News of the News

GOSPLAN, Whitehall, Saturday (NNN) — Chancellor Alistair Darling has outlined future plans to subsidise the economy per Labour’s 1983 manifesto. “We can’t of course just seize control — we’ll entice them in. I’m sure we can come to a suitable synergy between the state and the chosen corporations.”

Peter Mandelson graciously accepted the request to manage the operational aspects of the new command-and-control economy. “No company or sector can expect automatic bailout. We must evaluate likely winners. And see if they’ve been good boys and girls this year. I’m making a list, and I’m checking it twice.”

The lists are confidential. “No-one could leak the lists and not expect, say, an arrest by counter-terrorist police under the Official Secrets Act and a day or two of questioning while their home and office are searched. I speak entirely hypothetically, of course.”

Lord Mandelson clarified his earlier quote about becoming “filthy rich.” “What I said was that New Labour don’t care if you become filthy rich, as long as you pay your taxes. And remain dear, dear friends of ours.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the government was “working very closely with Barack Obama’s economic team,” producing a July 2008 photograph of himself with Mr Obama as evidence.

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SKATES, Pompey, Friday (NNN) — Portsmouth City Council is introducing CCTV cameras claimed to “predict” if a crime is about to take place and alert operators to suspicious behaviour, such as loitering, apparent thought in public, walking while brown or not spending money fast enough.

Anyone spotted may then have to explain their behaviour to a police officer. “Tough on lack of consumer confidence, tough on the causes of lack of consumer confidence,” said Nick Hewitson of EDS Capita Goatse SmartCCTV. (“Consumer confidence” is a technical economics jargon term measuring willingness to casually spend ridiculous sums of cash on idiotic rubbish, particularly while drunk.)

“Only a criminal terrorist paedophile with something to hide could possibly object,” said councillor Jason Fazackarley. “Criminals will pay much better attention to their dress and grooming with cameras there. Channel 4 has tentatively offered us a reality TV show. And Channel 5 would quite like the tapes of drunken shagging in shop delivery bays.”

The project has been compared to the Tom Cruise science-fiction film Minority Report, in which psychic journalists are arrested on CCTV before they commit the crime of not peppering articles with the most obvious possible clichés copied from other papers.

However, Stephen Fry has delivered a crushing blow to the project with an unfortunately-timed negative review on his Twitter feed: “++ungood crimethink brb txtspk lol.”

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CURRY’S ANALOGUE, The High Street, Tuesday (NNGadget) — 3D movies could be coming to your home cinema. A standard for three-dimensional content on Blu-Ray discs has been proposed by Panasonic.

“Standards wars, patent monopolies and the like would seriously interfere with the widespread adoption of any 3D image standard,” said Panasonic’s Masayuki Kozuka. “So give us your bloody money and don’t argue.”

The systems will require new players, introduced at £500, and new high-definition televisions. Existing high-definition televisions will be rendered obsolete by the proposal, much as the pre-Blu-Ray “HD-ready” sets were. “Another few thousand is a small price to pay for the very latest in gadgetry. If we dub it ‘the third generation of HD,’ it should distract the early adopters long enough from lynching us. We’ll tell ’em Apple’s interested or something.”

To keep the “analog hole” closed, viewing will require an orange jumpsuit, handcuffs and sensory deprivation goggles with the displays in the eyepieces. “Any Vista user should be quite accustomed to this.”

Blu-Ray discs make up a fantastic 4% of the physical video market, as compared to those old, clunky and frankly rather stale-smelling DVDs which only make up 96% of sales and can’t be taken seriously by anyone.

In unrelated news, BitTorrent is now 40% of all Internet traffic, only exceeded by penis spam, while YouTube plays better on 64-bit Linux than Windows Vista.

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CHUGGERS, NSPCC, Tuesday (NNN) — Applications for children to be taken into care in England have risen sharply in the wake of the case of Baby P.

