while she faces a police investigation into allegations that she and her sister - who is also her agent - have received thousands of pounds in free flights via unauthorised Air Miles credits to her Virgin Atlantic account.

In her final appearance on the BBC's flagship consumer rights programme, the hapless Bradbury was suddenly shoved onto a sofa by Nicky Campbell, who bluntly put it to her that she was nothing but a fraudulent hypocrite. The following exchange then took place:

BRADBURY: "I have done nothing wrong."
CAMPBELL: "Oh, come off it! On several occasions in the last three months, according to the police, you've received Air Miles worth over £20,000. Do you really expect our viewers to believe you didn't know what was going on?"
BRADBURY: "I'm very concerned about - "
CAMPBELL: "So you should be!"
BRADBURY: " - about these allegations. Although I have not been contacted by the police - "
CAMPBELL: "Perhaps you've been too busy swanning round the world at other people's expense for them to catch up with you!"
BRADBURY: "I understand that my name appears on a list that includes several Virgin passengers with discrepancies - "
CAMPBELL: "So you're part of a widespread conspiracy of fraudsters?"
BRADBURY: "I will, of course, willingly co-operate - "
CAMPBELL: "Just answer the question! No, don't bother - we've run out of time."

Sir Richard Branson was not available for comment, as the grinning pseudo-hippy was fully occupied with squaring his well-known regard for protecting our fragile environment with his hopes of adding the Honda Formula One team - complete with its fume-spewing cars, gas-guzzling fleet of giant lorries and globe-spanning race schedule - to his bulging portfolio.

Current Generation of Children Desperately In Need of Love, iMacs and This Week’s Manchester United Strip, Says Report

A two-year survey by the Children’s Society has found that - despite having more of everything than any previous generation - today’s children remain tragically unhappy, viciously aggressive and horribly prone to mental illness, and lays the blame squarely at the feet of selfish parents.

“It’s all the fault of these wicked women,” said one of the report’s authors, Percy Fossil. “The damned whores insist on having their own precious careers, instead of spending their lives chained to the kitchen table with a child clamped to each nipple as the good Lord intended.”

According to the survey, the children of today are relentlessly bombarded with advertisements for costly material goods as they absorb a non-stop diet of violent television and internet porn. They are also forced into comparing the finely-sculpted features of pampered celebrities with their own hideous, potato-like faces - leading to a total collapse in self-confidence which inevitably spirals into depression, self-harming and constant demands for increasingly-expensive consumer products to deflect their feelings of utter inadequacy.

Meanwhile, their uncaring parents selfishly work all the hours of the day to buy their traumatised offspring more and more things they don’t need in order to gain a brief respite from their never-ending whiny demands – and then spend up to four selfish hours a night asleep, cruelly ignoring the tragic plight of their children.

“I’ve tried so hard to love my kids, really I have,” wept one woman as she selfishly pursued her career at the checkout in Morrison’s. “But it’s just so hard sometimes. Only this morning they stamped on the Playstation 3 and told me they’ll cut themselves and call the social if I don’t come home tonight with a MacBook Air.”

You May Not Actually Be Worth It, Claim Scientists

In a shocking report that spells certain death to the cosmetics industry, a team of scientists from University College London has suggested that women who frantically trowel gallons of cream onto their creased, pock-marked faces may not look 17 forever after all.

The researchers manipulated the genes of nematode worms into eliminating so-called super-oxides, or free radicals, from their bodies - but found that the test subjects still aged at the same rate as unmodified worms.

“Look out, girls, here comes the science bit,” said Dr David Gems, a bespectacled man in a white lab coat with an aluminium clipboard. “That bollocks you keep hearing about anti-oxidants means absolutely sod all, since all available evidence indicates that women are not in fact susceptible to rusting.

“It may also come as a surprise to many of you, but even those eye-wateringly expensive ones in tiny jars that you buy in wanky boutiques are as predictably useless as the glorified wallpaper paste your gran buys by the bucket in the pound shop.

“Anti-oxidant diets? They’re a load of absolute arse, too,” he went on mercilessly, pointing to an impressive computer animation of a kidney bean morphing itself into a pair of saggy bum-cheeks. “You can eat beans till they’re coming out of your ears, ladies. Just because you’re farting like a herd of cows that’s overdosed on Rennie, it doesn’t mean you’ve magically reacquired the wrinkle-free skin of your childhood.”

Tragically for middle-class women who read the Guardian, this is just as true of macrobiotic fair-trade beans grown by happy, indigenous hill-farmers in Africa as it is of a tin of GM crap from the Tesco Value range.

The UCL scientists say they are planning to move on to researching whether painting your hair matt black makes you look like anything other than a wizened old crone who still thinks in guineas and believes that buying lottery scratchcards in bulk is in some way a valid use of the little time remaining to her while she waits for her long-overdue appointment with the Grim Reaper.

“You are getting older. We all are. Get used to the idea,” urged Dr Gems from under a tropical waterfall, before hurrying off to explain to a cute, wide-eyed toddler that there was no such person as Father Christmas.