Muhammad Action Figure Demanded / Denounced

Muslim leaders from two universes have called for a “Day of Impotent Rage” following the decision of Games Toyshop to - and not to - release an action figure of their prophet Muhammad.

“By omitting His Messenger, peace be upon him, the crusader toymakers insult God Himself,” protested radical cleric Yusuf al-Giraffi.

“By their blasphemous inclusion of God’s Messenger in their range,” his counterpart from the other universe agreed, “the infidels make a mockery of our unquestioning Faith.”

The two leaders joined forces to menace passers-by with placards and ‘dark looks’ outside London’s Saint Pancras Wormhole, threatening to boycott their own rational faculties if their demands were not met. But the angry alter-egos deny conspiring to shake hands outside the Israeli embassy, in hopes of triggering a waveform collapse with the strength of a trillion Hiroshimas: “Not in this reality, we didn’t.”

In our universe, Games Toyshop defended the decision, calling Muhammad a thinker “of purely local significance whose role in the development of wisdom is limited, for the most part, to doctrinal territory-marking among the Judaism-based sects of Late Antiquity. While he certainly had an impact on fashion and symbolic hygiene taboos specific to some cultures of Earth’s Middle East, his contribution to human understanding generally is negligible. No insult intended. Our Pocket Sages range is simply aimed at a broader market.”

In the other universe, Games Toyshop defended the decision, calling Muhammad “arguably the single sageliest guy in this or any other world. No insult intended to other wisemen. He comes complete with moon-splitter laser accessory, fiery halo and electric TurboCamelTM battle-mount. Batteries not included.”

Sales of Pocket Sages - which include galactic rebel The Primarch Horus, would-be ender of all suffering Siddharta Gautama, and popular televangelist Pat Robertson - have exploded as the controversy grows.

Queen Resigns over “Lost” Honours Disk

(Artist’s impression of the culprit: actual size.)

In an unprecedented move, Queen Elizabeth II resigned today after a floppy disk containing 25 million honours was “lost” in post.

The disk, which contained 25 million knighthoods, baroncies and OBEs intended for next New Year’s Honours List, was reportedly lost in internal post travelling between wings of Buckingham Palace, and “could be anywhere now” according to palace sources.

“Ain’t no evidence that it’s fallen into criminal hands though,” Sir ‘Mad Dog’ O’Hare told journalists. “No evidence at all.”

“Shit, it probably just fell down the back of a Caravaggio,” said His Grace, Baronette Sir Ray ‘Crusher’ Cocker, OBE, MBE, esq., “or summink.”

The royal resignation is to take place next summer in Westminster Cathedral and will be attended by leaders from over a hundred countries. It is expected to cost the British tax payer (Dave Jabot) a billion pounds, including up to one pound sterling. As this is a ‘state’ resignation, the queen will not be relinquishing her title or salary.

“How so that be,” she announced in an emergency amendment to the Queen’s Speech, delivered to parliament during the early hours of this morning, “in view of the trauma, my government and I have decided to reimburse my person with two extra birthdays and a big diamond. This is also an act of job-creation, as it will take many urchins to grind it, and many dentists to fit them with new teeth afterwards.”

Britain Facing Stupidity Timebomb

By 2020, over 2/3 of Britons will be too stupid to breathe. That’s the stark truth coming out of a new research today.

According to ‘data’, 80% of British men and 75% of British women will be total duffers by the third decade of the millennium, without the faintest idea of how to inhale or exhale.

“With no oxygen to power it,” scientists say, “the British heart will cease to pump. Britons will quickly lose consciousness and die.”

But others have slammed these guesstimates as deliriously optimistic. A team from Warwick University, composed of scientists and science-pundits, has produced a terrifying Venn diagram showing that a persistent diet of news-science will exacerbate the dim-wittedness, leaving Britons incapable of statistical reasoning.

“If current trends continue,” the pundits warned, “Britons will become oblivious to the flaws inherent in the projection of current trends indefinitely into the future without taking into account how variables affecting those trends may change. When that happens, as it inevitably must, Britons will be at our mercy.”

Britons refused to comment.

