Survey Shows Regan and Goneril Unwilling To Support Lear and Cordelia

According to a realm-wide survey heralded today, two-thirds of the former King Lear’s daughters do not see why they should support either their retired father or their jobless sister Cordelia.

“This lack of support for a welfare state among the younger generation will come as a shock to many of the king’s faithful retainers, such as Kent,” proclaimed a herald. “Regan and Goneril object rather strongly to their father’s quaint notion that the state should continue to pay for his upkeep and his hundred knights. And they aren’t too hot on their unemployed sister, either, after they usurped her third of the kingdom. They don’t see why they should keep giving her handouts, just so she can raise a huge brood of feckless brats with her partner, the bone-idle King of France.”

“I’m not happy,” howled the elderly King on receiving the news. “I work bloody hard all my life to build up a decent kingdom and give my kids the best start in life, and this is the thanks I get? All I asked of them was a measly hundred knights to keep me in my declining years, and now I’ve had them taken away all I’m left with a blind old Earl of Gloucester to look after and some bloody Fool who’s no help at all. He just sits there making sarky comments.”

Stop your bloody whingeing and get a job, say under-25s

Regan and Goneril were unrepentant, however.

“This kingdom belongs to us now, yeah, and we got these big plans,” said Regan. “I don’t wanna sound like really harsh, right, but dad’s just a burden, frankly, and if he in’t got the decency to lie down quietly under a bush and die then that’s like totally not our problem.”

Goneril had equally harsh words for her weak sister Cordelia: “Mate, it’s a dog-eat-dog world right? If you’d like followed us into Canterbury Business School instead of doing some noddy Courtly Romance degree at Lindisfarne Uni, see, you might have learned to look out for yourself. You can’t just expect to live comfortably, right, on a handout from an irresponsible dad who didn’t give a shit about making financial provisions for his retirement.”

“As for that malingering bloody Earl of Gloucester,” added Regan, “I read somewhere that most so-called ‘blind’ people have like 20% vision actually, or something like that. There’s loads of jobs he could do, prob’ly, the sponging bugger, if he got up off his arse and looked.”

China Demands Arrest Of Nobel Prize Ringleaders

The Chinese government is still at something of a loss to understand why their Norwegian counterparts have still not rounded up the ringleaders of the Nobel Foundation, after they outrageously awarded the Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo.

“This award is an obscenity,” shrieked foreign minister Yang Jiechi. “If - as the racist Norwegian authorities claim - the Nobel Foundation is truly an independent organisation over which they exert no control, why on earth have they not locked them all up and thrown away the key?”

Lucy Liu is not related to Liu Xiaobo, says China, so there's no need to bother yourselves about him

Fears are growing in the world’s democracies that, if the Chinese do not obtain satisfaction from the Norwegians, they may react against this overt act of bigotry by switching their vast industrial capacity to making things that actually work.

“The only thing keeping Western economies in business is consumer knowledge that the products they manufacture might very well continue to function satisfactorily after 366 days,” warned the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. “If the Chinese should break into that market, frankly, my advice is to start planting rice fast.”

The US and UK governments are in urgent talks with the Norwegians, pointing out that all that give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death crap is really rather passé nowadays.

US Special Forces’ Tactical Manual Now Available As T-Shirt

US special forces carry their tactical manual with them at all times, in case they have trouble remembering the finer points

Following the unfortunate death of British hostage Linda Norgrove at the hands of the American forces who were supposed to be rescuing her, Pentagon sources have taken the unprecedented step of publishing in full their elite forces’ hitherto-classified tactical training document in the form of a 100% cotton t-shirt, to fit all sizes up to XXXL.

The sad demise of kidnapped aid worker Ms Norgrove, who appears to have been killed by a grenade thrown by one of her supposed rescuers, is covered by Part I of the machine-washable manual, which covers the assault doctrine of ‘KILL ‘EM ALL'. Part II, which contains detailed instructions for the mopping-up phase, advises troops to ‘Let God Sort ‘Em Out!’

