Guilt-Ridden Costner Vows To Avenge Whitney Houston By Sailing World’s Oceans Until He Tracks Down Evil Sheriff Of Nottingham

Not actually a suspect at this time, say LA police

Wracked by guilt over failing to prevent Whitney Houston’s tragic death because he is only a fading Hollywood celebrity and not actually a real bodyguard at all, a tearful Kevin Costner today told the singer’s grieving family and fans that he has acquired a trimaran, and will not rest until he tracks down the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham and slays him, bringing peace at last to the ocean realm.

“During the long years of my quest I shall be accompanied by a faithful pet wolf,” sobbed Costner, who cannot breathe underwater and is a terrible shot with a bow and arrow. “I hope my wolf will help me to eventually come to terms with my overwhelming feelings of remorse and give me some sort of closure, through the healing power of interpretative dance.”

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.

Bin Laden Felled By ‘Enery’s ‘Ammer

Evil genius Osama Bin Laden was taken down by the famous left hook of British boxing legend Henry Cooper in a precision assault planned by top military expert Richard Holmes and co-ordinated by whispering snooker commentator Ted Lowe, it emerged today.

Prof Holmes first applied his encyclopaedic knowledge of military campaigns to the mystery of Bin laden’s whereabouts, deploying foraging Pakistanis ahead of his main force in an ingenious adaptation of 19th century US cavalry tactics. Once his native scouts tracked down the terrorist mastermind, the Sandhurst and Cranfield lecturer deployed snooker’s ‘Whispering Ted’ to a forward observation post to quietly radio back Bin Laden’s movements.

'For those who see things in black and white, everything's gone green'

The moment Bin Laden stepped out of the house to hang out the washing, Prof Holmes gave the order for ‘our ‘Enery’ to be airdropped directly onto the specified co-ordinates, delivering a flurry of blows to the bearded criminal mastermind head and upper body. In desperation the Saudi-born villain hurled his dialysis machine at the gentleman of the ring, but the shrewd historian saw the opportunity to deploy ‘‘Enery’s ‘ammer’ with killing force while Bin Laden was off-balance, knocking the frail al-Qaeda leader’s battered head clean off his scrawny pencil neck.

“As students of Operation Fortitude - the allied plan to deceive Hitler into thinking that the D-Day landings would take place in the Pas de Calais area - will know, disinformation is an invaluable tool in times of war,” a dusty but elated Professor Holmes told reporters. “Carefully-timed news announcements of our supposed deaths led Obama to the fatally flawed conclusion that the deadly combination of my generalship, Ted’s finely-honed observational skills and Henry Cooper’s jackhammer left hook were no longer a viable threat. He lowered his guard, we struck and the forces of evil were defeated at minimal cost to allied lives.”

“”Students of military history will be scrutinising this victory for years to come,” he concluded, “As I plan to include it in Module 203: ‘From Troy To Terrorist: The Great Deception Strategies’ - coming soon to BBC4.”

BBC Schedules ‘An Open Invitation To Suicide’, Claim Right-To-Life Campaigners

Nobody should have to endure years of this

The pro-life lobby has slammed the BBC for “acting like a cheerleader” for suicide, claiming that a relentless diet of EastEnders, Holby City and Bruce Forsyth’s big pointy chin are open invitations to its suffering viewers to take their own lives while they still retain some last vestige of dignity.

“Where is the balance, offering some faint glimmer of hope to the BBC’s paralysed audiences?” demanded Dr Peter Saunders, chief moraliser of charity Care Not Killing. “Brian Cox? Don’t make me laugh.”

Three Cheers For China's Enlightened Wog-Murdering Policy, Says Daily Mail

The entire British media was united today in condemning China's refusal to grant a stay of execution to Akmal Shaikh on the grounds of mental incapacity and translation problems during his trial. Apart, of course, from the Daily Mail, which gave a rousing three cheers to the Chinese authorities for ridding the world of one more evil drug-trafficking wog with bipolar personality disorder.

