Souls Not Unique to Humans: Scientists

(Soul contender: the ghost of a gorilla.)

Two more creatures besides humans are endowed with eternal souls. That’s the startling result of a new study commissioned of Vatican scientists by Pope Benedict XVI and published today in the Roman Catholic equivalent to the journal Nature: Supernature.

The study – which draws its conclusions from omens and visitations, together with anachronistic interpretations of ancient texts from the Middle East, and the latest genetic research – is the first indication that man (and, in some cases, woman) is not alone in having a transcendental essence.

“There can be no doubt about the findings,” said papal nuncio Frai Bartolomeo Rompetutto. “It may come as a shock to learn that the gorilla also has a soul, or rather two: a mainsoul, situated behind the heart chakra, and an anima minora, the so-called ‘lower soul’ – which resides in the animal’s rectum just above its anus, and is responsible for gorilla altruism and inappropriate dreams – but that is how God made them. We can only speculate as to why, although probably we ought not to.”

The reasons for the bestowal of souls on the ‘bone-eating snot-flower’, Osedax mucofloris, are equally ineffable. The diminutive underwater worm – which has no eyes, legs, mouth or stomach, and lives in the bones of rotting whale-carcasses, digesting the fats and oils inside with the help of symbiotic bacteria – could hardly be less like humans, traditionally seen as the only creatures in existence to possess a spirit.

“Ironically it turns out that we humans are actually in the minority when it comes to God’s grace; each female snot-flower carries up to a hundred microscopic males in its gut, and although the males never develop past their larval stage, they contain large numbers of sperm,” Rompetutto said.

The landmark discovery has important implications for medical research. While the church maintains its opposition to human-animal hybrids, in general, the pope has made it clear that he sees no reason why mutant beings that are part-human, part-gorilla and part-snot-flower should not be produced at once.

Clergy were quick, however, to reassure worshipers that the latest research is quite exhaustive, and that no other animals will ever be found to enjoy God’s infinite compassion in this special way.

“We are the only ones with souls,” Cardinal Alaister Hube cautioned congregants ecstatic at the news of Our Lord’s kindness. “It’s just us, gorillas and the Osedax. End of story.”

Wicker Men

Twenty three baskets were woven outside the Houses of Parliament today in protest against the Iraq War, and eight baskets against the War in Afghanistan, in one of the biggest – and deftest – displays of basketry and wickerwork ever to oppose the twin conflicts, which have claimed the lives of half a million.

The country crafts went off largely without incident, although police sources confirmed that at least one lass nicked the tip of her index finger while attempting to rand bramble, and a lad got a callous off willow rods from waling his staths too hard.

“And in both cases,” Special Constable Culpepper Mordant told reporters over a pint later, “adroit weaving on the part of a nimble minority meant that our efforts to exert calm with our big police-sticks were significantly hampered.”

The braiding, which included both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ basketry styles, employed a range of pliable twigs, from hazel and clematis to honey-suckle and sloe, and – in some instances – wild broom, while the younger agitators twisted reeds.

According to organisers, the creels will be left in Parliament Square as a wattled testimony of the futility of war.

Afterwards, when business was concluded, the cabinet came out to sit with demonstrators in Saint James’s Park for an afternoon picnic of seedcakes, plum loaf and dandelion wine.

Foreign Secretary David Milliband asked if they thought it was better to broker a provisional truce between death-squads intent on avenging the blood of their martyrs going back to the beheading of the Infallible Imam in 661, on the one hand, and vigilantes loyal to the secret police of a despotic theocracy, on the other, or whether a preferable solution would be to strive for a settlement that included the sworn enemies of both sides in a loose affiliation of tribal interests and criminal gangs against Al-Qaeda backed militants, so as to prevent either of the former factions (and if so: which?) from imposing an extremist dictatorship until such time as one or other of the latter (and if so: how?) were powerful enough to engage them openly in a war of religiously motivated extermination.”

Protestor Ambrosia Hollyhock said she didn’t rightly know, but she felt sure the demonstration had sent a powerful signal to the mandarins in Whitehall.

Heathrow Delays Could Be Tantamount to Armageddon: Press

(Dance crazy: impatient Britons express wrath through one of their national dances.)

The new baggage-handling system at London’s Heathrow Airport has come in for sharp criticism from the All-Party Standing Committee on Transport. The eight-man body, which comprises 16 eyes and 32 limbs, called for a full public enquiry, following chaos which left thousands stranded, and tens of thousands wishing they were involved in some way so that they could send an outraged email to the BBC.

“It was an entirely avoidable débacle,” burbled committee head, Lord Graystroke-Purple, from the eldritch mass of peers, itself a creation of the chaos, before breaking down with shrieks of, “Look at me, oh, just look at me,” and, “I’m in meltdown!”

In a statement recorded a year ago but released only today, BAA bosses conceeded that, “with hindsight, a three kilometre deep chute opening onto a pit of sulphuric acid and fire was probably not the ideal choice for a fast and efficient way of getting customers’ luggage to the right place on time.

“Neither was the use of jets of liquid magnesium shot from nozzles around the pit walls conducive to a happy outcome for travellers.

“And while the Hamadryas baboon is a beautiful and intelligent creature with a complex social structure and an endearing sense of mischief, it’s likely that, in retrospect, more docile and relaxed animals, or even specially trained human beings, would have made better staff. Our state-of-the-art computers would not have so much excrement kneaded in between the keys. There would have been less bitten throats, and less rendings-apart generally.”

Meanwhile complaints from exasperated passengers continue to swarm in.

“Thanks to BAA and the new security measures, I’ve lost my identity and my ancient liberties,” fumed one women who wished she didn’t have to remain anonymous.

“I lost my step in Nantucket,” a drowned man said.

“We were told we had two choices,” chafed racehorse Royal Asphyxia through a whisperer. “Fly while your luggage remains here, or stay put and have your stuff sent on. I opted to send Jim – that’s my rider – so he could get settled in for the big one. But now they tell me he’s somewhere in Patagonia, and I don’t know where I’ll get a replacement. That little man cost more than a tenner! And with the spurs you’re looking at twice that, but really he was priceless. I’m so annoyed, I might just have myself put down!”