Children’s Minister Ed Balls has unveiled well-thought-out and in no way hurried plans for every area of England to be covered by a Children’s Trust Board (CTB), which will “absolutely prevent” all possible abuse, as demanded by right-thinking members of the public and their favoured newspapers.

“We see this as the only way to assure the safety of children,” said Mr Balls. “No training, no qualifications, no criminal records bureau check … parents are the last people you’d want having anything to do with children.”

Incoming infants will be DNA sampled, barcoded, issued with My First ID Card (in comforting baby-blue and soft-pink) and stacked in Ministry of Education Upbringing Centres — to be constructed in a PFI deal with PartyPoker Beacon Academies plc — before being migrated to the JobCentre Reserve Labour Stacks upon their sixteenth birthday.

“Making sure that we develop and invest in the staff who are on this very lonely frontline service is vital,” he added. Social workers will be equipped with helmets and tasers. “Experts at Haringey Council have offered training.”

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WINEHOUSE CASINO, 11 Downing Street, Tuesday (NNN) — Prime Ministerial glove-puppet Alistair Darling detailed Labour’s economic stimulus package today. “We must keep the economy moving. As usual, we will achieve this by recruiting more civil servants and shuffling taxes around. Quick, which shell’s the VAT under? We will also force banks to lend more without such rapacious antisocial considerations as ability to pay back the loans.”

“The bank bailout was a mere coverup for the Labour government’s gross economic mismanagement during ten years of prosperity,” said David Cameron. “That sort of irresponsible capitalism, let run loose in a plague of free enterprise, would never have been allowed to happen under a Tory government … stop sniggering over there.”

“The Prime Minister is like a drunk who has woken to the most appalling hangover,” said Boris Johnson, “and who reaches for the whisky bottle to help him dull the pain.”

“Not to worry,” said Mr Darling, “we’re taxing the hell out of drink too.”

“The recession must take its course,” said shadow health spokesman Andrew Lansley. “Recession improves the moral fibre of the nation. People tend to smoke less, drink less alcohol, eat less rich food and spend more time at home with their families. They sit around the wireless in communal bonhomie, huddled for warmth and filled with the Blitz spirit, listening to the BBC Home Service, feeling reassured that all is right with the world once more and the BBC announcer is broadcasting wearing a dinner jacket.” Mr Darling responded with threats to put Lord Mandelson on Strictly Come Dancing.

The Metropolitan Police rejected plans to order 10,000 taser weapons for police on the beat, but said they may reconsider in the event of a Conservative government.

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THE ENTERPRISE, The Federation, stardate Saturday (NNN) — The number of female IT professionals in the UK is falling, according to the British Computer Society, despite similar or superior academic scores and recruitment in the sector as a whole having risen in the same timeframe. The lack of flexibility offered by employers is blamed.

“It’s a free market world,” said Ubuntu Linux developer Hiram Nerdboy. “It’s about competence and getting the job done. Working sixteen hours a day on a project you really love is par for the course. That we’re all eighteen to twenty-five is from the accelerated Internet-based learning of the new generation, not exploitation of young workers who don’t know any better.”

Over a third of women in IT had complained of sexism up to sexual harassment at work. “It’s women who just don’t have social skills,” said Nerdboy. “They object to the guys freely choosing to all go down the strip club after work. They’re just not team players.”

Open source projects have worse figures than industry, with male to female ratios approaching fifty-to-one. Many women cite gross sexism on mailing lists and IRC. “In my experience, women just don’t have a working sense of humour and can’t take a joke. My girlfriend thought it was funny! Even leving helpful comments on their blogs didn’t work. ‘Political correctness’ is no exaggeration. Anyway, I met my girlfriend online!”

“…,” said his girlfriend, RealDoll Ada.

“And it’s not like you can get the applicants,” added Nerdboy. “We can hardly get any girls to apply for a job here. They’re obviously naturally not good enough geeks. It must be evolutionary. We need more pink computers.”

“This is of course a terrible, terrible state of affairs,” said a spokesman for the Confederation of British Industry. “In the meantime, we need lots more IT workers shipped in from overseas.” He was later heard muttering something about “divide and conquer” and sniggering.

