News of the News

BRUSSELS, Belgian Empire, Thursday (NNN) — The Imperial Belgian Regime has concluded the first stage of its revival with the coronation of Herman van Rompuy as Imperator and Father of All Europe.

“I shall bring to you all unbounded prosperity and joy in life,” said Emperor Herman, “in appropriate moderation and with due attention to subclauses (iii)-(v) of section 12 of the third chapter of the memorandum of coronation. We must take care not to go overboard.”

Belgium’s new rise as an imperial power comes after the failure of its early twentieth century African colonial adventures. Later in the last century, the country instead played to its strengths of beer, chocolate and bureaucratic obfuscation, quietly hanging around at the centre of things and making itself useful whilst clogging up all around itself with red tape.

“Imperial Belgium will usher in a new era of brotherhood,” said the Emperor, “with the correct paperwork. The horrors of war will become administratively unfeasible as the Pax Belgia renders the necessary forms and tender documents mysteriously unavailable or unavoidably delayed. Whatever language a citizen speaks, their words will be circumlocutory and obfuscated, facilitating accurate and fidelitous translation into all other tongues with no loss whatsoever of meaning or comprehensibility. The promise of Babel is ours.”

Baroness Catherine Ashton is the British appointee to the position of Chinless Imperial Foreign Minister. Critics claim she has never had a proper job nor a non-appointed political position. However, she points out she was elected by 100% of the twenty-seven voters.

The UK Independence Party continued to call for Britain’s withdrawal from the Empire. “It is beneath the dignity of a Great Power such as Britain to become a new Belgium. We advocate the far preferable fate of becoming the new Albania.”

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VEVEY, Suisse, Friday (NNN) — A small bar of dark chocolate a day helps keep stress at bay, say researchers at Nestlé, particularly the stress of chocolate manufacturers looking at sales figures.

Chocolate cuts levels of stress hormones and supplies valuable income that the company can further apply to killing Third World babies and buying its competitors to avoid boycotts.

“We must note that this only applies to Nestlé products,” said scientifically independent research shill Sunil Kochhar. “Cadbury and Lindt are well known to cause pimples, impotence and lard. I hear they make your period worse.”

Workers around the country noted this as a verification of common sense. “If I glare at people each month,” said Brenda Busybody, 45 (IQ), “chocolate magically appears at my desk. Good, that.

“The best chocolates for stress, though, are the ones with liqueur in the middle. The important point with these is that the chocolate shell is entirely optional. The essential good effects can be duplicated with the fine products of Bombay Sapphire and tonic. And a cig or six.

“Hell, I can’t even take out my frustrations on the poor bastard handing out London Lite after today. It’s clear that chocolate, gin and cigarette-based stress reduction is a medical necessity and needs to be employer-supported. Or I’ll tear your head off and shit down your neck.“

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DAS BUNKER, Westminster, Monday — Adolf Hitler has apologised for any “upset” caused by a “clumsily” worded e-mail, comparing his treatment to that of MPs over their expenses.

Mr Hitler, the Chancellor of Germany, made the apology after Roosevelt and Churchill had pointed out that comparing himself to David Wilshire, Tory MP for Spelthorne, was “frankly ludicrous”.

In his email response to subsequent correspondence, which he said had included death threats, Mr Hitler wrote: “The witch-hunt against Nazis in general will undermine democracy. Branding a whole group of people as undesirables led to the horror and carnage of the MP expenses scandal.”

He apologised for “comparing myself to an odious entitled twat like that Wilshire wanker — at least I didn’t pay half my bloody salary to Eva as a ‘researcher,’” but said he felt a bit put out that his hard work for German lebensraum and really good motorways was completely underappreciated. “I could show MPs how to live off bloody rations, mate.”

Mr Hitler was forced to announce last month that he would step down as leader of the Third Reich.

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KARADZIC, Seattle, Tuesday (NNN) — Microsoft has commenced its “Windows 7 Was My Idea” campaign, a series of TV advertisements required of it after its conviction in the International Computer Criminal Court in the Hague for crimes against productivity, office workers and the human brain.

The advertisements feature the software developers and project managers responsible for some of the most famous features of Windows. Many had to be tracked down to jungle lairs in Paraguay, where they were hiding under cover of being mere ex-Nazis.

Particular public favourites include a sixty-second spot of the unnamed developer responsible for the system rebooting by itself after a background update, running random programs off a web page automatically, Windows Genuine Advantage and, especially, that fucking paperclip, being whipped by demons with barbed-wire Apple and Tux logos on chains on a live video feed from Hell while Adolf Hitler curled his lip in disgust and Steve Jobs laughed long and deep in the background.