"You trendy metropolitan liberal junkies make me want to puke," wrote professional ranter Leo McKinstry, in an article which even the Mail's unpleasant editor Paul Dacre might have thought slightly at variance with public sentiment. "This pathetic excuse for a man was carrying four kilos of HEROIN - which, in case you hadn't noticed, stoners, is an illegal drug. Oh, but I forgot - everyone in Britain except moral, upstanding me is probably snorting the vile poison up their hideously-perforated nostrils at this very moment. I hope you all die! Er... where was I?"

Once he had calmed down enough to continue, Mr McKinstry went on to point out that, as if his horrible wog name wasn't a big enough clue, anybody could tell from the colour of Shaikh's skin that he was clearly about as British as a camel's hump, no matter what rubbish might be written in his toytown European passport.

"If the Chinese government - who, slitty-eyed commies though they may be, are apparently not nearly as blind as our druggie-loving government - were to foolishly allow themselves to be swayed by a global wave of misguided, muddle-headed protests, this sinister Paki monster would have been free to join al Qaeda tomorrow and blow up the world by Friday," he continued, warming to his theme. "As for mental illness, don't make me laugh. It's just another hand-wringing liberal excuse for sheer, unmitigated malice on the part of the so-called sufferer. Bipolar disorder? There's no such thing. Are you listening to me, Stephen Fry, you pseudo-intellectual Jew-boy shirtlifter?"

Mr McKinstry finished his zeitgeist-free essay by calling on cannabis-addled ministers to take a leaf out of China's book.

"There is nothing barbaric about the death penalty," he concluded. "The real barbarism lies in refusing to punish criminals."

In response, a spokesman for the government told the Nev Filter: "State-sanctioned murder is deeply repugnant to all civilised people, especially when applied to the incurably deranged. Therefore we suppress our baser instincts and tolerate Mr McKinstry and his toxic poison - abhorrent though it may be to our sensibilities - even if it means that feeble-minded addicts are free to purchase the Daily Mail without prescription on the streets of Britain."

Young People Enjoy Death Risk, Says Man Who Ran Away From Military Training Centre

Young people enrol on the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme because of the sense of excitement they get from thinking they might get killed, says a member of the royal family whose idea of risk-taking is limited to deciding which of his relatives might score the highest US TV ratings.

Prince Edward himself is no stranger to life-or-death decisions, having bravely chosen to run away from Lympstone Barracks in 1987 rather than spend another minute training to become a Royal Marine.

"When I enrolled on that awful course, I had this fanciful notion that I'd be dashing around in front of the press for ten minutes with boot polish all over my face, before retiring to the officers' mess for an agreeable luncheon," said the prince. "It all seemed pretty bloody heroic to a young blade like me. But the hard reality turned out to be some bloody three-stripe oik bellowing at me every day to climb ten-foot walls, clamber through underwater pipes, swing over ditches on a slippery old rope and otherwise endanger life and limb for no clearly-discernable reason."

"After ten weeks of risking all for mum and country, I told myself, 'Bugger this for a game of TV producers' and took the incredibly hard decision to do a runner on the next Exmouth-Barnstaple train out of there," he explained. "And as I stood waiting at Exeter St David's for the InterCity to Paddington, I was pumped up on sheer adrenalin - knowing that skipping the remaining 20 weeks of the course could well result in my dad killing me when I got home."

"Gosh - thinking about it, wouldn't this be absolutely ripping material for my next documentary?" the prince exclaimed. "I've got a title forming in my head already! 'Edward: Prince of Danger!' What d'you think?"

"I'll get my people to ring your people," he added. "Of course, it'll mean dressing up in all that hideously-tailored camouflage gear and doing the odd bit of crawling around in the mud for a bit of action footage - but hey! No pain, no gain!"

Search Begins For Wild Canadian Music Critics

Authorities in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton National Park are desperately trying to track down two coyotes which killed a young Canadian folk singer, in the hope that the ferocious creatures can be trained to rip out the throats of exasperating, vapid pop celebrities.