Meanwhile, reports are emerging of a rift between the unit, who mounted the operation in a part of Afghanistan nominally under US control, and the British SAS advisors who accompanied them. MoD sources are privately saying that the SAS team would have been keen to implement their own expert tactics, claiming that the best chance for victory lay in openly daring Ms Norgrove’s captors to kill her if they were hard enough. They were, however, overruled by the US strike team, who instead placed their faith in small-unit tactics learned the hard way by their counterparts in Vietnam forty years ago.

“We had to destroy the hostage in order to save it,” confirmed a Pentagon source.

Alan Johnson Now Fully Conversant With ‘%’ Button

Newly-appointed shadow chancellor Alan Johnson announced today that he is now fully conversant with all of the functions on a basic calculator, including the difficult ‘%’ button, and expressed the hope that Treasury officials will allow him to start learning how to use a big scientific model on Monday.

Mr Milburn says a 10-digit calculator will be much better for getting to grips with the economy

“Mr Miliband says he’s very pleased with my progress,” beamed Mr Johnson, “Especially when this time last week I didn’t have the foggiest idea what an economic was, coming from a trade union background and that.”

The former postman amazed reporters with his grasp of numbers, explaining that you can add, subtract, divide and multiply them as many times as you want to make new ones. The pinnacle of his press conference was Mr Johnson’s slow but determined demonstration of compound interest.

“Apparently you can work it out backwards, too,” he assured hacks, “But my advisors assure me that’s just like really geeky and nobody’s ever found a use for it.”

“What I want now is a really, really good scientific calculator,” he added. “That posh Mr Balls and his wife, Mrs Balls, invited me round to dinner last night and - over a hoity-toity entrée of raw puffer fish and crisps they said they made especially for me - they showed me their really nice one. It’s a Sharp, with a line playback feature in case you get lost in particularly hard sums, and two stats modes – I suppose that’s for if you don’t like the answer you get from one mode, you might get a better one from the other. I like that. I’m going to ask Mr Miliband to get me one.”

“And it’s got a brilliant slidey cover, too, with a slot for a crib sheet,” he added. “So when I stand up in parliament with my shiny new calculator, I bet I can make that smarmy nerd George Osborne look really stupid with that. Or, if I’m like really bored, I can have fun trying to put it on back to front.”

“Excuse me, but I feel just a teeny-weeny bit sick,” he concluded. “When I come back from the bathroom, let me tell you about my really clever idea - which I worked out all by myself - that I can prove the damage the government’s cuts will cause, using something called a cosine.”

Serbs Celebrate Tolerance, Freedom Of Expression And Assembly With Anti-Gay Riot

Serbia demonstrated its readiness for EU membership today by holding the first Gay Pride march in the capital, Belgrade, for nine years. Its citizens then demonstrated why the saying ‘as unbigoted as a Serb’ has not yet gained common currency, by bombarding the marchers with petrol bombs before setting fire to the headquarters of the Democratic Party.

Serbian Orthodox Church patriarch Irinej Gavrilovica had earlier urged his deeply religious countrymen to exercise restraint.

“I beg all good Christian Serbs to show tolerance and respect for these perverted, unnatural abominations,” he told the faithful in an address on Friday. “Don’t kill them. Ask yourselves what Jesus would have done, and content yourselves with just kicking the evil gay crap out of them.”

Serbs hope their quaint national custom of murderous hate will flourish in the EU

Just before the march the head of the EU mission in Serbia, Vincent Degert, addressed 1,000 gay activists in downtown Belgrade.

“We are here to celebrate the Serbian values of tolerance, freedom of expression and assembly,” observed M. Degert, before sending them out beyond the safety cordon of riot police and armoured vehicles with his best wishes for their survival.

“I’ve been good. It’s been fifteen years since I last slaughtered anyone,” explained protester Petar Demonić moments later, as he hurled a blazing bottle at the marchers. “And even then it was only a couple of dozen Muslims. Can’t I kill some queers just this once, for old times’ sake?”

“I’m really looking forward to the EU,” he added cheerfully, as he headbutted a policeman. “Five hundred million people. So little time.”

Humourless Woman Relaxes In Empty Office After Hectic Week Of Third-Party Harassment Complaints

Hatchet-faced office killjoy Rosemary Milquetoast, 51, says she is looking forward to finally getting some work done this afternoon, after a busy but rewarding week in which she has managed to get all of her co-workers suspended for breaches of the new Equality Act which came into force a week ago.