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BARKING, Utterly, Wednesday (NNN) — The British National Party’s conference karaoke has been cancelled owing to the song list going missing.

TalkSport DJ Rod Lucas has been fired. “Jonathan Ross was only suspended for twelve weeks!” Mr Lucas will be bringing suit, said his solicitor, BNP member Mr Blobby.

Songs from the list include “Keep The White Flag Flying”, “The Story Of The Whites”, “Ivory and Ivory”, “99 White Balloons”, “Lolcat Has Only Got One Ball” and the singalong favourite “Here We Go”, although organisers have to be sure to distribute the lyric sheet first.

Nick Griffin reassured the public they would stand firm. “We swear that we will never give you up. We will never let you down. We will never run around or desert you.” In a later comment, Rick Astley told the twat to fuck off.

The BNP constitution specifies that all singers must be white and the music list must be ethnically cleansed of any funkiness or natural rhythm. Rick Astley still told the twats to fuck off.

The Labour Party’s complete song list has also been released, to no interest whatsoever and a rejection letter from Wikileaks.

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PAGE 3, Financial Times, Friday (NNN) — Alistair Darling today admitted that the economy was disastrously seized up, with one in twelve London workers likely to lose their job.

Across town, Nigella Lawson wore a low-cut dress revealing quite spectacular quantities of well-nourished breastage, with photos in all papers.

In the United States, Wall Street is melting away like Belloq’s face after Indy told him not to look in the Ark and Henry Paulson said he would not use the second $350 billion of the stimulus package, leaving the economy unpushed at a critical time and the Detroit car manufacturers on the verge of collapse.

In Australia, Nicola McLean’s breasts, which had undergone hyperinflation, were marvelously decorative and pointy and set off nicely by the other I’m A Celebrity bikini babes, Dani Behr and Carly Zucker, despite the influx of Robert Kilroy-Silk and kangaroo testicles.

Back in the UK, the economy is deflating, the banks have seized up, no-one is buying or selling houses and next week you’ll have to eat your shoes. And John Sergeant is a huge tit.

“But at least we’re not short of massive boobs,” said Mr Darling. “And call and vote on Strictly Come Dancing! Before the telly’s repossessed.”

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HOT-AIR BALLOON, Mid-Atlantic, Thursday (NNGadget) — Virgin Media, operators of Britain’s only cable television network, has launched a new 16 megabit Internet service.

“That’s sixteen megabits total over the day, usually,” said Virgin Media phone menu robot Mark Schweitzer, “but it’s very fast when it’s going. Plain old ADSL can’t hold a candle to it. You can hit your download limit in minutes!”

Customers will be able to add the boost free for three months, after which they will need to pay an additional £5 per month. The three months will start when Virgin ascertain the customer might possibly have thought about it in passing, probably last June. Should you be in any way less than satisfied, Virgin will be happy to leave you in a phone queue for three days, then disconnect your service entirely and charge you to switch it on again rather than just go back to the old plan like you asked them. And cut the cable outside your house and claim you did it. And pass your address to the record companies so they can send you threatening letters.

Virgin Media will also be releasing a new 50 megabit broadband service before Christmas. “We’ve heard that you can use things called ‘computers’ to send messages and even pictures. That’d be a good service to offer! We have this bloke in facilities who knows a bit about computers, we could get him to run it between refilling the coffee machines. If we tried, we could probably make it as reliable as our telly. Nobody really minds when the football drops out ten minutes before the end, do they.”

Virgin Media (“We’ve Never Done It Before, And We Don’t Really Know How To”) was founded as an experiment by ethically challenged psychologists to ascertain just how abusively awful customer service could get and still have anyone giving them money. The company is sponsored by British Telecom to make them look good by comparison.

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OH FUCK NOT HEALTH, Farringdon Road, Wednesday (NNN) — A terrorist attack on the NHS has brought three London hospitals to a halt.

