Olympian Gift Of Fire Coming To Plymouth

Benighted Plymothians say they are looking forward to learning the secret of fire, which is being brought to them today from the lofty heights of Mount Olympus.

According to the village idiot (available in local newsagents) “billions of eyes” will be watching the remote stone-age settlement as it celebrates the arrival of fire tonight – although Argus swiftly pointed out that he only had a hundred eyes, and anyway all of them would be watching Bayern Munich v Chelsea on ITV.

How the iconic Smeaton's Tower will look

“We’m got a proppa Labrinth set opp on the ’Oe innum, moy burd,” said recently-retired tribal elder Viv Pengelly, speaking to the drooling idiot as grateful savages enthusiastically piled up brushwood ready for her starring role at the pinnacle of the evening’s festivities.

“Focken oi an’ oi’s looken fawwerrd to focken ’eeren Jamaican tawked proppa boi a reow focken darky frumm opp Babylon way innit blud,” grunted a feral devotee of the feared ‘Way of the South’. “Oi an’ oi carnt focken wait royt to troy owwt this ’ere aarson wot oi ben focken ’eeren bowt.”

“Focken,” he added, after giving the matter some thought.

Tomorrow, the foolhardy runner who dares to bring the sacred flame to Plymouth will be chained to a rock by the angry gods and have his guts pecked out by seagulls. The guts will then be stuffed into a pasty by Mr Ivor Dewdney.

King David In Hiding As Pengelly of Plymouth Rides On Paddington

Self-confessed liability King David Cameron is reported to have soiled his garments and fled after hearing reports that Plymouth’s ousted princess, Viv Pengelly, is marching on London on a self-righteous crusade to blame him for yesterday’s peasant revolt which saw her unjustly deposed from the throne which is her birthright.

“By owr swete Mercie did We caws an grete yncyneratour to be sette yn ye Serfes midst, rownde ye wych myte hem hudel for ye hete & protectioun from ye wolves,” sobbed the ancient pantomime dame. “Ye smityinge of ye Ær-port, We didst alowe; so hem hight never ygen lief yn Terrour of ye evill Dragounes cercling over hir hoveles. Highe-way brigandrie did We tackoul, by yeving countroul of ye rutted stretes to ye townes ox cart drivour; nowe, ye fell rorynge of yron stedes scarce nemour ys heer’d aftere Doske. An We did spend eche, & ev’ry, laste Groat of ye taxes; yea, verily, an muche mor; on ye glorious newe palace of tourneys.”

The lady of Plymouth still awaits her great western carriage

“Mark yet mor, gentil scribe; for We did caws ye Herolde to issewe, eache daye, fresshe proclamatioun to ye pesauntry; of whomso hem han to thanke for suche bowneties withal,” she added, “Thus, ye onlie posible explanacioun for hir base ingratenesse nedes moste be ye sore incompetaunce of King David. An pece of Oure mynd shal We verily yeve unto ye wretch.”

And thus it was that, throughout King David’s troubled realm, dispossessed robber barons were singing the same old song. But for them, there were no more suppers to be had.

Plymouth Puts Shiny New £46m Life Centre On eBay – No Reserve

As Britain’s local authorities agreed today that they could either continue to change your granny’s pissy knickers once a week or run the facilities they were entrusted with generations ago for the public to benefit from, Plymouth City Council leader Viv Pengelly nailed a giant ‘EVERYTHING MUST GO!!!’ sign to its just-opened £46m sports complex, The Life Centre, and posted it on eBay with a starting price of just 99p.

Ikea and Fyffes Bananas have already placed bids

The eBay listing describes the Life Centre as a “Bran new sport’s complexs, including familey lesure pool, fitnes's sweet for 150 janner’s, kid's climing wall. Paint still drieing! Hardley used. Surounded by 250 acers of lush green parkland in prime central location (see my other auction's). Cost 46,500,000 £££’s new. Reason for sale: unwanted gift.”