Singer-songwriter Taylor Mitchell, 19, was on a solo hike through the woods when the furry music critics unexpectedly struck. Fellow hikers heard her screams - but by the time they realised she was not wailing an impassioned folk-song about getting back to nature or the perils of globalisation, it was too late to save her.

"The eastern coyote is normally a shy, reclusive animal, hiding away from humans in its den with a pair of headphones and a stack of original John Coltrane vinyl," said mountie Benton Fraser, who - together with Ray, a grumpy New York cop who is technically outside his jurisdiction - is leading the hunt. "In extreme circumstances they have been known to take the occasional stereo from campsites, when the constant blare of college radio and AOR is really getting on their nerves - but there are very few documented cases of them actually expressing their disapproval of a particular musical style in such a direct manner."

He then ate some coyote poo, grossing out his American colleague.

"If we can capture these noble beasts alive then hopefully, after weaning them on a diet of Lady Gaga, Kanye West and the X Factor twins, we can release them into the urban environment and put them on the trail of other nauseating, pestilential fame-addicts," mused Constable Fraser. "Just imagine the excitement of going to a Morrissey gig to see a slavering pack of coyotes bound onto the stage and chew his wrinkly, whingeing face clean off."

"If only my pet wolf Diefenbacker wasn't blessed with deafness, you know, I'm sure he'd be only too willing to lend a helping paw in a mass pop cull," he added politely. "Even so, deaf as he is, just the sight of the Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys on a magazine cover has him angrily worrying the news-vendor's leg."

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.

Thousands of Corpses In Poor Half of World Selfishly Steal Media Spotlight From Labour

As the Labour Party conference begins to wind down in Brighton, poor people in the developing world made a shameless attempt to push Gordon Brown and the Labour fightback from the front pages by dying in droves from a variety of natural disasters.

Thousands are believed to have died in a tragic publicity stunt on the Indonesian island of Sumatra in the wake of a earthquake measuring 7.6 on the publicity scale. As more tremors rocked buildings in the shattered city of Padang, a health ministry spokesman put the known death toll at 529, adding that helicopters and camera crews were still trying to reach outlying towns and villages to ask the survivors what they thought of Labour Party members pushing through changes in the selection of National Policy Forum members.

Meanwhile, as South-East Asia mourns the 383 victims of typhoon Ketsana, rescue organisers declared themselves so pleased with the three column inches the story has stolen from Labour that they are planning to unveil a sequel later today.

And the news that the official death toll of 146 victims of the six-metre tsumanis that struck Samoa on Tuesday was likely to rise by several hundred was sufficient to relegate David Miliband's spirited attack on the Sun's withdrawal of support to a mere two sentences at the tail-end of a lunchtime news bulletin on BBC Radio 6.

Conference organisers are reported to be furious at the effrontery of the third world's blatant publicity-seeking efforts.

"This is an outrageous attempt to steal our thunder," said one party insider. "Not to mention our torrential rain, mudslides, towering waves of death and yawning chasms. I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if David Cameron wasn't behind it all."

"Save the planet, vote Labour," he added hopefully.

Gordon Brown In Terminal Condition

After a week of speculation about Gordon Brown's alleged health problems, senior Labour figures privately admitted today that the embattled prime minister is indeed in the final stages of terminal uselessness.

"Gordon's inner circle has known for years that he was becoming useless," said a Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It began way back before 1997, when he agreed over lunch to hand the party leadership over to Tony Blair. But since he took over as PM, the tell-tale signs of encroaching uselessness have been there for all to see, if you knew what to look for. Now he's just a helpless, tragic figure who spends his days crying out for an end to his misery."

"The kindest thing would be for a loved one to load him on the first available flight to Switzerland," agreed former home secretary Charles Clarke. "But to escape prosecution on their return to the UK, that person would have to prove that they were not benefiting in any way from his demise - and there isn't a single person in the whole country who could stand up in court and honestly swear they wouldn't be better off without Gordon."

"Besides," he added, "Would anybody be prepared to admit they were close to Gordon Brown?"