Mrs Milquetoast is looking forward to holding up every claim personally from now on

Mrs Milquetoast, a housing benefits delayer for Reading Borough Council, submitted her first formal complaint at 09.03 on Monday, after irritatingly chirpy temp Martin Green airily blamed his rushed arrival on the time his girlfriend Emma took in the bathroom.

“I’ve never met this Emma person, and frankly I don’t want to,” Mrs Milquetoast told her line manager three minutes later. “Nevertheless, I feel deeply offended on her behalf. Send this evil bigot back to the agency, please.”

“Now,” she added, producing a clipping from the Daily Mail outlining the ramifications of the new law, a legacy of the Labour government which was championed by Harriet Harman.

Before lunchtime, Mrs Milquetoast had instigated disciplinary proceedings against two other colleagues for causing her to take secondary offence on behalf of a teenage son and a neighbour.

“By this morning, there was just Terry Peters on the front desk left to deal with,” grimaced a thin-lipped Mrs Milquetoast. “So I invented an excuse and went downstairs, claiming to be conducting a pencil audit, and instigated a conversation about housing benefit claimants. He chuckled and said that some of them could be a bit stroppy at times. Bingo. I clicked the tape recorder off and hurried back upstairs with the damning evidence. I can’t stand people on benefits myself, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be mortified for them at this uncalled-for assault on their reputation.”

“And there was an unexpected bonus,” she crowed. “When I presented him with yet another complaint form in triplicate, Mr James, the office manager, had the bare-faced cheek to tell me to my face, ‘You know, Rosemary, I’m just a simple sort of chap. I don’t know how I’ll cope, having 26 staff on indefinite suspension.’ How dare he deprecate himself like that, the poor man? I really felt for him. Naturally I was on the phone to Personnel right away, and I was most gratified to see security escort him from the building at lunchtime.”

Mrs Milquetoast’s peaceful afternoon of proceeding unhurriedly through a growing mountain of housing benefit claims was, however, shattered when she went to make herself a green tea and overheard somebody in the parking permits section telling a colleague ‘that bum-faced old trout next door is having a field day, moaning about whatever anybody utters.’

“It’s a disgrace,” she told a cowering personnel assistant two minutes later. “I don’t have to stand there in the corridor and listen to shocking slanders against poor innocent fish.”

“But from now on,” she added darkly, “I’ll do it anyway.”

Young People Now Know Less Than The Day They Were Born, Claims Survey

Young Cody's parents have no idea where he came from

A shocking four out of five young people have not only learned nothing since the day they were born, according to a survey conducted by grown-ups today, but have actually lost much of the instinct they were born with.

When asked where babies came from, a representative group of 18-25-year-olds variously pointed to their bottoms, a picture of Morrisons and a pint of beer, until one gifted adolescent male blurted out “my winky”, after which the group had to be sedated.

Later, when given a multiple-choice question about the cost of a baby’s first year, most of the respondents ate the paper.

A grown-up researcher commented that, with a disturbing one in six 11-year-olds now failing to stop screaming once their immediate needs have been met, the fears of a group of Nobel laureates about the effect of the government’s proposed immigration cap on qualified staff were even more alarming.

“Unless the government relents and allows an exemption for foreigners with scientific knowledge – as it does for footballing primates – nobody in Britain will even be able to spell ‘science’, let alone apply it,” warned Dr Susan Calvin.

A spokesman for the under-25s eloquently rebutted Dr Calvin’s argument by throwing faeces at her.

Commonwealth Games: Health Experts To Inspect Olympic-Sized Latrines

Health officials in Delhi are donning biohazard suits this evening, as they get ready to examine the giant-sized cesspools which Commonwealth Games swimmers believe might be causing their digestive systems to shut down.

Speaking through the door of her bathroom in the athletes’ village, Liverpool’s Fran Halsall told reporters that, after diving through the crust of a giant rectangle of steaming excrement, she nearly lost her life fighting her way back through to the surface.