A spokesman for the cash-strapped westcountry council – which, in recent years, has already divested itself of its buses, its airport, all hope for the future and any pretence at caring – pointed out that all local authorities were being forced to dream up new ways of meeting the staggering cost of wringing stale wee out of your nan’s bedclothes without negatively impacting on their hardworking senior officers’ modest remuneration packages.

“You could say that it was perhaps a trifle lavish of Plymouth City Council to throw money it hadn’t got at a monumental vanity project its citizens couldn’t afford,” he explained. “But you won’t say it in the local paper, because it was their damn fool suggestion in the first place.”

“And, of course, it goes without saying that you’ve long since forgotten that you all said it was a bloody brilliant idea at the time,” he added.

Top Cuisine Finally Comes To Plymouth!

Olympic Flame Unlikely To Make It Out Of Plymouth

Plymouth's inmates are already making plans

Britain’s security chiefs are desperately trying to persuade Olympic planners to amend the route of the Olympic Torch in 2012, citing the virtual impossibility of guaranteeing its safe passage through the lawless dirt-tracks of Plymouth.

“If the council get their hands on it they’ll use it to send the old Palace Theatre up in flames, which will conveniently release them from their statutory duty to repair the place and send a huge bill they know will never be paid to the prison cell of its drug-dealing owner,” warned a senior MI5 officer. “But that probably won’t happen, as it’s quite likely to be seized first by public-spirited citizens to roast them alive inside their tumbledown Civic Centre and Council Chamber.”

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Devon & Cornwall Police in Exeter pointed out that the local tribes - fascinated by the bright shiny thing – will almost certainly beat the crap out of its hapless bearer, make an unsuccessful attempt to flog it to Wants and finally break it over the heads of their feral hellspawn.

“That’s if the howling wind and rain don’t extinguish it on the way over the Tamar Bridge, of course, before it even gets into Plymouth,” he added. “Look, there’s this little bridge over the Tamar at Sydenham Damerel which nobody in Plymouth knows a thing about. From there, you can sneak it across Dartmoor via Okehampton… er... on second thoughts, perhaps it might be best if you just flew it straight to Exeter.”

It’s Grim Down South

This wasn't ugly enough for Plymouth, so it's been replaced with something worse

Some craphole called Plymouth which is about as far south as you can get will be hit harder than most of the north, according to research commissioned by the BBC, but it doesn’t matter because nobody knows where it is, or cares.

“The really important thing is to pander to age-old stereotypes involving whippets and cloth caps,” said Tim Casio, an SQL manipulator at Experian who conducted the research. “Everybody knows it’s grim up north, it’s full of matchstick men and Manchester has so much to answer for. It’s a great excuse for the BBC’s news editors to rerun all that quaint old Pathé footage of back-to-back terraces and factory gates. But what scenes of grinding poverty can you pull up for Plymouth? They’ve got some pillock walking round in costume thinking he actually is Sir Francis Drake, for fuck’s sake.”

“I suppose they could rerun yesterday’s shot of that sodding great leylandii forest in an idiot’s front garden,” he added, “But I’m not sure that really proves anything, except that Plymouth is home to some truly exceptional fuckwits.”

BBC journalists were left scratching their heads for a while when Plymouth came up 319th in their rankings showing how well 325 areas of England were expected to weather the impending fiscal blitzkrieg, until somebody remembered that they have their regional TV studios there.

When asked about the effects of massive funding cuts on the impoverished backwater, Tory council leader Vivien Pengelly sucked on a plantain for a few minutes before declaring, “Oo bugger... oi doan rightly knooww, me ansum.”

A council PR spokesman later explained that what Mrs Pengelly actually said - when translated into English - was that Plymouth is the fairest place on God’s wide earth, according to the things that infest it, and if any late staycationers should feel the urge to spend their money wandering Britain’s foremost hope-crushing example of Stalinist architecture in the pouring rain of the city’s soul-destroying microclimate while polyester-clad ape creatures pester them for spare change, then Plymouth’s empty hotels still have plenty of vacancies.