The terrorists, representing an organisation calling itself “Microsoft,” apparently used insecure third-party contractors to put a virus-running platform called “Windows” into critical systems in the hospitals, in order to extort money from them on an annual basis.

It is understood that a large percentage of all businesses are infected with the virus, wasting up to 25% of employees’ working time and opening the companies to further attacks from related criminal organisations demanding to see all their licenses.

The virus in question, W32.SHILL/SCHOFIELD, takes over the host’s IT systems, leading to aches, pains, nausea, vomiting, pumping out prodigious quantities of faeces and a terrible compulsion to spread the infection to others. The patient also walks with a shuddering stumble and asks for their hospital meal to include tasty, tasty brains. Recovery has commenced when they have an overwhelming urge to throw their computer out of the window. “Getting this stuff out of the system makes MRSA look like a walk in the park,” said one cleaner, waving his shit-encrusted hands about for emphasis.

When the infection became known, ambulances were diverted to other hospitals. “We have maintained a safe environment for our patients throughout the incident,” said a spokesman for Barts NHS Trust, “keeping them in the Clostridium difficile culturing lab rather than risking exposing them to ‘Windows.’”

“Healthcare staff should not share smartcards,” said a Connecting for Health spokesperson, “and if smartcards are used without a condom then disciplinary procedures should follow.”

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RATZINGER, County Cork, Tuesday (NNN) — The Rt Rev Patrick O’Donoghue, the Bishop of Lancaster, has claimed that Catholic university graduates are spreading scepticism and sowing dissent.

The bishop complained that influential Catholics in politics and the media were undermining the Church, particularly his bits of it. “The relentless diatribe in the popular media against Christianity has undermined the confidence of the ordinary faithful in the Church,” he said, “and certainly not the paedophile scandals or anything.

“What we have witnessed in Western societies since the end of the Second World War is the development of mass education on a scale unprecedented in human history, resulting in economic growth, scientific and technological advances, and the cultural and social enrichment of billions of people’s lives. Needless to say, we can’t possibly stand for this.”

Educated Catholics “set a bad example” and corrupted the faith of the working classes who had not gone to university. “Fancy book learning leads to doubt, doubt leads to questions, questions lead to a visit from the Holy Inquisition!”

Nicholas Lash, the former Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University, called the bishop’s comments “mind-bogglingly stupid” and asked that people please not pay attention to the drooling idiot in the silly hat. “At least, not this particular idiot in a silly hat … I’ll shut up now.”

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WASILLA, New York, Monday (NNN) — Literary agents are queueing up to sign Sarah Palin to a book deal that could earn her up to seven million dollars.

“She’s poised to make a ton of money. Every publisher and a lot of literary agents have been going after her,” said the Conservative Book Club. “Look at the elegance of the hand-tooled leather binding, the archival quality acid-free paper! Every copy will also come with a set of 100% all-American-made red, white and blue crayons to color it in.”

Although McCain aides had described her as a “diva,” a “whackjob” and a “deeply goddamn frightening redneck out of Deliverance’s worst nightmares,” the more conservative Republicans, thrilled by Palin’s right-wing views, are maneuvering to keep her in the public eye with a view to the 2012 elections and beyond. One group has collected tens of thousands of dollars, including many in-kind donations of moose carcasses, properly-dressed roadkill and spare white sheets, to pay for television advertisements to thank Palin for her efforts.

Despite Palin’s failure to secure the groups that McCain strategists hoped she might deliver — women, independent voters, suburbanites, those with ten fingers and only the one head — her supporters insisted that she should not be blamed for McCain’s shortcomings or Bush’s failures. “It were all the fault o’ them Muslin terr’ists,” said political commentator Joe the Plumber.

Camille Paglia declared that she had “heartily enjoyed Palin’s arrival on the national stage.” She also started suggesting people buy her new book on Palin, but was cut off at this point for some reason.

Current projections show Palin taking 95% of 25% of the electorate. “I was against the bank bailout from the first,” said Palin. “Lookit the rekerd. It was this governor, not that one! You betcha!”