Fran Halsall finally surfaced after three minutes

“From then on it was a matter of who could drag themselves along the lane guide-ropes the fastest, yeah?” retched the 100m freestyle competitor, adding: “It doesn’t help that you're desperately trying to hold your breath for the entire race, believe me.”

Indian officials pointed out that conditions were the same for every competitor, however.

“Oh yes, everybody has been seeing the doctor,” smiled chief organiser Suresh Kalmadi. “He is telling me they are very stinky persons indeed, with every digestive ailment known to medicine. He is wondering how such diseased stinky persons ever qualified in their home countries. I have sent him home to have a bath, the poor fellow.”

Meanwhile, metre-wide bacteria carrying get-well-soon cards have been oozing out of the games’ swimming latrines and asking passers-by for directions to the athletes’ village.

Nevertheless, said English team leader John Adlington, any apologies would come too late for gold medallist Rebecca Adlington – sole survivor of the harrowing 800m freestyle tragedy - whose empty skin had just been found draped over a reeking lavatory bowl.

‘Your Country Needs You,’ Says Cameron, ‘To Shut The Fuck Up And Do As You’re Told’

Echoing Lord Kitchener’s historic call to the British people to volunteer for a pointless sacrifice on the Somme battlefield, PM David Cameron today told the public: “Your country needs you.”

“Your country needs you,” he announced to cheering crowds at the Tory conference, “To shut the fuck up and do as you’re told. Your country needs you to step up onto the firestep, climb over the parapet and march steadily forward into no man’s land with nothing more to protect you than a touching faith in the wisdom of your betters.”

In just a few years, promised Mr Cameron, Britain would surely become a land fit for heroes. Unfortunately, he warned, the intervening period would necessarily involve human suffering and sacrifice on an unprecedented scale, with the survivors emerging from their squalid holes, shell-shocked and bitter, to pick up the threads of their former lives as best they could.

“Already I hear the voices of a few RMT cowards urging you to march in the opposite direction, i.e. to the TUC Centre on Tottenham Court Road on the 23rd,” he sneered. “If their consciences are really so bothered, give these shirkers a white feather – to be printed in tomorrow’s soaraway ‘Sun Bull’, courtesy of that great patriot Horrupio Botmurdley – and ask them what exactly they think their objectionable friend Gordon Brown would have done if, God forbid, he was still prime minister.”

“Rest assured,” he promised, “The sacrifices demanded of you today will be regarded by future generations with unmitigated horror, ensuring that such futile carnage on an industrial scale will never be allowed to happen again. These will truly be the cuts to end all cuts.”

“If our lord Cameron is not a great man,” commented one blue-blooded Tory delegate later, “He is, at least, a great poseur.”

Man Killed By Unmanned Drone Was Definitely Blofeld, Say Intelligence Sources

If this is filling your sights, do you wait for an ID check?

A British man blown apart by a robot plane in the middle of nowhere on Pakistan’s border last month was undoubtedly the notorious criminal mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld, according to a man in a dark overcoat wearing a black fedora and sunglasses and holding a copy of Racing Post.

“As CIA joystick expert Felix Leiter peered into his VGA screen – hey, y’gotta believe me on this - he clearly saw the target open a drawer in his Vegas-size desk an’ take out one sour-lookin’ cat,” whispered the source, as he stepped away from the lamp-post’s glare. “The target stroked the cat for a few seconds, then reached for a big red box in the middle of the desk. Well, what would you have done, huh?”

“Right then Agent Leiter had no way of knowing if that box would detonate a stolen Limey H-bomb, activate a laser satellite, push China into startin’ World War Three or unleash biological warfare on England’s spud crop,” he explained. “So he let rip with a coupla Hellfires, see, just to be on the safe side. Turns out the box was a humidor and the guy was just after a cigar, but hell, better safe than sorry - that’s the first thing they teach ya. I tell ya, pal, any dude with a desk that big in the middle of a dusty goddam field’s gotta be upta somethin’ heinous.”

“Say, did I tell ya we found traces of white fur floatin’ on the breeze durin’ the mop-op phase? What more d’ya need, f’chrissakes?” he added, before disappearing silently down a manhole.