Meanwhile, a Daily Mail hack dispatched to Portsmouth reported that the place didn’t seem as bad as it was painted at all.

Plymouth Pavilions Takes A Chance On 'Hot' New Band Fronted By A Mr Suggs

Mr Suggs and His 'Madness' Orchestra

Once again, the city of Plymouth lives up to its reputation as Britain’s foremost showcase of exciting new talent, with the announcement that a zany young beat combo cheekily calling themselves ‘Madness’(!) will be performing in its big shed in December.

“I believe the sprightly Mr Suggs and his young orchestra are trying to introduce their patrons to a form of singing known as ‘the ska’, which I gather is already gaining some popularity in far-flung corners of the empire. And I’m informed that they shall bring their own instruments, too,” said Ebenezer Bumble, manager of Plymouth’s enterprising ‘Pavilions’ shed. “Tea dances are all the rage, of course, but I believe the city’s music-lovers will indulgently lend an ear to a bit of experimental music now and then.”

Mr Bumble then chuckled to himself, as he suddenly remembered that he had in fact allowed Mr Suggs’ self-styled ‘naughty boys’ to swing their hips in his emporium only last year.

“Silly me!” he chortled. “Yes,I seem to recall that there was something of a last-minute kerfuffle when they asked if they could plug their guitars into the electricity. Well, I’m glad to say we have some now, as long as one of them is prepared to keep pedalling the dynamo.”

“I do hope they‘ve learned to play God Save The King this time,” he added. “There was a bit of an unfortunate to-do last time, you know, when a retired admiral threatened to horsewhip them for their damned impertinence.”

Queen Visits Plymouth, Admires Floating Lump of Machinery, Buggers Off Again

Her Majesty the Queen and HRH the Duke of Edinburgh yesterday slipped into Devonport Naval Base to see a big grey metal object they last saw 12 years ago when it was first pushed into the sea.

Her Majesty the Queen and HRH the Duke of Edinburgh then slipped out of Plymouth again before any of the inbred mutants infesting the area beyond the dockyard wall found out she was there.

“Phew, that was close,” commented the captain of HMS Ocean afterwards.

Plymouth Seizes 'Brownest City' Crown

The god-forsaken hell-hole of Plymouth is celebrating its brown credentials today, after plummeting down the rankings of Britain's 20 largest cities for sustainability.

The Devon city was rated the nation's third most sustainable last year - before Britain's only remaining Thatcherite, council leader Vivian Pengelly, had really had a chance to turn everything to shit. However, thanks to Mrs Pengelly's acclaimed stewardship, Plymouth now ranks 14th for biodiversity and climate change, 16th for green spaces and 18th for its economy.

"A year ago, Plymouth was actually top for environmental ranking," said Forum for the Future's chief executive, Peter Madden. "Now it's 14th. If I were living in Plymouth right now, I'd be throwing my essential belongings in a wheelbarrow and getting the fuck out of that toxic cesspit before nightfall."

Campaigning local newspaper the Eerole somehow failed to find space for the think-tank's ominous findings, filled as it was with a series of heart-warming stories about Plymouth's fine, upstanding citizens - including a man in court for pushing his girlfriend through a glass panel, a pensioner who has been indecently assaulting teenage girls for 40 years, another arrest linked to Plymouth's child-molesting nursery worker, and the usual daily round-up of random drunken assaults.

"Plemoff ez thurr focken bess focken setay en thur focken werowd, y'focken cont," said Cllr Pengelly in an official press release wrapped round a fresh turd, lit and pushed through the Nev Filter's letterbox. "Kmeer eff y'wanner focken myek sommen ovvet, y'focken twaah."

"Enn oy ent eevun sowed awf they focken buses yet," she added. "20th furr traanspawt, eeyer oss focken comms!"