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FACEFUL O’ HEID, Glasgae Airport, Monday (NNN) — A doctor accused of driving a policy framework laden with PFI contracts and incendiary management performance bonuses into an already beleaguered National Health Service has admitted his deliberate intent to cause terror and demoralise the British populace.

But he told a jury he never wanted to kill or injure anyone. “Not actively or directly. Or where I could see it happening.”

The defence has said that Dr Ara Darzi wanted to highlight the plight of the people of New Labour with a series of dispiriting distractions starting in June 2007.

Lord Darzi told the jury that after attacks on several trusts had failed, he planned to flee to the inner sanctums of the Ministry for Health, because it would be “much easier to disappear” in a bureaucratic quagmire.

But as he approached the payoff, he suddenly swerved into the opposition and press without warning and was pulled from his vehicle and had the shit kicked out of him by a large Scotsman named Gordon.

Biological agents were also involved, in preparation for “a cross-NHS Clostridium Difficile Flower Show. They wanted a shrubbery. A nice one, mind you.”

The trial was adjourned today as prosecutors were held up in Accident and Emergency for five hours behind several belligerent drunks.

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TINSELTOWN IN THE RAIN, Of Bits Of Bodies, Saturday (N! News) — Disney surfs the wave of terrorist-themed films, following Hunger and Bullet In The Head with its entry for the kids, Baader-Meinhof™: Socialist Squat Musical™.

Based on Dr Alex Comfort’s The Joy of Terrorism, the plot starts with Andreas Baader (Zac Efron) and Ulrike Meinhof (Adrienne Bailon) and Baader’s girlfriend Gudrun Ensslin (Vanessa Hudgens) at a Thriller-inspired police dance number for the Shah of Iran’s German visit. Andreas and Gudrun respond in the only way a good citizen can: they go shopping! Ulrike is inspired by their consumerist fervour to join them in their pursuit of jolly japes, socialist ideology, bank robberies and wacky assassinations. When the police killjoys lock them up for partying too much, their official fan club continue the celebrations. Finally, in a happy ending, Andreas, Ulrike and Gudrun are released as they have behaved so well in prison, leading several epic song and dance numbers. In the final scene, they appear before their fan club, who are cheering, throwing their hats in the air and firing their AK-47s in celebration.

Almost every bit of “spirit of 1968” news footage is featured at some point — the Paris parties, Black Power dances and high-fives, street celebrations, and particularly bloody renderings of the bombing of Vietnam. The animations of ideological nudity at the PLO training camp helpfully demonstrate the massive cartoon bazongas present on pretty much all Disney chicks. The trio’s funny animal friends, animated rats called Horst and Irmgard, supply witty commentary with a heartwarming moral throughout the feature.

How much was Germany’s recent Nazi past to blame for the rise of the Red Army Faction? How did a small group of radical left-wing students of the 1960s turn into one of the most feared terrorist units of the 1970s? What was the nature of the disputes that eventually split apart the Baader-Meinhof gang, and what resonance does their legacy have today? Disney answer these questions and more with the fidelity of their famous adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame™.

A sequel, Baader-Meinhof™ 2: The Curse of the Black Ink™, will show Andreas and Gudrun’s children as they raise all heck at school, blowing up the playing fields with chemistry lab nitroglycerin and taking teachers hostage. It will be released as a double-feature with Disney’s The Diary of Anne Frank™.

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CHANNEL 5, Wapping, Friday (NNN) — New findings printed today in all papers and broadcast on ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 reveal that television is “virtually a mental vitamin” for intelligence and emotional well-being. In addition, it helps treat arrhythmia, psoriasis, tooth decay, distemper, dropsy, haemorrhoids and impotence, and lets you see through clothes.

The findings were revealed today by the study’s funders, a consortium of commercial television broadcasters and newspaper proprietors. They have recommended that watching television and reading printed newspapers be made mandatory as a public health measure, and that the Internet be renamed “The Paedophile Channel” as a warning to possible users.

