Living In A Box

David Cameron has been singing the praises of cardboard boxes today, revealing that his baby daughter Florence sleeps happily in the makeshift cot he improvised on holiday in Cornwall from the packaging the Aga was delivered in.

“Obviously Florence’s early arrival caught us on the hop, as it were,” beamed the prime minister, “So I had a quick scout around our humble cottage, and in the east wing I found a room I didn’t even know we had, filled with packaging that the interior decorators had rather sloppily left behind.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve made a deduction from their fee,” he chuckled.

“By the time Sam and the baby were ready to leave hospital, I’d knocked up a cosy little cot from cardboard box the Aga came in, complete with a playroom and ensuite nappy-changing facilities,” enthused the proud dad. “Dear little Flo loves it so much, she hasn’t come out in weeks, even after we transplanted it into Number Ten. So now we’ve added an extension for the live-in nanny.”

“You know, when I look at the cost of property today and compare that to the sort of wages the peasants are earning, I can see more and more people choosing to take up residence in an attractively-priced cardboard box,” mused Mr Cameron. “In fact, my hope is that, one day in the not-too-distant future, we’ll even see entire cardboard cities springing up on under-utilised land – you know, like infilled refuse tips and whatnot. Rest assured, I shall certainly be doing all that I can to encourage that.”

“And best of all, cardboard boxes are only classed as Band A for council tax,” he added with a smile. “And they say Conservatives only look after the wealthy.”

And you don't need planning permission, either

‘What Reputation?’ UN Asks Clegg

Baffled UN delegates have been scratching their heads since Nick Clegg’s maiden speech to the General Assembly, wondering what kind of fantastic global reputation he thinks Britain ever had.

“Your Mr Clegg told us that Britain must restore its world reputation,” said a puzzled member of the Indian delegation. “But then he went on to give us some guff about tolerance, fairness and equality. That’s hardly a Britain our great-grandfathers would recognise. Their recollection is of a bunch of overdressed foreigners spinning us some yarn about offering us the protection of their army, robbing us of our wealth in return for a load of shoddy mass-produced trousers, then whisking millions of Indian soldiers off to the four corners of the world to fight for Britain's interests in two world wars.”

Ah... happy days

Mr Clegg was unavailable for comment as debate raged about whether he was referring to Britain’s heyday as the heart of an industrial revolution that shackled the poor to soulless production lines for the personal enrichment of the factory owners, or its salad days as the beneficiary of a vast asset-stripping empire that made a few rich people even richer and left Britain with a legacy of inspiring civic architecture which is now being enthusiastically ripped down to make way for uniformly tawdry shopping malls with a 20-year lifespan.

English And Scottish Athletes Set Out On Busman’s Holiday

English and Scottish athletes are flying out to Delhi today to compete in the troubled Commonwealth Games, after thanking their national sporting bodies for showing such concern for their welfare but pointing out that, being British, they were already accustomed to living in a squalid, substandard environment where nothing works properly.

“Ah’m frae Pennybrook, see?” explained Glasgow’s improvised javelin-throwing hope, Wee Billy Bampot. “So yon athlete’s village looks bonny tae me.”

“Ah was afraid ah wis goin’ tae put sae mich effort intae trashin’ the place ah’d be too knackered tae compete,” pointed out Mad Jimmy McTavish, Scotland’s leading head-butter. “Bit ah see ah woan’ haftae alter a thing. It’s a fair haem fra’ haem.”

As fresh research confirmed the UK as the worst place to live in the whole of Europe, competitors from south of the border echoed their Scots counterparts’ enthusiasm.

“Delhi’s faculties, yeah, is ver shoddy like produck uv plit’co crupshun, theevin’ propty developers, unskilled layba an’ like rusty bricks innit jenotameen?” said English 100m projectile-vomiting champion Sammi-Jo Bloggs. “Well I’m from Hackney yeah where vee Olympics is gonna be innit. Standud.”

Hackney's sporting facilities provide excellent training for Delhi

Dismissing safety fears raised by the murder of two tourists recently, she added: “Juno me mate Vikram yeah, ee’s got a cousin right wot knows sam bloke wot’s got faimly aht ver wot knows this geeza wot kin sawt me aht wiv a shoota innit, a proppa wan right yeah I fink iss a Oozy akshly, no questions arst jenotameen? Sawtid. Sah bring it on.”

Caged Children Footage Sadly Unavailable On YouTube

A Glasgow family who kept two children in cages were today praised by police for not posting clips of the abused youngsters’ suffering on YouTube.