Angry Plymoids, meanwhile, have expressed no urgent desire to read the forum's damning report, saying they would have to learn to read first and it seemed a lot of effort just to find out what "somm focken posh wanka oo wern frumm rown 'eer" had to say. They did, however, lean out of their knackered bangers to scream incoherently at strangers, which apparently constitutes the nearest thing to serious public debate in Plymouth.

Plymouth Now On Map

Plymothians - who have long been told by their councillors that their lives will be filled with unbounded joy when their remote city is finally "on the map" - are filled with expectation after Plymouth police arrested a female nursery worker in connection with child pornography.

"I switched on the news yesterday evening, and there was Plymouth, on screen, on a map," said a delighted local this morning. "This woman has done what a wonky shopping mall, several half-empty luxury apartment buildings on the waterfront and a distinctly average university have failed to do. Now everyone in Britain knows where we are, and probably even further afield too. Now we can all sit back and wait for the glory days to begin."

Others in the south-west city were less optimistic, however.

"I thought we'd be in clover last year, when Plymouth made national headlines for a group of parents encouraging their toddlers to beat the living shit out of each other on camera," said a resident of Swilly. "We were on a map then, too - but after all the hoo-hah died down, it didn't actually attract any real investment. I don't know, perhaps there may be more to regenerating a failing, bankrupt city than just being on a map."

City councillors, however, stuck doggedly to their assurances, claiming that the map was probably just not quite big enough.

Plymouth Now Up To 1985, Say Time Warp Experts

The city of Plymouth - which, following a top-secret scientific experiment carried out by the Navy which went horribly wrong, was sucked into a time warp several decades ago - is reported to have caught up with the 1980s at last, according to reports that the Conservative-led council has just discovered Thatcherism.

Council leader Vivien Pengelly took time out from bleaching her hair to say that her plan to sell the city-owned bus company to a rich friend of a fellow Tory was inspired by Post Office Telephones' amusing Busby cartoon character and the gas board's elusive Sid.

"Sadly, Plymouth is a democracy, and I need to convince the scum that this is in their best interests, rather than just a spurious attempt to make it look like I've single-handedly wiped out a £39m budget deficit when next year's council elections come around," smiled a blue-suited Mrs Pengelly. "Perhaps we ought to spend a few million quid of their council tax on an advertising campaign featuring a lovable cuddly character, possibly called Vivien."

"This new 'privatisation' idea will bring untold benefits to Plymouth," she continued. "A bus company owned by a respectable get-rich-quick taxi operator will reduce fares to zero, run 24-hour services to your doorstep, purchase a fleet of luxury buses with armchairs and topless waitresses and transform this city into a veritable paradise, where everyone will be a millionaire. Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!"

However, Labour group leader Eddie Tudor-Pole expressed anger that he hadn't thought of the idea in the days when he was running Plymouth as his own personal fiefdom.

"Selling off one of Plymouth's few remaining assets is irresponsible, short-sighted opportunism which will come back to haunt the city for ever more," he said. "Mrs Pengelly herself told me when I tried to sell the housing stock. And I told her the same thing when she carried on selling the housing stock."

"Hello, we exist," said a token Liberal Democrat, whose party has no seats on the council.

If the sale goes ahead, Mrs Pengelly plans to use the revenue to buy a small rowing boat and declare war on distant Exeter.

"It's very sad really," said an expert on relativity at Plymouth Polytechnic. "One day Plymouth is going to discover that the British Empire no longer exists, with dire consequences for its entirely navy-centred economy. Although it may take 25 years for them to realise it."

Sir Francis Drake was not available for comment, although he is expected back from his round-the-world voyage any day now.

MoD Guilty Of Nuclear Safety Breaches In Plymouth Too, If Anybody At The Guardian Gives A Shit

An article not published in today's Guardian has not caused widespread concern about repeated radioactive leaks at Devonport Dockyard, a nuclear submarine base which is not in a sparsely-populated part of Scotland but right on the doorstep of a quarter of a million people.

