OK, How About Every Ticket Costs £500, Suggest Train Companies

Britain’s railway thieves today responded to demands for clarity on ticket pricing from the Office Of Rail Regulation, the industry watchdog, by offering to scrap their byzantine labyrinth of unfathomable fares and replace them all with a crystal-clear price of £500 per journey.

"Tickets, please"

“It’s hardly our fault if the travelling public is too dim to steal our top-secret map of Britain’s rail network, identify each station along their route, enter them all into a spreadsheet, spend a day interrogating thetrainline.com, enter all the prices of all possible tickets along every alternative route, write a function to calculate every conceivable fare combination and thereby save - for example - over £20 on a day trip to Bristol from Plymouth simply by purchasing three consecutive tickets between Plymouth, Exeter, Taunton and Bristol for the same train,” complained an ATOC spokesman.

“Only a complete and utter passenger would fork out £51.50 for the Off-Peak Return simply because we say that’s the cheapest ticket,” he pointed out smugly. “You’ll notice that we don’t for a second suggest that it’s the cheapest journey, of course, because we don’t actually let you ask.”

He added that even undiscovered tribes in the Amazon rainforest knew instinctively that it costs six times as much to get from London to Birmingham New Street by 0915 and back in the evening if they travel from Euston station instead of nearby Marylebone.

Train Company Starts Laughing In Passengers’ Faces

That'll look nice rammed up his arse

Squashed paupers on Chiltern Railways’ hellish commuter services into London Marylebone will be relentlessly tormented by cackling staff, after the bloated train operating company capriciously decided to squander Christ knows how much of their victims’ eye-watering season ticket fees on paying pint-sized baldy Blairite grave-robber Tony Robinson to teach them the knack of professional piss-taking.

Human cattle will be openly mocked with scornful taunts, such as:

“You’re going to spend the next hour and a half with your face in some sweaty fat bastard’s armpit, shortarse”;

“See that smug wanker with the iPod? He’s screwing your wife on Friday afternoons”;

“While we’re parked here at West Ruislip just to annoy you, perhaps you’d like to pass the time by wondering whether you’d arrive on time if you had the balls to leg it over to platform 1 and board the tube train that’s been sitting there for the last ten minutes”;

“If you think London’s a shithole now, wait until the Olympics kick off!”

“We have a cunning plan, my lord,” chortled Chiltern’s comedy manager Chad Collins unhilariously, clutching his heaving sides as guffawing lackeys crammed another hapless sufferer onto the 0655 at Birmingham Moor Street.

Tree-Hugging Lesbians Made Me Tarmac The Countryside, Insists Cameron

Sandal-wearing lesbian whale-fanciers from Greenpeace told David Cameron the only way to safeguard the environment is to place it all in the gentle hands of the construction industry, insisted the prime minister today, so the nice men in hard hats can seal it for ever under a protective coat of hard core and asphalt and charge you a hefty Save The Planet Tax for the privilege of taking your evil car out of your drive.

Welcome to England's grey unpleasant land

“If you cast your minds back to when we won the election outright two years ago, I warned you that we would be the greenest government ever,” observed Mr Cameron. “Well, I had a couple of things to crack on with first, such as my longstanding commitment to play basketball with President Obama, but you must have known I’d get round to saving the planet sooner or later.”

“Here’s the deal,” he continued. “I hand Britain’s remaining green bits over to my environmentalist chums at Amey, and they preserve them under ten inches of tarmac. This will be paid for by the money we’ll save on maintenance by letting the existing motorways fall apart; they’ll soon be glorious nature reserves for Britain’s threatened weeds. In future, as soon as my yellow-jacketed friends see a traffic jam forming, they will quickly paint in an new motorway, set up a tent to sell tickets and bob’s your uncle, that’s another endangered butterfly saved from extinction.”

“My panda-friendly advisors tell me this’ll work beautifully for airports, too,” he smiled. “But remember: every time you raise an objection, a beautiful smiley dolphin dies.”

Robocop And ED-209 To Be Consulted By Police Forces

Don't mention the hat

Controversy surrounds today’s announcement by the chief constables of the West Midlands and Surrey police that the famous consulting detective, Robocop, and his trusty friend Dr ED-209 have been appointed to assist them in solving crimes, providing victim support and patrolling neighbourhoods.

“Robocop may look bang up to date, with his revealing flashbacks and trendy CGI text popping up in front of his eyes, but sadly the truth is that his methods of deduction belong to an earlier century,” warned shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper. “And I’m not absolutely convinced that his friend ED-209 doesn’t fancy the leg fairings off him.”