“Regular television viewers have a deeper understanding of popular culture, are up-to-the-minute on artistic ideas of the moment and have something to talk to their co-workers about the next day,” said Dr Desmond Murdoch. “The quick-fix nature of televisual gratification accumulates and quickly becomes permanent. The tightly-scripted performance brilliance of thirty-second messages provides the viewer’s necessary daily dose of thoughtful mental stimulation and wit.

“I met a scientist once,” said Dr Murdoch. “Well, he said he was a scientist. He handed me a remarkably large cheque.”

Further results from the research group are expected to include revelations that jaffa cakes, crisps and Coca-Cola are “fruit” for the purposes of achieving one’s government-mandated five portions a day, and that snake oil liniment does all it is claimed to.

“It lets you see through clothes, man,” emphasised Dr Murdoch.

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HIGH STREET, Peshawar, Friday (NNN) — The Home Office has expressed its grave concern at a CIA report claiming that Osama bin Laden is not at the centre of Al-Qaeda of late.

“This is an outrage up with which the British people shall not put,” said Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. “If Al-Qaeda were in fact merely small groups of malcontents in groups on the Pakistani border, worried that Barack Obama would be too nice for their recruitment prospects, there would be no need for all our plans. Which is, of course, ridiculous.”

“lol its simple,” said thesun.co.uk forum commentator tim_osman_663. “tax barrick obama bin larden out of his cave. send sum haringay social werkers aroun, theyll giv him a cup o tea. IF YOU GOT NUTHIN IN YOR CAVE YOU GOT NUTHIN TO HIDE. End Of!!”

Ms Smith stressed the necessity of the Government’s identity card scheme, noting that the proposed laws specifically required terrorists from the back country of Pakistan to present their cards upon the request of a policeman, or when suspected of lurking under the beds of our proud innocent British womenfolk.

The CIA reiterated that “the war is far from over” and bin Laden remained the greatest imaginable threat to the USA. “We’re sure we can convince Mr Obama of this, even as we failed to convince Jack Kennedy. If you know what I mean.”

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ALPHAVILLE, Linden, Thursday (NNGadget) — For its many devotees, First Life, the Massively Multiplayer Offline Reality Playing Game, is a place where the everyday constraints of online life drop away and vivid activities can be played out.

But fact and fiction have collided in heartbreaking fashion for a British couple who are divorcing after the wife discovered her cyber-husband’s offline alter-ego, “Nigel Tedious,” with another — physical — woman.

Laurellina Hyperphasia, whose First Life character is called “Tracey Clegg” of the land of “Essex,” said today that as far as she was concerned her husband, Lancethrust Pound-a-tron, was having a real relationship with the avatar controlled by the human in question.

Launched by Israeli company Jehovah Labs six thousand years ago, First Life gives players a body type. They cannot trade it up or easily change its basic characteristics, though they can outfit it in various ways. This body can move around the “Real World,” meet people, socialise, buy land and property with the game’s currency and set up businesses.

“Sex in First Life is amazing,” said Pound-a-tron. “It’s really hard to level up to, though, and it cost me a fortune.”

An increasing number of people’s virtual relationships have fallen apart because of what was happening in their parallel, real world. Part of the addiction problem is “jobs” — in which players have to perform long-winded, mindless tasks, up to forty hours a week or even more, to bring up their levels and gain access to more adventure. Stories of gamers spending ten to fifteen hours a day in First Life are becoming more frequent.

Pound-a-tron — or “Tedious” — admitted he was having an offline relationship “We weren’t even having cybersex or anything like that, just that physical thing where you put bits of your bodies into the other one’s body. It was nothing really major. I still don’t see that I was doing anything wrong.”

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ZDNET.MICROSOFT.COM, Blogosphere.NET, Wednesday (NNGadget) — As Microsoft continues to prepare for the 2009 2010 launch of Windows 7, it today issued a plea through its network of objective opinion-shapers: Don’t let the journalists near it.