Even the transport regulator, Offnod, joined calls for an investigation when it emerged that as many as three small countries may have gone lost in the system. According to strongly worded protests entered by pilots into their own private log-books as they sipped their suppertime cocoas, Liechtenstein, Djibouti and the Arapaho Nation were not on any maps today.

“It’s possible these realms have become lodged behind some other landmass, or under the legend,” BAA Underboss Severine Golemsbottom said. “They may well turn up later. The important thing to remember is that the vast majority of countries were not lost today, and the shops are running fine.”

It’s Terminal: Airport Admits 20% of Flights “Lost” on First Day

(Day One at Terminal 5: image captured on mobile by passengers wedged in a baggage chute, to pass the time as they waited for help.)

LONDON: BAA have admitted that 20% of flights which set out from Heathrow’s Terminal Five yesterday “could be anywhere now.”

Nevertheless, bosses are sanguine about the new terminal’s baptism by bedlam.

“It’s perfectly normal for any new terminal to lose a few on its first day,” said disembodied spokeshead, Vultura Bendingaid. “These are teething problems: no less, no more.”

“We may know more if we can get logged on,” explained bookings manager Samael Clive. “That should be any week now.”

The shambles, which is thought to have occurred when a faulty computer began dispatching planes willy-nilly to undisclosed locations, is only the latest in a raft of glitches at the architectural triumph.

* The future’s all yours. Fortune teller Malicia Greaves was horrified to see baggage robots playing catch with her crystal ball, valued at £12 000 (by otherworldly sprites). “I called to them to stop it at once. One robot looked round, distracted by my raucous bellows, and missed his catch. The future ended right there for me, in a million glittering shards. I’ll never know what’s coming up now.”

* Man with no name. Whwhwhuffuffwhhw)#% Mc&, a linguist from Cheddar whose name consists of a series of whistles, barks, made-up noises and punctuation, claimed that Terminal 5 had breached his human rights when the new technology failed to address him properly. A number of others met with the same problem, but they were only silly foreigners.

* Anxious Mum. Rosie Velorum put two of her less important girls (Treacle, 6, and Business, 11) on a conveyer belt, just to see what would happen. “I don’t know where they are,” she told reporters and anyone who would listen. “You’d think they could have put up a sign or something.”

But it is the loss of flights which is causing most concern.

“I’d just opened Aspire, Microsoft’s aerospace package, and started allocating routes,” sobbed flight planner, Sally Watermargin, “when a friendly puppy popped up saying ‘You seem to be trying to run an airport. Would you like help with that?’ Foolishly I clicked yes, and everything went crazy.”

According to BAA bosses, though, the pandemonium could equally have been down to a baggage malfunction.

“It’s conceivable that someone took the 39 flights home by mistake,” Controller Peter Spaghettisburg said. “Anyone who was at the airport yesterday should check their luggage and think back carefully to what they packed. If it wasn’t a range of aircraft including Boeing 747s and 767s, Airbuses of various specifications, some Embraer E-Jets and a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, together with a little over 400 bewildered crew and passengers, bawling infants and a good half dozen seriously wrathful would-be terrorists – but that’s what you find there – then we urge you to get in touch. It’s possible we can exchange them for your toothbrush and copy of Matter by Iain M. Banks.

“Not likely. But it is possible.”

Interrogation Parrots Prone to Embellishment: Minister

The government are appealing for calm and credulity today in the wake of a mass breakout of interrogation-parrots from Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre, Bedfordshire.

The estimated 700 parrots, some of whom are parakeets, work at the illegal holding facility for the Borders and Immigration Agency, helping contractors to get the right answers from refugees - the right answers to help them. They should not be approached, police warn, as they are fluent in French, Turkish, Aramaic, Chinese, Portuguese, Pashto, Somali, Tagalog and Classical Greek, can whistle out a rough approximation of Land of Hope and Glory, and are very tame and pretty.

“They are also enormous fibbers,” said Lin Homer, head of the stern agency. “Members of the public who run into them, whether individually or en flock, are advised to place their fingers firmly in both ears and gossip loudly about a favourite celebrity in order to drown out any unfounded impressions of abuse which these accomplished mimics may chirrup.”

“Parrots are naturally aggressive conversationalists, with a notoriously broad conception of ‘good practice’,” Home Secretary Jacqui Smith cautioned. “Walkers should not be alarmed to hear squawked threats, or surprised if a swarm of iridescent interrogators should descend upon them, jostling them on all sides as it shouts that they are ‘black monkeys, ugh, ugh, ugh’, picks their pockets, denies them legal representation, jails them indefinitely without charge or trial along with their children in a known fire hazard, censors their access to the outside world, ignores requests for medical care, or tries to bundle them - quite hard - onto a plane bound for Baluchistan. These habits were almost certainly acquired in the wild, and have nothing to do with us.”

Smith was in no doubt, however, that the feathered facilitators were all still fit for purpose, although she was unable to say, at the present juncture, what that purpose was.

Meanwhile the BBC have replaced their regular schedule with a day of shows on the unreliability of budgie witnesses, interspersed with special features on the tendency of mynah birds to fantasise.

In a press conference this morning, the Chief Constable of Bedfordshire Police, Carl Asphyxix, backed the minister’s warning over the avian aides, adding that rumours of leading questions and high pitched ethnic slurs echoing round local woods were all hearsay, “but still it’s best if members of the public stay clear for the time being, just in case there is anything else dangerous happening there which might be a danger to them,” he said, eyeballing reporters as he absentmindedly flicked the safety catch of his taser on and off.

Prime Minister David Brown was unavailable for comment, as he was busy unveiling holocaust memorials today, lest history parrot itself, and taking after-dinner stands against tyrants in oppressed – but safe – lands far away.

Fun Run Raises £0.00 for Research

(Argh: the spectre of Johnnie’s shame. Composite image from psychic CCTV cameras installed last March in the village shop to discourage covetousness.)