“We would like to offer our gratitude to the family for their foresight in abusing young innocent relatives well out of sight of prying cameras,” said a police spokesman. “This means we can simply charge them, then release them on bail until the court case without having to put a couple of officers inside their home and one at the door on 24-hour alert to protect them from screaming Facebook users armed with implements of torture.”

Internet users all over the world expressed their disappointment at not having any heart-rending footage to get worked up over.

“Since that monster put the cat in a bin the other week, I’ve had no outlet whatsoever for my barely-controlled hatred of the human race,” complained a Hampshire woman whose house smells faintly of pet wee. “Some public-spirited web-user should put a child in a cage – just for five minutes, obviously, then give them a Curly Wurly to make it all right – then post a video of it. Good quality, mind, not some grainy webcam rubbish. That way I’d have something to really get into a seething rage about. Otherwise, it’s just a load of boring words really. Look at me - I can’t even be bothered to swear.”

Meanwhile, overseas fans of releasing torrents of pent-up hate were puzzled by the lack of footage.

“What happened?” asked a borderline psychotic with a pet budgie in Ohio. “Did I miss a chance for an incoherent extended rant? Shit. Well, never mind – here’s a fantastic clip I found of a dog playing the piano. She doesn’t really understand music theory, of course - well she probably doesn’t, I don’t really know – but it’s just so cute.”

Unfortunately this will just have to do, until something suitably infuriating comes along

BMW Sectioned After Seeing Minis Everywhere

Prick-wagon manufacturer BMW was reported to be under restraint in a secure mental health unit this afternoon, after it bizarrely claimed that everything was a Mini.

The German company’s delusions began nine years ago, when it bought a factory off the ailing Rover Group in the sadly mistaken belief that the fat, garish hatchback produced there was a Mini.

Of course it is, now get away from me

At the time, this was dismissed by many as mere eccentricity. However, the symptoms have increased in strength recently: for example, hyperventilating BMW executives pestered a sceptical motoring press a few weeks ago, insisting that a large, garish 4WD vehicle was also a Mini. The final breakdown came this morning, when BMW began grabbing startled Londoners by the arm, pointing to three garish electric scooters and shrieking, “Mini!”

“We have known for some time that BMW has a tragically over-active imagination,” said Dr Richard Hammond, a motoring psychiatrist. “And while many people thought their fantasies were harmless, there’s a well-established body of evidence to show that a worrying number of impressionable mental defectives share their tragic belief that all it takes to be a winner in life is to race from one set of traffic lights to another in a 316.”

A home visit by occupational therapists turned up disturbing evidence that BMW is unable to look after itself, citing as evidence an unpleasant habit of not flushing its executive toilets for years.

“The soiled offices of their Munich headquarters are lined with turds in varying stages of decomposition,” said one shocked visitor, who recommended immediate sectioning, “And each and every one of them has a little flag stuck in it saying, ‘Mini’. As you can imagine, the stench is intolerable.”

Corporate mental health experts are now struggling to assess the breadth of BMW’s delirium.

“We’ve completed preliminary tests, and I’m sorry to report that word association painted a depressing picture,” said Dr Hammond. “Every time we named an emotion, BMW immediately blurted out ‘Mini’, and when we showed them ink-blot silhouettes of human genitals, we got exactly the same response.”

“I’m very worried that this sickness could spread,” he added. “In fact, only five minutes ago I was standing at the urinal, and as I unzipped my trousers I found myself involuntarily thinking ‘BMW’. God in heaven help me.”

Theresa May Promises To Put Plenty of Police Out On The Streets

PC Savage here has already identified a nice spot right next to your driveway

The home secretary, Theresa May, has responded swiftly to claims in Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Denis O’Connor’s review that police do not take anti-social behaviour as seriously as other crimes, by agreeing to meet his core demand of putting more officers on the streets.

Sir Dennis had earlier argued that tackling anti-social behaviour “really mattered” to the public, saying the police had “retreated from the streets” since the 1970s and treated incidents differently from other crimes.

Mrs May responded by blaming the Labour Party for everything, pointing out that it was well-known to the police that 99% of all crime was committed against Daily Mail readers by a hard core of habitual Labour voters, and promised faithfully that the cuts she is about to inflict upon forces’ budgets would put thousands of police officers out on the streets in the next couple of years.

National Audit Office Disturbed To Learn That Chris Moyles Expects To Be Paid

The National Audit Office has expressed concerns about BBC spending, after Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles subjected his listeners to a sustained half-hour drip once it dawned on him that he had not received any salary for two months.