The prime minister, meanwhile, was still doggedly refusing to admit that he was imperfect in any way at all. Lying on a hospital gurney attached to various drips (Lord Mandelson and Caroline Flint), he was wheeled onstage at the party's Brighton conference to tell snoring delegates that he was absolutely fighting fit.

"I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that I have runs for an hour every morning," wheezed the pain-filled PM. "Believe me, you'll soon find out that I can run you all into the ground!"

"Please, somebody, put an end to this unbearable torment," groaned the dying party.

Why Oh Why Do Celebrities Have To Die? Sob Women

Sea levels are rising alarmingly, as rivers already swollen with the floods of tears being cried for dead alcoholic Patrick Swayze are now bursting with the additional tears being shed for dead alcoholic Keith Floyd.

Drainage systems have been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of tears being sobbed in a single day by grown women who think everyone on TV is their bestest friend in the whole world ever.

"The floodgates are jammed shut," said an exhausted water manager from the Environment Agency. "The tear pressure should be enough to open the sluices, but they're blocked by all these eyeballs that have been cried out."

"Why do famous peepo orf the telly ever have to die? It's so unfair," wailed Tracy, a middle-aged mother of four who watched Dirty Dancing on average once a week to remind herself of her lost youth. "I reckon God muss juss be reely jealous, like, 'cos 'is borin' crappy films never git shown no more."

Tracy suddenly went white as a sheet, and stammered: "Jer fink one day I might like die meself? If even Patrick Swayze an' 'is pert bum can die, wot fackin' 'ope is there for me? Waaaaaah."

"Fack me, I'm blind," she added, as her eyes popped out under the renewed pressure from her swollen tear ducts.

Whisky distillers in Scotland and wine producers all over the world are also said to be inconsolable over Floyd's death from a heart attack.

As the world's media pundits remind people that bad news always comes in threes, Britain's men are stoically sublimating their grief by taking bets on which inexplicably-adored celeb is going to turn up his toes next, with Noel Edmonds, Graham Norton, Ant and/or Dec and Bruce Forsyth topping the lengthening wish lists.

Bookies' favourite, however, is Whitney Houston - whose return to the limelight in middle age, after years of drink and drug abuse, is almost certain to do for her before she has another chance to inflict her raucous yells on massed crowds of delusional fortysomethings.

Lemmings Puzzled By Behaviour of British Humans

Lemmings from Norway are to study the bizarre behaviour of the British human, a primitive, rat-like creature which hurls itself off cliffs every summer for no readily apparent reason.

"Masses of these simple animals migrate westward to their dismal, rainswept coast of Cornwall every summer, for reasons we cannot fathom," said lead researcher Sven Lemming. "But they just don't seem able to stop, and many of them go on to plummet to their deaths over the nearest cliff. Only yesterday, a human narrowly survived a 50ft fall onto rocks at Mevagissey. Apparently the poor dumb animal thought this was a good way to catch fish. And the beaches of Newquay are littered every summer with the pulpy remains of humans who climbed over fences and railings to leap to their doom. They seem to possess some kind of anti-Darwinian self-culling instinct."

The bizarre self-obliterating habits of the British human seem to be in some way linked to water. Rivers, ponds and water-filled quarries across the country are said to be dangerously clogged with soggy corpses - many of them juveniles, who the lemmings believe may have died while practicing the atavistic death-plunge which is the hallmark of their species. Other juveniles and young adults indulge in a strange mating display called 'tombstoning', where they will jump from cliffs, rocks and piers into about three inches of water to impress a squawking female.

"No body of water is too small for these animals to fulfil their unconscious desire for a watery grave, and nor can they resist the primeval urge to plummet to their deaths from any available ledge," said Dr Lemming. "Hotels all over the world are infested with migrating British humans hell-bent on wedging their heads in the swimming-pool filter or toppling off the balcony."

However, some lemmings suspect the tales of mass suicide are not what they appear.

"British humans are generally sluggish, indolent creatures who prefer not to stray far from their foul-smelling nests," said Professor Erik Lemming, who has risked his life to live among the British humans in order to study their strange habits. "I believe this so-called 'instinct' is in fact an unnaturally-engineered phenomenon, carried out for chiefly the benefit of nearby cameras."