Sponsors of Johnnie Valliant’s bid at Cauldercotte Easter Fun Run, from Cauldercotte Mill to the Village Green, were coping as best they could yesterday with the 11-year-old’s dismal failure to fund research into a serious condition.

“It’s a shame he didn’t manage to complete the mile,” said Mrs. Valliant. “I suppose our ten p’s will just have to go back in the penny pot now.”

Pharmaceutical giant Glaxo-Smith-Kline Plc. also found the Year 7 student’s performance disappointing.

“We had hoped to make quite a sizable donation,” a spokesman for the multinational consortium said.

“It’s so frustrating not to be able to give,” agreed representatives of Novartis International AG. “But when little Johnnie dropped out, there was little we could do. Such a pity. It was such a worthy cause.”

Avarice is endemic to the world, with new conscience-resistant strains appearing all the time. The condition is estimated to cost the economy over a dozen trillion pounds each year and to skew society’s moral compass by almost 180 degrees off the straight and narrow. It hits the Third World especially.

Valliant was still distraught today when reporters wrestled him to the ground on his way to school and asked him how he felt, but he insisted that he’d tried.

“I got stitch at the phone box. It was really hard to run then.”

I Misspoke: Ripper

Acclaimed serial murderer The Walsingdene Ripper has admitted that he “probably misspoke” when telling ramblers that Walsingdene’s precipitous Cliff Walk was still safe to traverse.

The popular cliff-top bridleway has long been a mainstay for local nature-lovers and courting couples, but became unsafe earlier this year when erosion caused much of it to fall into the sea.

Asked why he also removed all seventeen warning signs that line the route up to the crumbling landmark, and replaced them with hand-painted placards of his own design which assured sightseers of a “spectacular treat AND refreshments,” the Ripper granted that he might have “misremoved and misreplaced them,” and conceded that there was a “real or very real” chance that at least some of his homemade substitutes had been mispainted, misleading to the misslaughter of more than thirty walkers.

He confirmed that there were no refreshments.

Pathologists confirmed, from the hundreds of bullet holes found in bodies recovered from the jagged rocks below, that the shots had almost certainly been misfired from the range of automatic and semiautomatic weaponry recovered that day from the Ripper’s own misconstructed and miscamouflaged cliff-top den.

Asked who he thought was to blame for the errors, the Ripper said that was for God and the Devil to judge, but personally he felt sure it was all the Government’s fault. That was certainly the impression he got from the undine in the dream (pictured), and she’d been right about him being compelled to obey her, so she was probably right about that too.

Summing up, Judge Justice Justin Jaspers Justinson roared, “Crikey!”

He dismissed the case for want of someone less rich and famous to sentence.

Bush “Cautiously Optimistic” as Death-Toll Falls

(Kill more for us: future generations urge the president on to greater acts of barbarity in his dreams.)

WASHINGTON: Advocates of the War in Iraq were jubilant this week as US troop-deaths fell for the first time since the conflict began.

The official number of war-dead had risen steadily till Sunday last, when it suddenly levelled off at just over 4000, then took an unprecedented dip, before being taken out of the public domain for security reasons.

US Defense Secretary Dick Cheney is said to be “over the moon” with the statistic, and to have awarded himself up to seven celebratory awards, whose exact nature could not be specified due to security concerns.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rejected claims that the fall was just a blip, and guffawed derisively at rumours that it was something to do with the White House's chaotic filing system.

Meanwhile President Bush has greeted the news with cautious optimism.

“Calls for a real ole fandango, ’s what,” he said. “Why, we’s puttin’ the calk to ’em now, surely are. Ain’t that so? I figure they’s fixin’ to holler calf-rope purty durn soon, you ask me. No, sir, we do not, at this time, know what’s causing the fall. Bonus of the Surge, most like. Only thing you folks needs to know is: that big ole die-up’s done finished now, yup.”

White House aids added that that although secret now, it can be safely assumed that the figure will continue to drop indefinitely.

By pure coincidence, Friedman's Index, the official indicator of US economic growth, which had been plummeting for months, shot up to 4000 points the day troop-deaths fell, and has been rising steadily ever since.

Behaviour Stats Marred by Very Naughty Girl

While levels of disruption have fallen in the overwhelming majority of British schools, a study this week shows, the behaviour of one girl has got significantly worse.

Deseret Treadwell, 13, of St. Uncumber’s Church of England School in Ghoul, Leicestershire, is described by teachers as “hardcore”, verging on “super hardcore”. The number of days she was caught carrying an offensive weapon has soared from 0.5% of the week in 2006 to over 90% last year, while incidents of abusive language from the unruly teen space-rocketed from 803 to a stark 11 251, much of it directed at teachers.

“Her attitude is simply harrowing,” said Mr. Lanyard, science. “She once gobbed off at rhodium, which is my favourite transition metal, and an essential ingredient in many alloys.”

“Her ipod is full of The Speeches of Great Pirates,” said Mr. Gussage, suspended, “and it’s largely hate-speech against the discipline-providers of that era, if the truth be told.”

“Ghoul is a tranquil village,” said Mrs. Nereid, art. “We do not like her.”

After one particularly trite Mr. Masterson assembly about the importance of forgiveness, upon hearing the dull-witted Head of Lower School make some punishment notices, Deseret is reported to have yelled, “Why don’t you forgive them, you hypocrite wh*lp!”

She also reads books on Arabic under the desk in French, and intends to become a Muslim, classmates say, “Just as soon as I find out what one of them is.”

She regularly skives off Personal and Social Education to scrump designer tops for her mates, and once helped six convicts to escape from Ghoul Gaol. Though later apprehended, the fugitives were serving 300 consecutive life sentences between them (albeit they only had a joint life expectancy of 200 years), for crimes ranging from crossing imaginary lines on a map drawn by medieval warlords, to holding noxious notions. They shouldn’t have been approached, said police, as they possessed a composite IQ of 600, the ability to leap a height of nine metres combined, and the mutual strength of one sick tiger.