Environmental protection bodies with responsibility for Plymouth have not said that the facility has such a bad record that they would close it if they had the legal power to do so, and the local MP, Alison Seabeck, has not asked questions about nuclear safety in the wake of the shocking non-revelations.

Not responding to the undisturbing non-story, the Ministry of Defence did not say that it takes its safety duties very seriously.

"As far as Plymouth is concerned, the MoD is not a responsible nuclear operator and immediately kept the regulatory authorities in the dark for three days," said no spokesman. "We did not commission an independent study into the facilities and practice at HM Naval Base Devonport, and an improvement plan is currently non-existent to ensure modern standards and best practice at the base."

Plymouth: National Capital of Crap Terrorist Activity

Plymouth - a small island off the coast of Devon - has once again struck fear into the heart of the nation, with the news that Devon and Cornwall Police have fearlessly thwarted another crap terrorist.

Details are yet to emerge, but Assistant Chief Constable for Bad News Paul Netherton said that a 25-year-old man had been caught spraying graffiti on a wall with a potentially-explosive can of paint. When his home was dismantled by specially-trained anti-terrorist PCSOs, they discovered a plastic toy rifle, a spud gun capable of inflicting horrific suffering on the potato-allergic, a deadly packet of sparklers and extremist literature of a politically-sensitive nature, possibly written by the notorious George Orwell. As a precaution, they have arrested everyone else in the house on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist group hell-bent on turning forthcoming G20 protests in London into a corpse-strewn charnel-house resembling the Battle of the Somme.

"We are not saying that these people are Islamic fundamentalists. Nor are we saying that they are in any way connected to Plymouth's notorious failed suicide bomber Blimey O'Reilly," said Mr Netherton. "There is no evidence, in fact, to suggest that they pose any kind of risk at all to anybody. So please forget that I made any mention of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. These people are not Islamic. They are not fundamentalists. They are not terrorists. Islamic? Fundamentalists? Terrorists? No. But God forbid, don't let me prejudice you in any way. I don't want to frighten anybody."

Mr Netherton also told the Nev Filter that the Westcountry's finest were still working round-the-clock to track down the suspected ringleader of Plymouth's underground anarcho-warrior cult, a shadowy radical figure on the fringes of society notorious for obsessively blogging a steady stream of vile, politically-inspired diatribes to his brainwashed army of crazed followers.

Recession Somehow Affecting Student Finances

University hardship fund requests from cash-strapped students have soared recently, according to a BBC survey published today, with the notorious economic slop-bucket of Plymouth topping the league with a 38% increase in applications.

Higher Education Minister David Lammy told reporters: "Nowadays more and more students are studying at their nearest university - meaning that the University of Plymouth is stuffed to the rafters with thicky middle-class Janners who thought they'd hit on a fantastic scheme for postponing a lifetime of Jobcentre pestering by a few years."

"After they'd pissed their loans away over Freshers', though," he went on, "They found they had no option but to take a menial part-time job in a supermarket or a bar, selling alcohol to those students from further afield who had at least some idea of the basics of money management. Unfortunately, those students in turn fell victim to the ridiculously high cost of living in Plymouth - and, as they stop buying booze, the student staff become superfluous to the supermarkets and bars and get the sack. It's a vicious circle."

"I suggest they try prostitution," concluded the minister optimistically. "At least Plymouth's armed forces personnel still have a few bob in their pockets."

University vice-chancellors seized on the announcement with glee, claiming it supported their call for astronomical increases in fees.

"Hardship funds are generally only accessible to UK students," said a vice chancellor with a wig and clip-on beard. "If we could only get rid of these impoverished British morons and replace them all with wealthy international students, we could abolish these wretched funds altogether and use the money instead to pay for jollies - whoops, sorry - arduous management missions to set up academic partnerships in countries which happen to be blessed with an abundance of surf-kissed white beaches."