“We understand that many journalists use Macs,” said CNet marketing marketer Don Reisinger. “This means they necessarily suckle at the Satanic rear passage of Steve Jobs. We cannot countenance their bias. Journalists are responsible for all those signs outside computer shops offering to replace Vista with XP. When was the last time you saw the entire technology field stop and wait for an announcement from any other company besides Apple? It’s so unfair!”

Smears and slanders also come from obsessive overweight nerdy Mac-using Linux geek troublemakers who run “benchmarks” and “tests.” “It’s horrifying bias from the ‘reality’-based community,” said ZDNet marketing marketer Mary Jo Enderle. “We understand that, just because Vista was 40% slower than XP and Windows 7 is the same speed as Vista, the nattering nabobs of negativism are already writing press releases condemning it as ‘not enough of an improvement.’ It’s so unfair!”

“Mactards are like concentration camp guards,” said Guardian marketing marketer Jack Schofield, “brutalising ‘I’m A PC’ users and” [This comment has been removed by a Guardian moderator. Replies may also be deleted.]

“The only reason Vista failed was because Microsoft planned for it to fail,” said Reisinger in an earlier ad-banner troll post. “It was a fantastically subtle double-bluff! They did the honorable thing in the face of the vile calumnies spread by Apple. It’s so unfair!”

Microsoft will be debuting Windows 7 on a new 17″ Asus Eee Ultra-Portable Mini-Netbook with 8GB memory and a 2GHz quad-core processor. Battery life is up to twenty minutes in preliminary tests.

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CHEQUE IN THE MAIL, Down The Back Of The Couch, last month (NNN) — Peter Mandelson is formulating plans for the Post Office™ to keep itself relevant to the modern world by developing new areas of business.

“Lord Mandelson believes in the future of the Post Office™,” said Lord Mandelson. Royal Mail employees have been cautioned that garlic and silver crosses are not considered part of the postal uniform.

Plans include financial and government services and providing pictures for new passports and ID cards. “We can bring the poor in,” said Baron von Mandelson, “photograph them, take a DNA sample, tattoo the bar code on their foreheads and send them off to an efficiently stacked Post Office™ Council Cardboard Box, fitted with broadband. The bubble wrap provides excellent soundproofing and insulation. The journey through the sorting machine is not unreasonable in the circumstances.”

TV and vehicle licensing will be brought back into the network, and expanded to computer licensing. “Licensing and tracking every personal computer in the country is vital to saving rural services. We can also charge a mere 1p per email, travelling through the secured and monitored Home Office network, to fund these important focal points for local communities.”

Other plans include the supply of ice cream, fizzy drinks, petrol and lager. The Post Office™ will also be part of the Department of Health’s War On Obesity. “The gum on the back of stamps has been especially enhanced with a Xenical-based chemical, to promote an efficient dietary regime.”

Suggestions that the Post Office™ get into the business of physical delivery of letters and parcels were greeted with a perplexed snort of laughter.

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PAGE 3, Channel 5, Sunday (NNN) — Middle England was outraged today when, in the wake of the abuse of Georgina Baillie by ruthless BBC broadcasters, it was revealed that Gary Glitter’s 1970s hit “Thank Heaven For Young Women With Photographic Identification Certifying They Are Of Legal Age” was on a list of “related listening” for GCSE music coursework.

“This is completely inappropriate,” thundered Education Secretary Paul Dacre. “If a sixteen-year-old listens to a Gary Glitter song, it is scientifically proven that they will regress in time to being underage, and then have sex with him.”

It is understood Glitter could reap several pounds in royalties, a significant amount compared to the tens of thousands of dollars he still makes annually from American radio play.

“Anyone even thinking about this song is probably raping children themselves,” said Zoe Hilton in an NSPCC quickie press release. “So give us your fucking money, you filthy fucking nonce.”

A sixteen-year-old in Britain can have sex and even get married. However, they cannot be photographed having the sex in question, appear on page three of The Sun (any more) or drink in pubs, and must under no circumstances be allowed to become aware of the existence of Gary Glitter songs, in case they corrupt their inherent moral purity and righteousness.

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