“Only in the summer term does her disruptiveness lessen,” sighs form-teacher Mrs. Thorgumbald. “Then she sits at the back with a wistful smile, smoking hedgerow opium from an old can of Pomegranate 7 Up, and making insightful comments on literature.”

Knowhow Book of Spycraft Updated to Reflect Realities of Modern Espionage

LONDON: Publishers Usborne are to reissue their bestselling Knowhow Book of Spycraft, updating the 70s children’s spy-primer to reflect the new rules of engagement of the War on Terror.

The original, considered a classic in its day, was a lovingly illustrated how-to-guide to the tricks of the espionage trade, but - spies say - is showing its age.

“It’s frozen in a Cold War mindset,” explained MI5’s John de Lacy, a consultant on the new edition. “Take disguise, for instance: turning over a scarf with a different colour on either side may have left Warsaw Pact agents wondering where you’d got to, but is probably not going to fool a hardened Al-Qaeda operative. Nor is the radical Islamist bent on martyrdom going to be deterred by a matchboxful of beans tipped over their head as they open a door, painfully embarrassing as this would be for any normal spy.”

Instead, the new edition focuses on the profiling and the rendition of suspected enemy agents, and psychological warfare.

The new guide is not without its critics, however.

“I couldn’t find a single cartoon strip on costumes,” said Spy Z who advised the writers of the old volume on the art of concealment. “How are spies going to win the War on Terror if they don’t even know how to make themselves look fatter with a small cushion?

“We now have page after page of naked men being attacked by dogs, or else with ladies’ nickers on their heads,” Spy Z sputtered, reddening slightly under his cocoa powder, “What does this have to do with spying?”

His archrival, the mysterious Black Hat Spy was not impressed either: “Certainly there is a section on telecommunication, but it says nothing about grinning hard and holding your nose while speaking on the phone, only how to bumb a captured agent with the receiver.

“My Morse blink signals are sadly neglected too. It took me 15 years to develop that method. And now it’s been replaced with a list of mock execution dos and don’ts and a fold out chart of where to make incisions on an enemy spy’s willie. That’s not nice. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even Spy Z.

“And if 21st century spies aren’t taught how to encrypt messages by splitting words in the wrong places,” the master agent snorted through his false moustache, “why, they might as well be writing plaintext!”

But Usborne are unrepentant.

“These are the realities of modern espionage,” said de Lacy, “Black Hat, Yellow Dress Girl, Spy Z and The One Arm Spy were great agents once, but they’re living in the past. Besides, there was felt to be an overwhelming need for this update, particularly after the publication last year of the revised Knowhow Book of Jokes & Tricks, now The Usborne Book of Unending Jihad.”

Tributes for Home Secretary as Deported Woman Dies

(Boo hoo: Speculation is rife that the government’s next project will be ‘something done to babies’, after a memo leaked to the BBC was found to consist entirely of crude sketches of weeping infants.)

LONDON: Tributes continue to swamp in for UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith following the death yesterday of a very poorly woman deported from a Cardiff hospital in January.

Ama Sumani, 39, needed thalidomide to stay alive, but the drug is not available in her native Ghana.

“It was a tough decision; you are an astoundingly brave lady,” said Foreign Secretary David Milliways.

“It must have been an agonising decision to deport Ms. Sumani,” opposition leader Gordon Cameron told a triumphant House of Commons, “but Jacqui stuck to her guns and now we can all reap the rewards. Whatever they may be.”

Millionaire the Queen added her compliments, speaking of her deep satisfaction on learning of the mother of two’s demise in Accra yesterday, and hinting that Ms. Smith might receive an unprecedented double knighthood in her next New Year’s Honours’ List, together with up to 30 OBEs, for her insistence on the cancer sufferer’s removal.

She was joined in her praise for the Home Secretary by the spectre of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, who was granted a brief leave of absence from Aryan hell to acknowledge the British minister’s courage.

“Also, es hat endlich geklappt. Bravo, gut gemacht! Ich gratuliere Sie,” he moaned approvingly, among other sweet nothings, before his visa also expired.

“We are delighted with the outcome,” was the simple and moving comment of ordinary, nice people Mary Powell, Swansea, and Richard Round, Cardiff. “We don’t know why.”

Bin Laden Apologises for Terror Gaffe

Osama bin Laden has issued a second tape, lauding his own honesty, 24 hours after admitting to a slip of the tongue in an earlier tape he made.

“I did not mean to suggest that Pope Benedict XVI drew the cartoons of oranges, blackboards and abstract geometrical patterns with which the crusader artists have so cruelly teased our faith,” the 71 year-old father of a hundred said, following a whispered conversation with terror deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. “That was just a slip of the tongue.”

But terror critics have pointed to a series of occasions over the past eight years on which the isolated sheikh asserted that Pope Benedict XVI drew all 13 cartoons himself using a set of papal nibs.

On a C60 audio cassette placed behind a loose brick last January, Bin Laden stated, “It’s common knowledge, and has been reported in the media, that the pope made those insult-drawings and did the inking on them. That’s well known.”

Prompted by questions in the terror community over his remarks, the Afghan war veteran insisted that there was “compelling proof that the pope has attended night-classes in zionist drawing at a prominent Danish academy.”

It was only when the caliph’s second-in-command whispered something in his ear on yesterday’s video, that Bin Laden corrected himself.

“I’m sorry. Crusader draughtsmen did sketch the oranges and blackboards with the intention of heaping abuse on our sacred prophet,” he said, “although not the pope, not the pope. I’m sorry.”

“Gawd help us all,” said disgruntled martyr Atif as-Salami, “if this man is the prince of global jihad.”

Obey Our Calls for Calm, Not Those of Secessionist Scoundrels: Beijing

LHASA: State authorities in Tibet Autonomous Region have appealed to Tibetans to respond to legitimate calls for calm in the normality following last week’s riots, not those of the Dalai Lama.