A BBC economist suggested that, as hardship fund applications stood at zero as recently as last August, that month must therefore mark the actual beginning of the recession. He then went on to argue why the BBC licence fee would represent better value than ever before at only £142.50.

Plymouth City Council Not To Blame For Anything, Says Plymouth City Council

Announcing the shedding of 200 jobs over the next twelve months, a spokesman for Plymouth City Council told reporters that the council’s financial deficit was definitely caused by the worldwide recession, underfunding by central government, and giant mutant lobsters.

“It certainly has nothing to do with the £13m we blew in four games of Icelandic roulette last year,” he added, dodging a large chunk of masonry as it fell off the Civic Centre. “Neither is it connected in any way with the decision in the 90s to uncouple our poverty-stricken city from cash-rich Devon and let a small clique of thicky Janners run everything into the ground.”

When asked to comment on the latest instalment in Plymouth’s terminal economic decline, council leader Vivien Pengelly reminded journalists that she didn’t do bad news, and sent them a nice picture of herself rescuing a cat from a tree.

Plymouth Footballer Sets New Record Time Between Signing and Public Downfall

Another Plymouth Argyle footballer has been arrested for drink-driving, announced the popular-with-easily-pleased-locals club today - barely three months after the team's goalkeeper, Luke McCormick, was sent to prison for seven years for drunkenly slaughtering two children with his Range Rover.

Eighteen-year-old Wayne Shite - who has spectacularly broken all records by disgracing himself before playing a single game with the first team - was arrested in the small hours of Tuesday morning.

A spokesman for the perpetual also-rans told the press: "We are aware of the shituation but, in keeping with the club's polishy, and as prosheedings are active, it'sh interprope-inapote-bollocks-wrong at thish shtage to make any further comment."

"Hic," he added as he slid off his chair.

Lost City Unearthed

The remains of an entire ancient city have been uncovered on the remote Atlantic coast of Devon, say excited archaeologists.

The city is thought to date from the Lary culture which ruled Britain in the mid-1980s, although some structures may date back as far as the 1950s.

The city - which was abandoned and buried by successive governments - shows macabre evidence of human sacrifice, with tens of thousands of victims of defence cuts unceremoniously dumped on the rubbish tip.

Excavators say the city enjoyed a once-thriving maritime culture, but its primitive rulers maintained a rigid, short-sighted attitude that failed to change with the times, resulting in cultural and economic stagnation. The city died a lingering death, and its forgotten inhabitants degenerated into a life of savage ignorance.

Among the rare finds that have been uncovered are ceramics (in the form of thousands of empty glasses and bottles), unfashionable cheap clothing bearing a variety of logos of yesteryear, and the remains of a young woman, still poignantly clutching a pregnancy testing kit.

The media were briefly stirred by the momentous discovery and hastily checked Wikipedia for references to the tragic lost city of Plymouth, before forgetting all about it again for another couple of thousand years.

Patriotic Plymouth Bucks Decline In Traditional British Punch-Ups

Violent crime in the National Mental Isolation Unit (formerly known as Plymouth) is up by a worrying 58%, according to figures obtained by the local parish magazine.

Front-page headlines in the Herald highlighting the disturbing rise - which bucks the national trend - sparked punch-ups in newsagents and supermarkets, and spontaneous rioting was reported in the city's three traditional fight arenas of Union Street, Mutley Plain and the historic Barbican.

"In other parts of the country violent crime is on the wane, thanks to high-visibility policing and Gordon Brown's inspired fiddling of the statistics," Vivien Pengelly, leader of Plymouth City Council, told the Nev Filter. "However, in Plymouth there is a large population of ignorant fuckers who are genetically closer to bonobo chimpanzees than human beings. When they get excited they either fight or fuck. Or both at the same time."