Despite their propensity for self-inflicted death, however, the British human is not in any danger of extinction.

"They seem to be incredibly fecund little critters, producing litter after litter of squealing young from an early age," said Dr Sven. "Although - given their many other unappealing habits - if they were to die out, I can't say the world would really miss them."

'Fading Away' of Old Soldiers Now Completely Discredited By Medical Evidence

The death of Harry Patch - the last survivor of the horrors of trench warfare in World War One - has conclusively disproved the once-prevalent medical theory that old soldiers did not, in fact, die at all, but merely faded away.

"Harry certainly didn't fade away," said a spokesman for the Bath care home in which he passed away at the age of 111. "He died in the usual way, just like non-soldiers do, and his body is very much in evidence at the hospital morgue."

Mr Patch's fade-defying demise comes only days after his fellow-veteran of the Great War, Henry Allingham, similarly died in a completely material manner.

Conscripted into the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry as a machine gunner after the Battle of the Somme wiped out most of British youth's former enthusiasm for volunteering for the glorious opportunity to be eviscerated, gassed, mutilated, bayoneted, riddled with bullets, blown to fragments, drowned in mud or merely driven insane by the relentless mind-numbing horror and shot by their own side, Harry arrived at the front line in 1917 - just in time to take part in the hideously pointless slaughter of Passchendaele, during which a German shell exploded above him, killing three of his friends outright and slicing him open so badly that he was still in hospital when the war ended over a year later.

For most of his life afterwards, Mr Patch was strangely reluctant to boast of his worthwhile efforts to promote the democratic British way of life to foreign nations, shunning the annual wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph as "show business" and insisting that "war isn't worth a single life" - until the media tracked him down in recent years and repeatedly dragged him from his retirement home, as part of their inspirational campaign to convince the public that dying needlessly for some nebulous idea which exists only in the heads of politicians is in fact the noblest and most honourable pinnacle of human achievement.

The same public figures who issued statements last week praising Henry Allingham quickly emailed the same statements to the press again today with the names changed, then carried on with what they were doing.

However, not all doctors have given up entirely on the idea of old soldiers fading away instead of dying.

"There is still one British survivor of the First World War," said an Australian GP. "Claude Choules served with the Royal Navy; but since he now lives down here in Perth and nobody today realises that the navy also took part in The War To End Wars, he seems to have faded completely from public awareness."

Wackson Changed Our Hideous Travesty of Life, Say Zombies

The living dead community has been fulsome in its praise of Mackson Wackson, who did so much to raise public awareness of the life-changing condition.

"Brains! Brains, brains, brains, brains, brains," explained a half woman strapped to a gurney in a crematorium, while half a dog yapped mournfully and a particularly eloquent corpse called for more paramedics to deal with the issue.

"For years, people spared little thought for the terrible plight of the reanimated, cannibalistic corpses of the dead," explained a leading zombologist, Papa Doc Duvalier. "If the walking dead entered the public consciousness at all, it was either through the terrible negative stereotypes portrayed by the popular media, or by biting deep into the frontal lobes.

"Zombies don't actually want to trap you in an isolated building, terrorise you out of your wits and smash their way in to feast on your entrails. It's a compulsion. They have no free will, in fact they have no will at all. But I think that, nowadays, people who find themselves in situations like this are more inclined to consider things from the zombie's vacant-eyed perspective. In fact, you'll find that more and more of their gnawed, bloody remains are rising up and joining the unstoppable rampage of the living dead."

"It took the compassion of Mackson Wackson to remind everyone that it's not all just lumbering around in the shadows, dressed in shabby clothes," continued the former houngan and murderous president of Haiti. "He showed the world that, through the healing power of music therapy, zombies love to express their creativity by formating on each other and showing off their funky, twitching moves. So the next time you meet a zombie on a dark night, instead of running away and screaming for help, why not pass him one of your earbuds and share your iPod playlist with him?"