“Dalai is a monster,” said veteran Tibetan official Ragdi. “Anyone found surrendering to police or going about their lawful business in his name can expect to feel the full force of the law.”

Ragdi, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, said the situation was now basically under control, but stressed the need for rioters to give themselves up for the right reasons.

“Whoever heeds deceitful, secessionist pleas for peaceful co-existence in preference to the pleas for peaceful co-existence of the rightful authorities is no friend of Tibet! It would be better to carry on looting than to be swayed by the non-violent remarks of the Dalai clique in its hypocrisy, which are only intended to sabotage the Olympics.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qui-Gon Jin added that the unrest was caused by fraudulent entreaties to end it from the exiled hierophant, rather than by anything done to nuns with high-voltage devices by the lawful government of the country, even though the government is basically in complete control of the situation.

“His true secessionist face is shown by these appeals for calm. This gives the lie to what he says about wanting the Olympics to go ahead so that everyone can be happy.”

Police were out in strength today on the streets of Lhasa and other towns to protect the Tibetan people from unauthorised displays of harmony after riots which caused minor damage to more than 300 premises, and left up to ten minor regions in flames.

Think For Yourself, Or Else

LONDON: One hundred of the best-behaved teenagers in England and Wales are to receive compulsory “free thinking” lessons, according to a new initiative launched today on Prime Minister Gordon Camberwick’s Wikipedia homepage, to combat what some are calling the “conformity time bomb”.

The move comes in the wake of a survey showing British youngsters to be some of the worst in the E.U. when it comes to thinking and acting for themselves. In fact, British students ranked below every nation in Europe except for Germany and Vatican City.

“The epidemic of compliance is a worrying sign,” said eccentric mentor, and poor man’s Yoda, Dungeon Master from the animated series Dungeons & Dragons. “For a government committed to identity cards, it is essential the coming generation have at least some identity to start with, preferably one of the ten base classes permitted by the Player’s Handbook.”

The growing home-grown homogenisation is thought to result from barely contained hysteria, brought about by reports such as this one.

“We now know, as scientists, that this is not good,” said scientist Mazy Raintree. “I myself was once done for scrumping designer T-shirts from Top Shop to pay for a science-book addition, and I now look back on those days with fond nostalgia.”

“Yes,” said pundit Linus Axiom.

“It’s clearly a worrying development,” said Simon Constantine, now 40, whose 13-year-old self appears daily on BBC footage of a boy throwing a brick through the window of an empty car. “I wouldn’t like to be in my own shoes if I was one of those selected.”

But opposition leader David Brown has poured cold tea on the scheme, saying that the British tax payer (Jenny Howard) would have to pick up the pieces when future changes in mores invalidate the currently sound principles it is based on.

Sugar to Launch Charity Apprentice

Abrasive capitalist Sir Alan Sugar is to host a charity version of his hit programme The Apprentice. Sir Alan’s new show will give children orphaned by the Asian tsunami a chance to compete for the honour of working for Sir Alan in Sir Alan’s Sarawak-based filth mine.

“I believe it will be an absolute blockbuster,” Sugar said.

Sir Alan, 60, who advises the government on where to tell workers to stick their need for a livelihood, said he would not be cowed by the traumatised infants.

“There are no rules in The Apprentice. See how clever I am?” he said. “If they don’t like it, they can **** [fuck] off.”

The show has already attracted controversy. In a trailer last week, Sir Alan seemed to call one little girl a “ne’er sated scrap-pile,” then nutted passers-by for skiving.

“I wouldn’t have minded,” said pedestrian Manjalara Dewi, who required 17 stitches and hard threats to let the matter drop, “but I’m not even in the programme.”

New Quest for Adventurous Prince

Hardly is the blood dried on his falchion, or the sweat of battle aired from his battered hauberk, than bold Prince Harry, fourth in line to the throne of England, is to set forth on a new quest, palace sources heralded today. The tidings come mere weeks after the gallant grandson’s return from the crusades!

The quest is believed to have been triggered by the arrival of a mystery knight at Westminster Cathedral during an orgy of prayer and thanksgiving to celebrate the young lord’s homecoming. According to minstrels, the uncouth knight bore tidings grim and a plea for help from a beast.

Serfs’ groups and balladeers are expected to welcome the adventure, providing there are many lively episodes in it to tell of by the time the nights draw in, including moderate violence and some sexy scenes. The expedition will also preserve their homes and livestock from falling prey to the prince and his fellow young lords during one of their practice ravages.

However, the merchant classes and heathen moneylenders, already reeling under the weight of crusade-taxes, have expressed some dismay at the added burden: “Then there is the risk of another ransom payment, should the prince get himself captured again,” carped heathen spokesman, Moses of Ely. “We were horribly taxed last time to get him back from the paynim, and we have no idea how much this new beast would charge.”

Witnesses have described the mystery knight variously as “a mickle man on molde” and “verie geasie,” but they were left in no doubt that the quest is real.

“Oh, it’s real alright,” said Sergeant-at-Arms Tracy Merrily, who had wished to remain anonymous.

“Its object is to slay a beast which has been putting pressure on villagers in a faraway land: not pressure to blight their crops or hand over their natural resources to the brave contractors of Christendom, but pressure to abide by customs so unfair they’re positively mediaeval,” the prince told startled damsels who gathered on the minster steps to see him off, before spurring his horse into the sunrise. “There’s nothing base about it.”

Faulty Law-Wheel to Blame for Bad Acts

It has emerged that a malfunctioning law-wheel could be responsible for as much as 90% of legislation enacted in the British Houses of Parliament over the past thirty years, sources revealed today.

The acts and bills, long regarded as a concerted attack on rightness, it now seems, may simply have been the by-product of the rogue apparatus, which was found spinning out of control by cleaning staff in a Westminster basement early this morning.

“This puts the lie to the many conspiracy theories that have also been doing the rounds,” Home Secretary Serendipity Tulip texted reporter mates. “Groups have always claimed that we had it in for the electorate, but now everyone can see that our hands are clean.”