Christmas Warbot for Sullen Prince

Prince Harry is to receive a warbot for Christmas. The titanium-shielded assault-walker is thought to have cost the British taxpayer almost as much as farmers, but is more stylish than them, and more deadly. The state-of-the-art, 500-metre-tall, radioactive killing-machine is the latest in a series of measures designed to soothe the prince’s rage at being left behind when his boys (the working-class soldiers he was given to play with) had to go to Iraq to die.

The Ministry of Defence have invested 9.2 billion pounds over the last year developing the rampaging robot - whose armaments include neurocendiary rays, metropolis-obliterator missiles and smart-AIDS - plus a further 10 trillion on a designer drug, called UltraBlissTM (street name: scabs), to make the experience of piloting it more awesome. The drug is manufactured from paupers’ brain-pulp and the shattered dreams of migrants, according to M.O.D. sources.

“Harry’s a lovely lad, but he has a low boredom threshold (or, if the boredom is conceived of as coming in from the top, a high one),” said royal scientists Jhon D. Kool and Sentience Hiccough. “He’s balanced on a knife-edge at the moment. The slightest thing could set him off. The British public have been very understanding, giving generously to the Blue Peter ‘Whores for Harry’ appeal, which raised over 38 concubines for the fractious fourth-in-liner, including twin ‘wedding-gorillas’ and a necrodom, and he’s been drinking heavily. But there’s only so much pleasure that bad love and ethanol can bring. If we don’t find a better pastime for him soon, he could go ballistic!”

“And the money isn’t wasted either,” Hiccough added. “In years to come, the bot will be a mecha for tourists.”

Youths Cautioned over Shooting of Police Chief

(Signal victory: lawyers relax at the seaside after landmark ruling.)

The Crown Prosecution Service has announced that it will not be prosecuting six youths who gunned down Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Ian Blair outside his home last summer, then fed defamatory lies about the 54 year old commissioner to the press in order to save their skins.

“Clearly, in one sense, mistakes were made,” said barrister Angus Reality, “but the youths were under the false impression that Sir Ian endorsed a shoot-to-kill policy vis-à-vis civilians. Their only concern was to protect the public.”

“Shooting Sir Ian fifteen times in the head and groin as he left for work that day was the only way to stop him,” said youth Sir Omar Alibi. “A shot to the leg or abdomen would have left his hands free to phone for a crack squad of marksmen to take someone out, maybe you or someone you love.”

Youth Sir Hamed Waverley-Davies, another of the have-a-go heroes, concurred: “A stun gun would have been no good either. Even unconscious, Sir Ian could still have been dreaming up new ways to repeal habeus corpus.”

“A crime was definitely committed, yes,” lawyer Marianne Ork conceded, “but let’s not play the blame game. These are trying times.”

A Game One

Peer of the realm, the right reverend Archbishop Alasdair Hube has issued an ultimatum to makers of boring videogames to get their ‘act’ together, or face legislation.

The move comes in response to the campaign of parents of lacklustre teenager, Martin “Jolly” Jollinson, who has become listless and more outgoing due to a spate of videogames. According to campaigners, he sits in his room and is bored almost to death by the spate, which invariably manifests in first-person shooter format, although it does give him something to talk about to other boys.

“Story and character development are sadly absent from these games,” a distraught Mrs Enigma Jollinson said, “although they are well-crafted in visual terms, and often make us laugh with their comical depictions of human violence. Some may contain Sexy Scenes.”

Archbishop Hube is not surprised. He has been studying the effects of boredom for over 50 years now, through the medium of his faith.

Dermis Away!

Bold Brackford man Mark Jessup said ‘pants’ to skin last Wednesday by having his chest and face flayed for charity.

Locals at the Fox-and-Fox’s-Head in Brackford took turns to tear strips of flesh from his torso as Mark, 23 (personalities), a blandness manager from Inimininimi Foods-Systems in Brackford, put on a brave face - that is, until it was ripped off with tongs.

Mark agreed to the stunt after his girlfriend Amy Slith, 6, said she was fed up with his bodily and facial skin.

He said: “It wasn’t so bad when the strips were being torn off, but about two seconds later it really hurt. I’m glad I had it done though. PET scans will be much cheaper now, and if I can help needy people it will all have been worth it.

The event raised one metres of skin.