You know nothing of its life? Be grateful

“Like most people, we were under the impression that The Chris Moyles Breakfast Show was some sort of community radio project, operating on a shoestring out of a cupboard at the back of an FE college,” said a spokesman. “It’s got that endearing lack of professionalism running right through it. We just assumed he was some idle doley slob trying to hoodwink the Jobcentre into believing he was doing a bit of voluntary work to fill in a long gap on his CV.”

“Now we’re desperately trying to find out just what on earth the BBC think this chuntering ignoramus might be worth,” he added, “And - as Mr Moyles tiresomely says of his own enquiries - we’re just hitting a wall of silence every time we ask.”

When irate fans rang in to complain about the irritating whine coming out of their radios in lieu of the usual bland chart pap, DJ Moyles exploded in rage - improbably telling the very people who have endured six long years of dreary descriptions of his achingly dull conversations with fellow dolts down the pub, “You know nothing of my life,” before launching into a wearisome minute-by-minute description of a night spent sleeping, dribbling and farting on a mate’s sofa.

“Our remit empowers us to leave no stone unturned in our quest to determine the level of value the BBC offers the licence payers,” said the haggard spokesman. “However, if Mr Moyles would like to crawl back into his dark, damp cranny, we promise faithfully to put his stone back and never look under it again.”

MoD Unveils Reassuringly Expensive McLaren-Designed Alternative To Buying Back 55-Year-Old Humber Pig

Proud defence chiefs smiled indulgently today as they proudly revealed the brand-new £500,000 Sex Potto, the long-awaited replacement for the much-criticised Snatch Land Rover.

For a measly three grand you deffo won't get an iPod dock

“The McLaren-engineered Sex Potto fought off stiff competition from the Jaguar Fanny Magnet, the Massey-Ferguson Quim Tractor and Ferrari’s Sucky-Fucky Gibbon,” beamed Captain James May of the Royal Off-Road Corps. “You see, old boy, the clever trick was to make the underbody V-shaped - blast goes sideways, not straight up your arse. Dashed clever, these boy-racer johnnies, what?”

“Of course, every crank came out of the woodwork as usual when we were scouting for new toys,” he snorted derisively. “We even got a letter from a batty old retired sergeant-major, suggesting that if the old Humber Pig’s armoured floor was IRA pipebomb-proof, it just might be towel-head improvised explosive device-proof too. Pshaw!”

“I ask you,” he slurred, spilling a triple G&T down his combat fatigues, “Would the great British Sun-reading public be satisfied to see their beloved soldier boys rattling around in a cranky old grid we flogged to Idi Amin donkey’s years ago, that we bagged on eBay for three grand including postage and packing? I rather think not! Only the best, what?”

“We did think about taking out a licence to put the trusty old Sd.Kfz.222 back into production, actually,” he added. “But then Buffy fforbes-Hamilton pointed out that pootling round the Middle East in Nazi armoured cars might not quite match the media profile we’re striving to promote.”

This Sex Potto is halfway to becoming a god knows what

Captain May also stressed that the Sex Potto was especially easy to take apart and put back together again in a variety of imaginative configurations, vitally giving bored British troops something to do whilst twiddling their thumbs, stuck inside a dismal compound in the dusty Afghan hinterland. Royal Engineers have already drawn instructions for a speedboat, a tipper truck and an Andrew Lloyd Webber bionicle.

Finally, to round off the launch party, Formula 1 maestro Lewis Hamilton took the wheel to demonstrate the Sex Potto’s agile handling to the press - who luckily scuttled out of the way in time when it fell over reversing out of the garage.

Reader Offer: Tour Poland With That Well-Known Historian of Conviction, David Ihrwung!

As autumn segues gently into a communist-inspired winter of discontent, why not follow in the bootsteps of millions of happy Germans and march east, for a nostalgic tour of Poland’s leading wartime tourism sites – with expert guidance from historian David Ihrwung?

Tour itinerary:

Day 1: Tour the remains of the historic Warsaw Ghetto, a vibrant community created by public-spirited Jews in an effort to address Gentile neighbours’ concerns about the stench by sectioning off a quarter in the city for their own exclusive use.

Hide-and-seek - the Warsaw Ghetto held the world record

David Ihrwung says: “Jews are great social animals, so what better way to mix and catch up with the latest news and gossip than to have your friends and neighbours actually move in with you? In the Ghetto, as many as 12 happy Jews would regularly share a single room, liberated from the tiresome customs the goys inflicted upon them, like washing and cleaning. Here in the Ghetto they were free, for example, to erect their traditional mounds of rotting foreskins on every street corner, as required by their primitive, fetishistic religion. The Ghetto had its heyday in 1943, after which increasing numbers of residents took advantage of Germany’s newly-built chain of ‘Hitlins’ camps.”