The unhinged device is thought to have worked itself loose during the 1970s and begun enacting a series of outlandish measures, ranging from a ‘poll’ tax to the squandering of national utilities, from attacks on workers and migrants to the bizarre insult of identity cards.

“At the time, we assumed these bills were coming from our party bosses,” said MP for South Cave, the Right Hon. Spavin Lourdes. “So we had no choice but to pass them, for all their unpopularity and general Nazification. Sometimes we did hear maniacal laughter issuing from the cellars, but we all assumed that was just the Prime Ministers counting out their cash.”

Bad Pennies to Boost Youth Spending

(Models of rectitude: Pirates Bartholomew Black Bart Roberts and ‘Xyltrix’ cavort on the astral plane at the news.)

Chancellor of the Exchequer Azeroth Moonchilde has unveiled a radical new scheme today: an alternative ‘bad’ currency to boost the spending of young consumers.

It is estimated that the currency, whose notes are to feature prominent malefactors in place of scientists and authors, will be up to three times cooler than the existing means of exchange, and approximately seventeen times more wicked.

Pirates and thieves will feature on the smaller denominations, although there are also expected to be a few bent coppers, and war criminals - or equivalent - on anything over a tenner.

“With the credit crunch and global recession looming, it was felt imperative to get youngsters out of meditation-parlours, book-swap schemes and free festivals, and back into the shops where they all belong,” Moonchilde decreed.

While agreeing in principle with the need to incentivise acquisitive behaviours, critics have voiced concern over the high evilness of the new currency: “I have nothing against profiteering and usury,” Archbishop Sir Alaistair Hube told congregants from his gilded pulpit. “But it does vex me deeply to see Elisabeth Fry, the Quaker philanthropist and prison-reformer, replaced on the five-pound note with Major Stede Bonnet, one of the most violent buccaneers who ever set sole to plank, and Edward Elgar (whose pastoral symphonies have given me such delight) on the 20 with the Scotch mass-cannibal Sawney Bean. But to see the £50 slot go from Imperialist warlord Sir John Houblon to occasional hemp-abuser Peony Berry from Edenbridge, Kent, makes by blood boil, truly it does.”

Ripper Apologises for Slavery

(Hey guys, I just thought: why don’t we have a welly-wang instead this year? Or hot cross buns?)

In a tearful ceremony today, high-profile serial killer the Walsingdene Ripper startled fans, and wrongfooted detractors, when he apologised for the crimes of his Dahomeyan ancestors.

“I offer this apology,” said the Ripper, who had already apologised many times informally, “on behalf of myself, my wife May and our unborn daughter Harriet, for their indirect role in the enslavement and destitution of the Fon people some time around the middle of the 17th century, and for the rites of mass human sacrifice inflicted yearly upon the Fon, and neighbouring tribes, by my ancestor King Wegbaja.

“For more than 100 years, Wegbaja and his successors profited by the transatlantic slave-trade, beheading thousands in the degraded rituals of their indigenous death-cult. From their throne of skulls in the fastness of Agbome, they engaged in wars of aggression against the Whydah and Allada peoples, fuelled by European arms and gold, and buried countless women alive to serve them in the afterlife.

“Some say that acknowledging such deeds is a form of ‘self hate’, but I hope that by this empty gesture I can contribute in some small way to pressuring others who happen to look a bit like me because their ancestors lived in a similar climate, into expressing their contrition too.”

However the Ripper has so far rejected calls to apologise for the brutal murder of his own neighbour, Mrs. Constance Higgins, last Tuesday, calling the decapitation and cannibalism of the 85-year-old “the right thing to do,” and denying the need for a trial.

“History will be my judge,” he said.

Golden Calculator for MPs to Help with Expenses

(Gone commishin’: parliamentary commissioners, Lords Fugue and Pym, reveal their strategy to reporters in a vision.)

All Members of Parliament are to receive a ten-foot-tall golden calculator as part of the government’s accountability drive, Westminster sources announced in visions today. The calculators, which are thought to cost a dozen million pounds each, will be able to add and multiply and find powers of.

“However, we felt that subtraction and division would be superfluous to MPs’ needs when calculating their expenses and only distract them,” parliamentary commissioner Lord Sir Cecil “Centrifugium” Fugue told reporters in a series of visions and portents across London over the course of this morning.

“Indeed they would,” said fellow commissioner, and maverick lord, Lord Malvoleo Pym, speaking not in words but waves of scintillation that streamed unceasingly from his giant iridescent head.

Critics have been quick to point out that, under current legislation, MPs are provided with a silver abacus each, and a special allowance to pay for any trauma to fingertips incurred while using the gem-encrusted, pocket counting-frames, the exact amount of which is left to each individual MP’s discretion.

But Lord Fugue is unrepentant: “It is true, certainly,” he boomed, “that MPs are already provided with silver devices, but they hardly ever use them. We felt that a shinier metal might appeal to them more, and help them to correctly add up and disclose their expenses.”

Some commentators also expressed unease at the use of hallucinated entities as the only form of parliamentary regulation, fearing they might be too ethereal to have an impact on graft. But the twin lords were unavailable for comment, as they had both worn off by then.

To Cap it All

(Oopsh: Employment oportunities for fools are limited.)

Police are warning fools in the Scammondsby area to hold onto their hats, after a series of headgear-robberies left capless more than twelve fools and a dunce.

Inspector Ketch Mangonel said: “There are a lot of stealers at this time of the year (Saturnalia), and fool’s caps, with their baubles and attractive particoloured design, are always a popular target. We’re not saying idiots shouldn’t have fun or stop committing daft acts - we just want them to be sensible. We urge fools to bear with us.”

But it seems unlikely that fools will heed this warning. In the words of fool spokesperson, Dorathy Weapon: “Whaaa? Bear with us?! Where? Where a bear?”

The alert applies not only to fools, but also dunces, jesters and pied-pipers.

Clue to War on Stolen Laptop?

(General intelligence: General Sir Phoenix ‘Birdie’ Resurgam, left, and General Sir Frank ‘Bitsie’ Manticore, left and right, escape justice at London Crown Court today by outstaring prosecutors.)