Fans of ED-209’s popular blog, however, point out that Robocop is virtually impossible to kill, even if local hoodies dismantle him with a screwdriver - adding that policing costs will fall dramatically, as he can solve any mystery on just one tiny spoonful of baby food.

Stay At Home, NHS Trusts Tell Non-Private Patients

There is no clinical need for many poor people to ever set foot inside an NHS hospital again, according to NHS Confederation chief Mike Farrar, now that the government has allowed 49% of hospital beds to be allocated to paying customers who want a new pair of tits.

Think of the convenience

“Hospitals play a vital role but we do rely on them for some services which could be provided elsewhere, i.e. all the unprofitable stuff,” explained Mr Farrar. “For example, most people own a perfectly good bed which, if it was put up on blocks, could easily double as a damned comfortable operating table.”

The organisation, which represents the nation’s NHS service providers and commissioners, says that its members' staff are perfectly capable of carrying out much of their work in patients’ homes, possibly for up to ten minutes a day.

“Especially converting your TV, radio, computer and phone to pay-to-use,” smiled Mr Farrar. “After we’ve put you under for your in-house triple bypass op with Strictly Come Dancing or The Apprentice, the use of your consumer electronics will cost you a very reasonable fiver a day until you’re up and about again.”

“Unless, of course, you’re happy to starve to death whilst trying to order up a pizza by semaphore from your bedroom window,” he added.

Government Clears Way For Poundstretcher University

Unveiling the long-dreaded White Paper on the reorganisation of higher education, universities minister David Willetts told horrified students that if they didn’t like the prospect of the £9,000-a-year fees being demanded by most of Britain’s established HE providers, they would be welcomed with open arms by dozens of new private-sector universities offering heavily-discounted degrees at prices to suit all pockets.

Every campus is in a central location, with good bus links

“We are talking to several major supermarkets, home-furnishing warehouses and pound shops who are desperately keen to snap up the education retail sector,” he announced brightly. “Tesco are already designing a Value range of degrees, with attractive 3-for-2 deals, and no doubt their rivals will be keen to start a price war.”

Poundstretcher is said to be planning to snap up Britain’s surplus stock of unwanted degrees – such as Media Studies or Art History - and offer them at a rock-bottom price that might tempt cost-conscious consumers who would normally turn their noses up in disdain into picking one up on the off-chance that it might possibly come in useful around the house someday.

Meanwhile, fast almost-food giant McDonalds has already put together a garish range of degree collectibles for young children to amuse themselves with.

“Art, Communication Studies, English Literature, Environmental Science, History, Modern Languages, Music Theory, Politics, Sociology – get the whole set, kids!” urged sinister vice-chancellor Ronald McDonald. “Trade them with your friends! Then come and work for me.”

Napoleon And The Pope Shall Not Replace Queen On Privatised Stamps

May God be praised

The efteemed poftal affairs Minifter, the Rt. Hon. Mr. Edward DAVEY, hath told diftrefsed readers of the Mail On Sunday journal that he is “greatly Confident” that our beloved Queen fhall not dis-appear from Britain’s ftamps when the Royal Mail is sold off to any Johnny Foreigner willing to fill the coffers of the government with Gold.

Fevered Mail fcribes had fpotted a Loophole in the draft privatisation Bill, which meant that the new owners would be under no Obligation to put the Monarch’s head on poftage ftamps.

“Were the glorious profile of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to vanish from her loyal fubjects’ humble envelopes; Why, Sir, that needs muft certainly Threaten the very Empire itself!” thundered editor Mr. Peter WRONG. “The government must leave no ftone unturned to root out the vile Republicans, Communards and Anarch-ifts in the Civil-fervice who drafted this daftardly legislation.”

“Had it not been for the unfashionably BRITISH diligence of This Patriotic News-paper,” he frothed, “What man could tell what ugly foreign Tyrants might not have glowered malevolently up at us from our door-mats? Surely no true-blue Englifh-man could bear to ftick the hateful features of the POPE - or BONEY’s greasy fmirk - onto their dear old grand-dame’s Christ-mafs card?”

“And it beggars Belief to think that the ftrutting traitor WASHINGTON could, even in Death, finally extend his Calumnious Treachery to ufurping his Monarch’s lineal defcendant from her rightful place on the Nation’s poftal packages,” foamed the incensed Editor, as his Attendants diligently rushed forward with his special jacket.

When The Hon. Mr. DAVEY tried to placate him with an afsurance that not only Her Royal Highnefs; but also, in due time, her son and heir; would furely continue to grace the Kingdom’s ftamps for Generations to come, however, Mr. WRONG fuffered an Attack of Apoplexy, requiring the painful application of many Leeches and Suppositories.