Day 2: Visit a typical ‘Hitlins’ holiday camp at Treblinka. Millions of Jews flocked from all over Europe to stay at one of Billy Hitlin’s many fun-filled holiday centres. Travel by well-ventilated rolling stock right into Hitlins Treblinka, where you’ll see where some of the picturesque communal huts used to stand, ringing with the laughter and singing of their carefree occupants. Don’t miss the neighbouring activity centre, where holidaying Jews and their children engaged side-by-side in healthy, enjoyable pastimes such as excavating gravel, sorting clothes and digging some of the world’s biggest irrigation ditches.

Don't miss the scenic stepping-stone trail

David Ihrwung says: “Jews enjoyed their stay at Hitlins Treblinka so much, they never went anywhere else afterwards. It really was ‘the ultimate destination’!”

Day 3: A trip to the very heart of philanthropist Billy Hitlin’s organisation – The Wolf’s Lair! Gaily donning the costume of the lovable Hitlins mascot, Willy Wolf, David Ihrwung will show you where all of the big decisions were made, including the organisation’s glorious launch of popular franchises in France, the Low Countries, Denmark and Norway before its expansion eastwards. Every visitor will be encouraged to dress up in authentic period costume and imagine how they, too, might have tackled Billy Hitlin’s sinister former business partner, Uncle Joe, after he treacherously mounted a hostile takeover bid which, sadly, brought Hitlins holiday dreams to an untimely end.

You'll feel like dear old Billy Hitlin never left!

Willy Wolf says: “Hi gang! Welcome to Billy Hitlin's head office, set in a luxuriant forest playground! Who’s for a thrilling game of pass-the-parcel with Stauffenberg, the hilarious one-armed clown? It’s a BLAST!”

Day 4: Foodies will love a trip to Hitlins Auschwitz, another once-bustling holiday centre which, in its heyday, was the home of Europe’s largest bakery. And why not take the opportunity to freshen up in the on-site showers, after a hard day’s travel?

Mm-mm! Cake, anyone?

David Ihrwung says: “Those ovens are so big, you could bake a Jew in them! Er… not that anyone ever would, of course.”

(SAFETY NOTE: Visitors are advised to wear hard hats when visiting the historic gates, as Polish scrap-metal archaeologists may be conducting renovation work in the area.)

Day 5 onwards: We return to Warsaw for an open-ended stay, with a visit to the city’s law courts. You will be able to observe – and perhaps even participate in! – an unmissable show trial re-enactment, in which Polish civil rights group Otwarta Rzeczpospolita tries to denounce Herr Ihrwung as a holiday denier. You may even be invited to stay with him in one of Poland’s most historic prisons!

David Ihrwung has already thrilled Austrians with his performance in court

David Ihrwung says: “Bugger. I had this problem in Austria, but it was all a long time ago.”

Defence Secretary Declares War On Sun

Whilst delivering a keynote speech in an international conference on the vulnerability of electricity grids to hostile attack and natural disasters, Britain’s swivel-eyed secretary of state for defence, Dr Liam Fox, today seized the opportunity to call for a pan-global alliance to launch an all-out pre-emptive nuclear strike on the sun.

Dr Fox has been out in the sun for some considerable time now

“Make no mistake,” he warned delegates, adjusting his tinfoil hat to deflect deadly UV radiation from his mortal enemy, “According to NASA, in the year 2013 - or possibly earlier – a massive peak in the sun’s magnetic energy cycle and sunspot activity might very well create a solar storm of unprecedented ferocity. The inevitable worldwide geomagnetic storm this would unleash upon a defenceless Earth would undoubtedly knock out electricity grids for hours, days, weeks, months or most likely forever - bringing civilisation as we know it to a crashing halt and hurling the handful of terrified survivors back to the stone age, only to be mercilessly hunted down and eaten by irradiated mutant dinosaurs as tall as skyscrapers.”

“The only way that the people of Earth can save themselves from catastrophe is to lay aside their petty squabbles and unite to launch the world’s entire stock of thermonuclear warheads at our terrible enemy, the sun,” he shrieked, producing a battered Walkman cassette player from his pocket and jabbing at the play button until the batteries fell out. “As I know this idea will sound altogether too fantastic to the narrow minds of disbelievers, I have just set the process in motion by launching Britain’s entire stock of Trident missiles into space. Now you have no choice but to follow suit, or the sun’s vengeful wrath will surely kill us all by teatime!”