It has emerged that sensitive data on an M.O.D. laptop, that went missing on Friday, may include the real reason for the War in Iraq.

The laptop is thought to contain arguments for and against the conflict, which has claimed over a thousand hundred million thousand lives, including up to two British lives. Experts believe the arguments include several which are “compelling” or “very compelling”, although they are unsure what these might be.

“As yet we have no idea,” said military analyst Elysabinth Hightones. “It could be anything really. Clearly they can’t be the reasons we were given, as these were both poor and contradictory.”

“These arguments are highly sensitive. They’re nothing like the reasons you’ve been given,” said Prime Minister Gordon Camberwell, in a specially worded announcement. “But to disclose our true motive prematurely,” he added, “is exactly what our enemies want. It would be playing into the hands of those who seek to bring down the British way of life,” answering all questions from journalists with an invariable “no, it’s not that. It’s nothing like that.”

Unnamed sources have hinted at a colossal reward for anyone with information leading to the laptop’s recovery, and implied (by intonation and double-entendre) that the government may have pledged to reveal the reason once and for all, if it is ever found.

If true, the pledge might also cover the grounds for future conflicts, said to be on the laptop, including upcoming wars in Iran, Colombia, Pakistan, Korea, Peru, Nepal, Sudan, Australia, Iceland and the Third and Fourth World Wars, experts opined.

The theft happened while generals popped out to buy some spuds for their tea.

Women Must Dress as Cheap Whores: Cleric Rules

Women must cast aside jilbab and khumoor and dress more risquély, radical cleric Agar Jelidi has ruled. According to the aged hermit, the demure garb of Muslim women is “just too much”.

“Increasingly we find ourselves fetishising the hijab. The fantasies men project onto such garments are excessive, and often a source of more corruption than the flesh of the wicked gender itself. Of course, this is only natural, since this raiment is the prime denoter of Satan’s sex in our society, and since the evil ones are full of wiles, praise be to Allah! As well as being highly sensuous objects in and of themselves, with their black, silky denier and Arabian Nights allure of the exotic, the burqa and the niqab encourage the corrupting dreams that come in the night, and on bumpy buses, and sometimes afflict even God’s appointed arbiters.

“Also,” Jelidi stated in his fatwa, “there is the danger that, with limited visual cues, men are forced to concentrate on women’s personalities and the wise things they say; many women have quite attractive personalities, and some are a fount of wisdom, such is the accursed power with which the Avenging Lord of Mercy of has imbued them.

“Indeed,” the uncompromising cleric told reporters, “even as I speak of the jilboob, the jirbil and the baobab, their lustrous texture is stirring the excitement that leads to perdition in my loins, and the corrupting power of female notions is giving me food for thought.

“We must also think of our young men, who are foolish because of their youth, and even more vulnerable to sin. To them I say: yes, a woman can cause your heartbeat to quicken, and your blood pressure to rise, yea, even produce a short-lasting buzz, but is it worth it? For the consequences of sin are panic attacks, depression, memory-loss and eternal damnation.”

Jelidi has received widespread support from fellow clerics for his landmark expostulation, and polite silence from neighbouring hermits, Lamas Lizzie Lobsang and Dzogchen Trilbi Rimpoche of Cave 9.

“Cynical” Opposition Leader Slammed for Dream Intrusion

(I’m going to hurt you ahahahah...: recently deceased post-mistress Mrs. Bradbury from Cradbury pays a terrifying nocturnal visit.)

Opposition leader Gordon Campbell has drawn widespread flak for his decision to allow TV cameras to film inside the dreams of his daughter Juniper last night.

Child-welfare groups and enemies have dubbed the psyche-ingress a “cynical exercise in political showmanship” and a “headline-grabbing publicity stunt in the most Freudian sense.”

The dream - in which journalists were trapped on snooker-table that was also fish-tank full of weeds and tadpoles and “special underwater clowns”, before being sucked down a corner pocket into the Campbells’ back garden, only that had turned into an arid, twilit savannah, and then they were chased by a hadrosaur with grinning head of old Mrs Bradbury from the post-office, all covered in blinking fairy-lights, until they awoke in terror - has been slammed by journalists as a nightmare.

“I woke up shaking uncontrollably and dripping cold sweat,” said Leighton Constantine, political editor of the Times.

“When I saw the haddo, I nearly had a heart-attack!” Basilette Elders of Sky News admitted. “We were expecting something sweeter and more cute, possibly involving squirrels.”

“Why did the clowns have smoking metal penises?” wondered ITV’s Piers Monk. “Why?”

But Campbell has fought back strongly against his critics, rejecting claims that his daughter’s subconscious was exploited: “What few seem to realise is that you are all characters in one of my dreams. In dreams, we generally have poor judgement and abysmal self-control. The normal ethical game-rules can hardly apply in a world where everyone acts out their basest instincts. Soon I will wake up. When that happens, I will have done nothing wrong. Yes, it will be very soon now.”

Oath of Allegiance Mandatory for British Wildlife

(It is not known yet how the oath will be enforced.)

LONDON: From 1st April 2008, an oath of allegiance to the Queen will be mandatory for all British fauna and the majority of British flora. That’s if new legislation comes into bud in the spring.

“British wildlife is some of the best, and certainly the most British wildlife in the world,” said Home Secretary Lord Napier-Wraith. “We can be rightly proud of it. Sadly much of this is unwitting Britishness. Few kingfishers or daddy-long-legses are even aware of their inherent Britishness, and the number of fern species who acknowledge their debt of honour to the British crown is vanishingly small. If we cannot rely on the loyalty of the animal, plant and fungal kingdoms of these isles, who can we trust?”

Fellow lord, Lady-Lord Beatrice Cornwallis-Devils agrees that manners have come to a sorry pass: “The wildlife is just super, but community spirit is in short supply. Golden eagles are untidy and inconsiderate to other birds. Brock is arrogant. He only comes out at night and tends to intimidate smaller animals. Mr. Fox is too sly, and Young Miss squirrel too mischievious by half. Master Jackdaw is very light fingered. I think this vow will be a Godsend and lick them all into some sort of shape.”