Further punishments for Microsoft have been delayed as the Linux enthusiasts working on sentencing have yet to agree which distribution to run the hanging software on, and can’t get the FreeBSD and OpenSolaris users to shut up for a tick.

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THE MEMORY HOLE, Wolverhampton South West, Thursday (NNN) — Labour has criticised Tory MEP Daniel Hannan for citing Adolf Hitler in an interview.

Mr Hannan told Randroid magazine that the 1930s German chancellor understood “the importance of a really good motorway.” He later told the BBC he was a “libertarian” on immigration, but was fully on-side with Mr Hitler over the right grade of asphalt and suitably wide turning circles at interchanges. “His expertise in these matters really isn’t appreciated these days.”

The MEP caused controversy two weeks ago when he gave a stirring speech on US television saying that the NHS would lead to “rivers of blood” — prompting Tory leader David Cameron to ask the media to “pay no attention to the silly, silly man behind the curtain” and gently remind Mr Hannan that getting elected next year would be quite nice, thanks.

Mr Hannan also became a hit on the video sharing site YouTube, with a three minute speech in the European Parliament attacking Gordon Brown, that was set to a clip from the movie Downfall and had “Dragostea Din Tei” as backing music.

The Conservatives said Mr Hannan would not be disciplined because his praise for Mr Hitler had not referred to the late politician’s stance on immigration. “He does have some quite eccentric views about some things,” said Mr Cameron. “Ha! Ha! There’s a reason we sent him off to Europe, where he couldn’t do much harm. Daniel, do feel free not to comment in public on anything whatsoever until next June, there’s a good chap.”

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GAMESCOM, Ichiyaga Camp, Tuesday (NNGadget) — Sony is releasing the new PlayStation 3 Slim across Europe in early September, the company hoping that anyone will remember the PS3 still exists.

The new light-weight version is two-thirds of the size and weight, only requiring a single, much smaller, extra room built onto your house, fitted with 13-amp 405-volt three-phase power. The new, more compact enriched uranium fuel rods are not supplied.

PlayStation chief Kazuo Hirai made the announcement at the GamesCom conference in Cologne, in a move widely seen as an attempt to regain momentum in the battle against rival Microsoft and put off having to ritually disembowel himself with a sword. “Our competition is absolutely the XBox 360. That’s the one to beat! Thank God they didn’t build hardware that worked, we’d have real trouble if they had.”

The PS3 has struggled thanks to its high price and lack of games, not to mention competition from the Nintendo Wii, which, apart from costing half as much, is actually fun. The Sony console did, however, have spectacular launches in Japan and America, with tens of fans queuing through the night to get their hands on the console, particularly with their Sony employee discount. The machines sold at only half the price on eBay soon after.

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BOLGIAS 8 AND 9, Brussels, Wednesday — Given the choice of thieves and/or liars, neo-Nazis, palaeo-Nazis and plain gibbering nutters, those voters who bothered with the 2009 European Parliament elections rather than staying home to work on their taste for White Lightning have reluctantly and with great pain chosen the Greens as the gibbering nutters of choice, despite the party’s deep suspicion of any technology or medicine more complicated or considered than banging two rocks together. Sustainably-quarried rocks, chiseled in a free-range masonry with high quality state-funded education.

The party maintains that its position on technology, science and medicine has been grossly misrepresented. “The spiritual colon cleansing over MPs’ expenses has been vastly entertaining for all, for example. Furthermore, bombing — I mean, gently encouraging — Westminster back to the Stone Age is a surefire winner for our national ambitions.”

The UK Independence Party accused Eurocrat electoral infiltrators of having “robbed” it of votes in the design of the ballot paper as its voters could not find it on the ballot, being unable to figure out how to unfold the paper. The party will be mounting a legal challenge on the matter as soon as they find consultants able to explain to them how to work pencils.

The remaining Labour voters have demanded legal protection as a minority cult religion, or possibly a diagnosable mental illness.

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EUROTRASH, Antoine de Caunes, Tuesday (NNN) — The great Scottish British English tennis ace Andy Murray stunned observers with his brilliant moral victory over the Spaniard Chilean Fernando González at the French Open in Roland Garres on Tuesday afternoon, showing these people-who-begin-at-Calais what-for and romping home with one brilliant set to the Chilean’s robotic and soulless three.

“He correctly identified the ‘ball,’ a round object that one apparently hits with a ‘tennis bat’ — or ‘bat de tennis,’ to use the Continental term — over a ‘net,’ at least three times out of every four,” said veteran Telegraph sports commentator Ian Chadband. “With this level of skill on tap, continued and unstoppable British dominance of all known sporting endeavours is absolutely assured.”