"And your juicy, succulent brains, obviously," he added.

Baby Causes Britain's Irratiometer To Oscillate Violently

The pendulum flew off the national mood swingometer today, as the British public - who, only days ago, were clamouring their support for former health secretary Patricia Hewitt's proposals to not prosecute those who help incurable, pain-wracked relatives to travel abroad to die with dignity in assisted-suicide clinics - furiously demanded the death penalty for doctors who obtained a court order allowing an incurable, pain-wracked baby to die with dignity.

'Baby OT', who had a rare metabolic disorder, brain damage and respiratory failure, died today after the Court of Appeal authorised medical staff to turn off the ventilator which was maintaining the child's agonised, futile existence.

When the death of Baby OT was announced, however, Harriet Harman's Court of Public Opinion swiftly yanked the gears of the national mood into reverse, causing a terrible grinding noise as the public's brains turned somersaults in their heads.

"This is eugenics, pure and simple, as practiced without mercy by Hitler and his warped cronies," said a irrational schizophrenic shopper in a Waitrose car park. "When these so-called medics forget their Hippocratic Oath and grant themselves the right to choose who lives and who dies, we are living in the Fourth Reich. To me, someone who is enduring the unspeakable agonies of an incurable, failing body looks like some wrinkly old fart in a wheelchair, and I don't mind them being sent on their way early."

"My parents, for example, are living far too long and are of no use to anybody," she continued, "And I can just see their valuable house being sold to pay for care in their twilight years, leaving me with absolutely bugger all. So if I want them humanely killed to end my financial suffering, why the hell shouldn't I be free to pack them off to a Dignitas clinic? Whereas this is a cute widdle baby. Aww."

The Nev Filter went out into the streets to ask the public how many years of unbearable suffering they thought the baby should have endured before its cuteness faded enough for them to feel comfortable about putting it out of its misery, but only received funny looks.

Religious Believers Strangely Reluctant To Meet Their Maker

People with strong religious beliefs appear to be in no great hurry to meet their Lord and Saviour, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association which shows that terminal cancer patients who pray frequently are three times more likely than atheists to beg their doctors to drag out their doomed lives for as long as is medically possible.

Despite the intense physical and psychological stress caused to the dying by aggressive interventions like ventilators, feeding tubes and non-palliative chemotherapy - not to mention the emotional trauma that such long-drawn-out deaths inevitably inflict upon relatives - doctors found that those cancer victims who believed firmly in life after death were by far the most reluctant to embark on the journey into the Beyond.

"It could be that the faithful feel that, by putting themselves through this needless, agonising torture, they are in some way sharing in the sufferings that Christ endured for our sins on the cross," said one baffled medic. "On the other hand, it could just be that they only believe in God at all because they just can't bear the thought of their own mortality. Go figure."

The noted atheistic tub-thumper, Professor Richard Dawkins, shouted angrily that the research conclusively proved, beyond a shadow of doubt, that - unlike the terrified, cowering, cannibalistic totem-fetishists infected with the Christianity disease - rational and reasonable unbelievers like himself were quite comfortable with the notion that the world would somehow carry on just fine without them, and snarled a message of non-religious hope to the world: "You are all going to die."

Outrage Over Plan To Bury Dead Body With Other Dead Bodies

Widespread public concern was expressed today over the announcement that Christopher Foster - the millionaire who murdered his wife and daughter before setting fire to their mansion and killing himself - will be buried in a family plot next to his victims.

"His evil spirit will torment the corpses of his wife and daughter for all eternity," said one shocked non-relative. "What kind of sick justice is that?"

Another person entirely unconnected with the family suggested that, in the event of a zombie outbreak, the reanimated cadavers of Jill and Kirstie Foster would suffer the unspeakable horror of embarking on their flesh-eating rampage in the company of the callous husband and father who so brutally snuffed out their lives.

Headlines such as "Will Their Suffering Never End?" and "Bury This Monster On A Landfill Site" screamed out from the tabloids.

"Oh, for God's sake grow up," said a bishop this morning. "They're dead, OK?"