The exact wording of the pledge has yet to be announced, or translated into the myriad combinations of howls, barks, caws, antenna feel-ups, lows and bellows, shrieks and squeaks, volatiles, sonar beams and discharges of specially scented urine in which the British ecosphere will be expected to swear.

While broadly supported by lords, baronets and dukelets, the oath has yet to find widespread acceptance among the country’s scattered human communities. The wild themselves have been largely silent on the matter, although one waterboatman from Avon is said to be “reviewing his options”, and there are reports that some gentians in Sevenoaks are a riot of colour.

Royal Dwarf Found Alive in Afghanistan

(Traumatastic: Joshua’s girlfriend Buttons weeps with pride at the news of how well he served his master.)

Prince Harry, is said to be delighted today after his personal dwarf was found alive and well in Afghanistan’s notorious Helmand Province.

The prince’s dwarf Joshua Bartlet, nicknamed Lucky, had been missing in the brutal warzone for three months following his master’s triumphant return from duty, and Army Bosses admitted they’d certainly have given him up for lost, if the thought had ever crossed their minds.

“Lucky is a top dwarf,” said General Sir Peregrine Daubsley-Jaundice. “I’m sure the prince would have been quite irritated if he’d never turned up.”

Fellow general, General Sir Ingram Thistle, concurred, calling him a “wonderful specimen of his type.”

Bartlet - whose chores in Afghanistan included adjusting the fractious fourth-in-liner’s cock for him when it got jiggled out of place by running around in battles, and serving as the prince’s catamite in emergencies - is reportedly ashamed not to have been able to do more for his overlord, but pleased to be home.

According to military sources, he was often obliged to fetch the celebrity grandson’s used bullets from behind enemy lines when his master overshot, and this is where he disappeared.

“There is no question that the little man didn’t give it 360% though, or that he showed cowardice in leaving his liege’s side,” military pundit Max Ray explained. “It was only thought necessary for Private Bartlet to bring in the bullets because they are made of gold - this, simply to alert other soldiers to the prince’s presence so that they can protect him better. If they were left in no man’s land, it is likely that the Taliban would collect them to sell on E-bay for a tidy sum, which would be a disgrace to the nation.”

The young retainer is believed to have survived by disguising himself as a maniac.

Taliban spokesman Agar Jelidi told reporters, “We knew all along that the prince’s dwarf was preaching among us. But unfortunately Allah the All-Compassionate in his infinite mercy protected the infidel cur from our wrath, Allah be praised! He will not be so lucky next time.”

Photo Response

(Click to enlarge. (Note: clicking will also enlarge the photograph.))

The old school photo we printed last week obviously tickled a few ‘memory-buds’. We had a phenomenalogical response from people in the Symbolthorpe and Great Harmington area. Thanks to everyone who wrote in. Many of you remembered the rabbit-faced boy in the front row with the interlinked vortical haloes of tempero-spacial distortion radiating from his head, although only Mrs Sudbeck of Left Street, Howle could recall his name: Y-Rax.

There were also a fair few reminiscences of the tall mustachioed girl at the back. Several people mentioned her distinctive metallic aroma, and a number of you recalled something about a pirate. The row of tiny corroded children that seem to spiral out of the centre of the picture, starting roughly at the teacher’s hand, also drew plenty of comment. Bobby Dividend of Symbolthorpe Labs thought they might be the miniature ‘virus ghosts’ that afflicted the school for about a year after pupils were inoculated with a new vaccine against headpox, while Marianne Harpoon guessed correctly that they were her own tormented thoughts accidentally captured on camera due to glare.

Finally, there is the teacher herself, her face almost totally obscured by chaos. Terry Towelling from Harmington Green remembered that she was a Trojan, although he couldn’t recall in what sense, and Jenny Presto, 3 The Cedars, once heard in a dream that her teacher was “a quite five sprite”, but was also uncertain as to what this actually meant. She was known to be responsible for a good harvest, in some way. Mabel Id and Mabel Fighter, both of Spute, told us that she was respected by local ‘bad-sorts’, as she was the mother of many of the most famous serial killers of the area, including Harry Hatrick and the notorious William ‘Smiley’ Chum. Her name, apparently, was Miss Odile Crocodile - thanks to Bob Stangury for that - and her star-sign was Ergot Fungus.

Amae desu!

(Artist’s impression of a Japanese feeling.)

Japanese emotions are to be taught in schools to make British teenagers less boring. The move comes in answer to parental complaints that their offspring are “just incredibly dull”, and is intended to expand the emotional palate of British youth.

Currently the main emotions which British teenagers have the capacity to experience are nostalgia, yearning, whimsy, embarrassment and “the grumps”. But the new proposals could see this tally nearly quintupled to a gamut of over twenty emotions. Unlike British feelings, many of the oriental additions are nonlinear and may be experienced in up to seven mental dimensions at once. They include amae (a sense of cosy dependency), shitashimi (a special kind of intimacy), aware (contemplation of universal transience) and bushido (an almost suicidal sense of duty).

“Japanese kids are some of the coolest on earth,” Prime Minister David Browneron told the House of Commons yesterday. “We should copy them. Also there is something about social inclusion, I think. And it will make knife-crime more classy.”

British emotions have traditionally been viewed as rather staid. But campaigners claim that they are just as valid as the exotic imports, and better suited to the drizzly climate. Others have warned of the risk that greater emotional literacy could encourage a black market in imported feelings, fears which were borne out this week by police raids that netted 256 hours of marah (a sullen brooding from Malaysia), from a house in Surrey, and a haul of berserksgangrrr (Norwegian fury) with a street value of ten terrible minutes and a lifetime of regret.

On the plus side, it is reported that a pilot scheme in Llandudno has already incentivised up to one teen to write a haiku about his favourite computer game, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter II:

“Smuts like black feathers
On southern wind at sunset:
Commie body parts.”