The Chilean pretender disgraced himself, his country and the entire Hispanic race with his silly headband, quite ridiculous metrosexual stubble, childish yellow shirt and brutish retreat to mere thuglike physical force and accuracy over the considered, reasoned, subtle planning and brilliance employed by our chap Murray. “His comical hot-blooded Latin fist-shaking whenever he technically ‘won’ a ‘point’ was particularly amusing. One more such victory and they are surely ruined.”

The wily French openly conspired with their South American crony to set up their Open on a primitive artificial clay court, rather than the proper grass field favoured by gentlemen. “Still, educating such backward savages is the white man’s burden and why we have an Empire,” noted Chadband.

“‘Gonzo’! What sort of puffery is a name like that, I ask you? Such foolishness in the noble game of tennis just isn’t cricket.”

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INTERNATIONAL FRONT, Little Britain, 4th June (NNN) — The forthcoming European Parliament elections have been shaken up by the push from the Christian Party, with their simple and direct platform: “Never mind who we are, what we plan or who our backers are — we’re not the BNP!”

British National Party supporters have been keen to post to newspaper comment sites at great length how there is no evidence whatsoever of BNP racism, despite the minor detail of a whites-only policy in the party constitution. There are widespread fears that, should the BNP gain a seat in the European Parliament, they may attempt to organise a drinking event in a brewery.

The Christian Party has been sufficiently well-funded to field candidates across the country and pay for tremendous quantities of advertising and billboards, tastefully decorated with swastikas to show how unlike the BNP they are.

Comparison of the Christian Party and BNP platforms reveals similar or identical policies concerning EU membership, British national interests, ecological concerns, women’s rights, gay rights and express support of Christianity.

“But we’re not the BNP! Look, we’ve got a black candidate! We use the word ‘Christian!’ Vote for us! We’re not neo-Nazis! Just nearly.”

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TALKIN’ ABOUT, Degeneration, Thursday (NNME) — With the conviction of The Pirate Bay administrators having immediately abolished all filesharing, the EU has approved an extension of sound copyright to seventy years past the point of theoretical death, and death to seventy years past actual death.

The media industry sponsored move is intended to properly suppress the very notion of the production of unapproved works of art. The major record companies’ value proposition has changed from being the only people you can get music from to being the only people who will stop you getting music. “We own all the back catalogs we’ve been buying up,” said Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfmann, the luckiest sperm in the whole USA, “and YOU CAN’T HAVE THEM! And we’ll sue your grandmother’s ass if you try going around us!”

Without an extension of copyright, the dead might never record again. “If I’d known in 1958, when the copyright in ‘Move It’ was due to expire in 2008, that the copyright in ‘Move It’ would in fact expire in 2008, would I have bothered? I don’t bloody think so!” said Sir Cliff Richard (died 1961). “I can rest safe in the knowledge that my mouldering corpse will not feel ripped off by this turn of events, and that my many, many descendants can continue to live off ‘Summer Holiday’ for the term of their rather unnatural lives. Remember that I am a born-again Christian and non-drinker, so beer and hookers mean and meant nothing to me. Money, however, is next to Godliness.”

Feargal Sharkey of UK Music stressed the necessity of the move to his never having to write another song after “Teenage Kicks.” “I urge you to picture a world in which Girls Aloud and Jason Donovan have no motivation to record.”

The government’s Cowell Report recommended that copyright should be reduced to one year, software patents made a hanging offence, Mickey Mouse declared an unperson and musicians told to stop whining and get a real bloody job like the rest of us. “It’s not like there’s some sort of national shortage of bad pop records,” said Sir Simon, “although a world in which Jive Bunny recordings irretrievably disintegrate into dust before they could possibly enter the public domain does have a certain appeal. Nevertheless, we desperately need to demotivate surplus pop star wannabes. I urge you to picture a world in which Girls Aloud and Jason Donovan have no motivation to record.”

Richard Dawkins spoke in favour of the perpetual unavailability of music, as per his new book The Art Delusion. “‘Music’ appears to be an entirely subjective phenomenon with little or no objective measurements possible — much like any other brand of snake oil or balderdash. Music seems to be a sort of virus on human consciousness, parasitically sapping the collective intelligence of the human race.” He defended his own attendance at his local church’s Christmas carols: “I’m only putting them at their ease so they let their guard down while I work on plans for mass re-education camps for the sufferers of musical appreciation.”

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BOLGIAS 8 AND 9, Rome, Monday (NNN) — The Vatican intends to build the biggest renewable energy plant in Europe, running solely on guilt.