"Y'want some, wanka?" she added. "Come on, then."

"As a matter of urgency, we are implementing an action plan to deal with the escalating violence in Plymouth," warned the Chief Constable, Stephen Otter. "We are putting extra officers 'on the beat', which means they will beat seven colours of shit out of every fucker that crosses their path. That should teach them. Got a problem with that, y'cunt?"

Concerned community leaders from notorious flashpoints such as the Barbican, Barne Barton, Cattedown, Chaddlewood, the City Centre, Crownhill, Derriford, Devonport, Efford, Eggbuckland, Estover, Ham, Hartley, Higher and Lower Compton, Laira, Manadon, Mannamead, Marsh Mills, Mount Wise, Mutley, North Hill, Pennycomequick, Pennycross, Plymstock, Plympton, Southway, St. Budeaux, St. Judes, St. Peter's, Stonehouse, Tamerton Foliot, West Hoe and Whitleigh are meeting up in North Prospect to discuss the problem with an assortment of clubs, knives and broken bottles.

The Nev Filter sent a work-experience trainee out onto the streets of the city to canvass local opinion. After being repeatedly asked what the fuck he thought he was looking at, he is now continuing his investigations in the A&E unit of Derriford Hospital, another well-known hot-spot for fights.

Meanwhile, local tourism chiefs tried to talk up the city's unfortunate reputation as the arse end of Britain with the slogan: "Come to Plymouth and Fuck Off."

Unmutated Child Found In Plymouth

In the culmination of months of quality journalism, Plymouth's local parish magazine has finally announced the winner of its Non-Mutant Baby of the Year Competition.

The winning baby, Sammy-Leeanne, was praised by judges for having two eyes, one nose, one mouth and a pair of ears, and all in the right place.

"Of course, the photographs only show the baby's face," said the Herald's editor, "For all we know, little Sammy-Leeanne could have fins and a prehensile tail. Still, at least she has a humanoid head, which is an improvement on most of the population round here."

The rare, human-faced baby and its low-radiation mother are to receive tickets out of Plymouth.

280-Litre Tritium Leak Nothing to Worry About, Says 50ft Flying Lobster

The spilling of 280 litres of irradiated reactor coolant into the river Tamar is completely harmless, said a gigantic winged lobster today as it plucked unconcerned Plymothians from the streets and crushed them in its fearsome mandibles.

The lobster-creature, which emerged from the murky waters of Plymouth Sound late this afternoon, is thought to have mutated over a period of many years, thanks to a catalogue of radioactive leaks from Devonport Dockyard’s nuclear submarine complex since it was privatised.

The latest hazard was caused by a hose bursting as irradiated cooling water - likely to be contaminated with tritium - was being pumped from HMS Trafalgar. The accident occurred in spite of improved safety measures supposedly put in place after previous incidents.

A spokesman for the Royal Navy, Lt. Cmdr. Strangelove, speaking from a lead-lined concrete bunker half a mile beneath the city, was quick to reassure concerned citizens, if there were any.

“Initial sampling has not detected any radioactive contamination in the local environment,” he smiled through his NBC suit’s thick visor. “Of course, tritium - which enters the food chain in contaminated water, is carcinogenic and mutagenic, and is especially hazardous to growing cells - is difficult to detect without sophisticated equipment, so our Cold War-era radiation badges may not really be up to the job. Fortunately, though, tritium is odourless and tasteless, and it’s well known that what you can’t see can’t hurt you.”

The 250,000 easily-reassured inhabitants of Plymouth immediately relaxed, and returned to their normal occupations of unprotected sex, vandalism, abusing strangers, racing uninsured old Astras and chanting ‘Arguy-oe’.

The gigantic flying lobster paused from its rampage to say: “I’m not too worried about ingesting contaminated Janners. I’ve been eating their sewage for years, and it’s done me no harm whatsoever. In fact, I’ve positively thrived on it.”