Britain Astonished As Businessman Recommends Selling Royal Mail To Businessmen

That cat can go, for starters. You're paying the vet's bills

A businessman asked by the government to examine future options for the Royal Mail has astounded everybody by concluding that the only possible course of action is to sell it to the business sector.

“Make no mistake, the situation is desperate,” said Richard Hooper, a former deputy director of Ofcom until the private sector opened its cheque book. “Royal Mail’s £10bn deficit is now even more unsustainable, whatever that might mean. The only possible way to save Britain’s postal services is by handing them over at a knockdown price to some philanthropic businessmen – by which I mean people like me, in fact very much like me – so they can throw money at it, which is of course what I, er, they want to do more than anything else in the whole world.”

“What is sorely needed is a massive capital injection,” he went on, “For the uninitiated, that means handing the entire operation over to some chaps in suits for absolute peanuts, so they can promptly sell it on to one of the big courier firms like DHL or FedEx for about fifty times what they paid for it. Then they can shut the damned thing down and be done with it. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

A life-sized cardboard cut-out of business secretary Vince Cable announced that privatisation of the Royal Mail would bring immediate and lasting benefits to the long-suffering public, just like the privatisation of British Gas, BT and the electricity and water companies had.

Meanwhile, a part-time cleaner who claimed she heard muffled cries coming from a cupboard marked ‘Do not disturb’ in Mr Cable’s office has suddenly realised she must have imagined it, after receiving an unexpected promotion to head of services.

Serco Family Keen To Start Running Parent-Led Schools

The Serco family are fastidious about hygiene on picnic trips

Concerned parents such as the Pearsons, the Sercos and the Nord-Anglias are eagerly looking forward to setting up their new schools in the autumn term, announced education secretary Michael Gove today, with other caring families like the Edison-Learnings and the Cambridge-Educations offering their wholehearted advice and support.

“Make no mistake,” he told reporters, “This policy is about giving control of schools to the people who naturally care the most about children – concerned parents like Marjorie Scardino of the Pearson family.”

“Or take the Gems family,” he gushed. “Nobody has devoted their lives more to providing independent education abroad for their many foreign children. Or the industrious Mr Chris Hyman, head of the large, happy Serco family, who epitomises traditional family values such as discipline at the prisons and detention centres he runs for his naughtier kids, play activities at the helicopter training courses he operates for his children’s Action Man toys and the robust health he ensures at the hospitals he manages for his sick relatives.”

“This surely proves, beyond a shadow of doubt, that people and families are at the very heart of Conservative policies,” he concluded happily.

One Man In Britain Actually Surprised By £1000 Train Ticket

A Scottish hermit emerged blinking from a disused tin mine in Cornwall today, for the first time since British Rail was split up into over a hundred companies and given away to thieves, and was somewhat surprised to learn that a first-class return from the arse end of England to its Scottish equivalent now costs over a thousand pounds.

"Ma puir old nan's deid, an' the funeral's Friday," whimpered Wee Jimmy Bampot, as he sold himself to a Bulgarian pimp to raise the necessary funds.

Until today, nobody had ever bought the £1,002 ticket from scenic, vomit-stained Pewquay to picturesque, deserted Kyle of Locharse, according to a laughing spokesman for Cross Country Trains.

"If Mr Bampot's grandmother had taken the trouble to give a couple of weeks' advance warning of her imminent demise so he could book ahead, he would only have had to pay a very reasonable £561," he giggled. "That's less than a sixth of the cost of chartering yourself a twin-engined plane and pilot, you know."

Railways May Not Be Run Solely For Benefit of Passengers, Suspect MPs

Only sixteen years after British Rail was split up into over a hundred franchises and flogged off to anyone in a suit with a pocketful of fivers, the Commons transport committee is beginning to suspect that Britain's rail network may not be operating in the best interests of the travelling public.

Citing the example of "prohibitive" charges for seat reservations - which used to be free - as just one example of back-door fares rises, the committee wondered aloud whether the private companies which had carved the railways up between them might even be motivated by a strong desire to grab huge piles of cash while they can, rather than by the simple, child-like joy of playing with a real-life train set.

The MPs spent much of the thirteen years trying in vain to understand the hundreds of different ticket types on offer, only for the train operators to 'simplify' the fares structure by scrapping the lot and bringing in a completely different set of unfathomable fares just as they thought they might be starting to get the hang of it.

They also suspected that the country might not be getting the best possible value out of a system which extracted massive profits from long-suffering passengers when things were going well, and eye-watering subsidies out of the government when they weren't - despite the fact that, in its final years, publicly-owned British Rail was managing to provide a safe, efficient service with no state handouts.