“The self-destruct codes have been disabled by my trusty cyber-pet, Aibo,” he bellowed, as his white-coated attendants manhandled him back to the padded ambulance he arrived in, adding, “One day – mark my words – I, Dr Magnafox, will be revered as the visionary saviour of the human race. Incidentally, I have blueprints hidden in a secret compartment in my underpants for a gigantic golden statue of myself which will be visible from space, if a grateful human race wishes to honour me after the hour of destiny has safely passed.”

Wearing Glasses Makes You Look Old and Even Worse, Intelligent, Says Survey

This rancid old trout probably reads a big newspaper every day

A survey – by pure coincidence, carried out on behalf of a leading provider of corrective laser surgery – today proved beyond a shadow of doubt that people who wear glasses look old, frumpy, probably fat too, and worst of all, clever.

“We gave crayons to four thousand Sun readers under the age of 30 - i.e. a typical sample of the population of the UK - and asked them to deface pictures of dowdy old frumps in glasses, then look at some page 3 stunners without glasses or clothes,” said rent-a-psychologist Dr Glenn Hireling. “Imagine our surprise when the first set of pictures came back with various uncomplimentary comments and anatomically-incorrect penises scribbled all over them, while the second set were covered with stains of a different sort which our biochemists are studying carefully.”

“This conclusively demonstrates that weirdos with glasses are cordially despised by all right-thinking folk,” he spat, “Nerdy, specky twats, with their stupid interests and knowledge and all that - I reckon they’re probably all paedos, too.”

“Kill the freaks!” he bellowed hoarsely, his face flushing red and revealing two pale marks on either side of his nose. “They ought to be strung up, the bloody lot of them!”

“Laser treatment from £299 per eye,” he added. “Er… sorry, I seem to have misread that… yes… it’s actually £399. And don’t miss our limited three-for-two offer, with a free Premiership League wallchart.”

Homelessness Will Be Easy To Bear Knowing That The Wealthy Might Be Paying Their Full 32.5% Tax, Assures Clegg

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg today promised faithfully to do something or other about rich individuals exploiting tax loopholes - which will fill victims of benefit cuts who lose their homes through stepped reductions in housing benefit with a nice warm glow, as they wrap themselves in old copies of the tax-dodging Sun while they huddle in the doorway of their local tax-dodging Tesco.

“What could possibly be fairer than rich people paying the full whopping 32.5%?” smiled Mr Clegg to a beaming Andrew Marr. “I’m sure it will be a great comfort to the poorest people in our society to know that, just as they are having to make economies by not eating for a couple of days every fortnight, some chap I went to school with is sharing their pain as he comes to the unpalatable conclusion that he’s jolly well going to have to hang on to the new Maserati for three years instead of two.”

The rich will just have to put up with this for a bit longer

Meanwhile, at a safe distance from the Lib Dem conference, rail union boss Bob Crow (salary: £133,183) was failing miserably in his efforts to promote his alternative scheme to the party’s rank-and-file membership, in which any posh geezas wot torks proppa gits their ‘eads slang dan the karzi an’ all ver bladdy assets confisculated gorblimey innit.

Pope To Beautify Cardinal Newman

Hitler’s favourite gunner, Pope Benedict XVI, is to formally beautify Cardinal John Henry Newman later today, in the hope that God will be so taken by a layer of slap that he later promotes the academic Victorian prelate to full-blown sainthood, complete with halo and all the trimmings.

There, now God will definitely go for this

A necessary requirement before the Pope can apply the first layer of foundation, however, is that the recipient must be proven beyond a shadow of doubt to have performed a bona fide miracle.

Happily, despite his frequently-expressed scepticism concerning the existence of miracles, the Cardinal was nevertheless found to have performed one anyway – presumably in a posthumous change of heart – when an entirely unbiased Catholic deacon explained how a routine laminectomy operation on his back ten years ago had enabled him to walk in a miraculous way to his seminary classes on time. An equally neutral Catholic doctor confirmed that this typical outcome was indeed proof of divine intervention, pointing out that if the trainee deacon had not prayed to the Cardinal for a bit of God’s special magic he would almost certainly have been laid up in bed for an extra day or two, just to be on the safe side.

The Pope later confirmed the miracle with the traditional declaration of res contentus mihi (‘well, that’s good enough for me’), and began ordering the official paraphernalia of beautification from Boots - including a request for tips on which lippy would look best on a 120-year-old corpse.