The transport committee, however, decided that the best option for Britain's trains was to give them to greedy businesses like Stagecoach and FirstGroup for even longer periods - unless of course they weren't very profitable, in which case they could be sold back to the government after extracting suitably large subsidies before finally admitting they had fucked up and asking for a more rewarding part of the network.

"I'm thinking of renting myself a helicopter," commented one long-suffering cattle, with his face pressed up against the window of the 08:27 from Newbury. "It'll soon be cheaper than a sodding season ticket."

Nationalised Express

Lord Adonis, the mythical god of transport, has announced that he will be taking direct control of the East Coast rail franchise, and is furiously trying to wrestle current operator Hornby Express away from a transformer with a big knob on the front.

As an ageing toy InterCity 125 grinds intermittently round the oval track - labouring under the weight of dozens of successive coats of paint, and emitting sparks from its rusty wheels - a glistening Lord Adonis put the franchisee in a headlock and told reporters that he was also seeking to take control of the railcars and puffing billies of Hornby Express' other franchises, East Anglia and c2c.

However, the purple-faced operator gasped that the East Coast franchise was in fact run by a completely separate Special Purpose Vehicle, set up under the relevant Department for Transport rules in order to provide the parent company with minimal financial liability and legal responsibility, and warned that if Lord Adonis tried to take any of its sister companies' rolling stock out of their sidings he would be up in front of the fat cat controller.

"You can keep your manky old East Coast line anyway," it huffed angrily as it broke free. "There's a dead connection in the tunnel, so you have to poke the train out with a ruler - and the curves still aren't nailed down, so if you take them at any sort of speed the track comes apart, the train falls off the table and the cat goes shooting up the curtains out of fright."

Lord Adonis carefully rearranged his flowing locks and pranced out of the attic to design what he promised would be "a dynamic new colour scheme fit for the train operating companies of the 21st century". Meanwhile the untended model train jumped the buffers at Edinburgh Waverley Station, sending sections of platform skidding across the bare board.

"I just want a train that goes as fast as they used to in the days of steam, arrives roughly when it's supposed to and doesn't require a sodding mortgage for the privilege of being wedged into cattle class with an intimate view of somebody else's dandruff," said one long-suffering passenger as he sat patiently on a platform bench." Or is that too much to ask?"

"I'd much sooner travel by Scalextric any day," he added crossly, "But some bastard appears to have glued me to my seat."

He was then eaten by the cat.

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.

All Steamed Up Over Rail Disruption

Thanks to engineering works by Network Rail, the only train running this bank holiday weekend is a steam-hauled enthusiasts' excursion from London Victoria to Swanage in Dorset.

The one-off service celebrates the reopening of the Purbeck branch line, where volunteers on the Swanage Railway have spent years re-laying seven miles of track after the line was closed in 1972.

As the mighty Battle of Britain-class locomotive Tangmere thundered majestically westward, teams of Network Rail contractors feverishly ripped up the mainline track bed behind it as part of the traditional bank holiday plan to fuck up your weekend.

"It is essential that we rip up railway lines all over Britain on bank holiday weekends, check the rails for woodworm and put them back again," said a spokesman for publicly-owned Network Rail. "That way we can give the maximum amount of taxpayers' money to our subcontractors, to cover all the overtime we like to think they're paying their army of temps."

The train operating companies said they would be running rail replacement buses - their own rail replacement buses - over the weekend, enabling them to charge train fares for cramped, slow bus journeys. They would then be presenting Network Rail - i.e. the taxpayer - with the usual massive compensation claim for disruption to services, as their directors hadn't been to the Bahamas for nearly a month.

"If you want to enjoy trouble-free travel in Britain this weekend, come to Swanage," said a soot-covered spokesman for the heritage line. "But only if you happen to live pretty close to Norden Park & Ride, Corfe Castle, Harmans Cross or Herston Halt, obviously."

Rail Fares Now More Expensive Than Chartering Your Own Private 747, Probably, Warns Watchdog

Millions of Britons fell off their chairs in surprise today, on hearing the astounding news that UK train fares were a bit pricey.

The national rail-users' group Passenger Focus announced their astonishing discovery this morning, saying that annual season tickets for short journeys were up to 88% more expensive than in France - the second most expensive country in Europe. Some long-distance journeys were theoretically cheaper, admitted the watchdog - but only for one lucky passenger who happened to book at the exact moment when the affordable seat on the entire journey appeared unexpectedly in the booking system.

A three-ton ginger spokestom for the Association of Train Operating Companies explained the fares structure in unusually succinct terms, telling reporters to "Piss off." The same sentiment was also expressed by the Transport Secretary and stripper, Lord Adonis - although, when threatened with a wet towel, he pointed out that rail fares had actually gone down in relation to the cost of a loaf of bread.