“Now is the time to strike,” said Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, governor of Vatican City. “The financial crisis has unleashed huge and renewable sources of guilt, which in the long run will reap incomparable rewards for the Church.”

Italy has a binding target for renewable energy consumption of 17 percent. The Vatican will export energy to Italy, powered by raw guilt from the largely Catholic populace. “So far it’s proven indefinitely renewable.”

Pope Benedict XVI has been outspoken on environmental issues. “The destruction of the environment, its improper or selfish use and the violent hoarding of the Earth’s resources cause grievances, conflicts and wars, precisely because they are the consequences of an inhumane concept of development. You should FEEL BAD about that. And give us money.”

The plant will be topped up at night by Dante-esque treadmills walked by priests sent back for kiddy-fiddling. “We feel terrible, terrible,” said Fr O’Pederast. “I mean, we got caught.”

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FOURTH CHANNEL, textfiles.com, Sunday (NNN) — Logs of email, web usage and Internet phone calls will be stored by Internet service providers from Monday, per EU directive.

The Home Office said it was the UK Government’s priority to “protect public safety and national security and, of course, our own jobs. Think of the children! The records are safeguarded by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to only be accessible in the direst of need, such as when your arsehole neighbour tells the council you’re using their bin.”

Social network users responded with outrage. “Liek, wtf?” said KT Myspce. “I put up pictures of me pissed on a public website run by a commercial company and the government looks at it? I’m defriending Jacqui Smith right now. Cow.”

Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group said it was a “crazy directive” with potentially dangerous repercussions for citizens. “The mental health of the civil servants reviewing the data is in particular peril. What is seen cannot be unseen.”

The initiative was welcomed by online celebrities Bob Goatse, Boxxy Tubgirl and the Lemonparty Collective. “We look forward to introducing ourselves to even more wonderful Internet users,” said two girls, handing reporters a cup. Spork shares were up 5% in early trading.

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BIG BLUE DONG, Mars, thirty-five minutes ago (NNN) — Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, said the global financial crisis was caused by “blue people with white eyes.”

He made the remark after the nuclear annihilation of major financial centres around the globe by people who thought they were glowing superhumans made of pure energy.

“This is a crisis that was caused by blue people with white eyes. And before the crisis, they looked as if they knew everything about everything. A crisis that has come from the United States and Europe, but is affecting our country.”

Following the meeting, incredibly handsome, intelligent, pretty and noble international finance reporter Robert Peston Veidt sighed and said he would solve the crisis. “I’m going to ask the G20 summit next week to support a global expansion of trade finance of at least $100 billion to help revive trade in all parts of the world,” he said. “I can throw in about half myself out of pocket change, manufactured from nothingness by my truly remarkable IQ.”

Rumours of an odd-looking fellow in trench coat and hat seeking out Sir Fred Goodwin in order to break his fingers one by one could not be confirmed.

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The World Economic Forum in Davos is discussing a Cthulhu-led financial recovery.

“Britain is uniquely placed to lead this effort,” said Gordon Brown, “with the horrifying necessities being explained to the public by such televisual works as In The Night Garden. Adults will be driven to spend more time at work to get away from the mind-twisting horrors and their children will be properly indoctrinated in the cult of the Great Old Ones.

“Yes, my name is Great Cthulhu
Ia! Ia! Fhtagn gruh R’Lyeh!
Come to eat your mind and dreams too
Ia! Ia! Fhtagn’nagl gruh!”

sang Mr Brown.

“As their souls are consumed,” he said, “the workers’ semi-animate bodies can continue to go through the motions necessary to keeping the economic machinery fed. The surplus unemployed will make fine appetisers. You cannot kill that which has no life.”

Peter Mandelson then started a video showing strange multicoloured puppet creatures assembling and dancing frenetically, their incomprehensible eldritch chanting in an unknown tongue to a chorus of unearthly tritone-filled music growing faster and more anguished for three full hours until ending in a long, terrible chorus of howls, while brightly coloured lights flash on a gazebo and a toy train and farting blimp circle about. “Ipsy, upsy, Daisy Doo!” he added.

Nicolas Sarkozy objected, stressing French post-modernist philosophy’s powers to exterminate all rational thought. Angela Merkel offered up German porn. The Japanese merely smiled quietly.

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THE ONLY PLACE TO BE, The Happening Place, Saturday (NNN) — Karl Lagerfeld, CEO of Chanel, said it was “childish” to even discuss the issue of wearing fur in a world where eating meat was normal. “Hunters kill those beasts who would kill us if they could. Mink are the least of it. Badgers, mushrooms, snakes … their malice is famed.”

He admitted to being queasy about eating meat. “But I do it because of how much I hate cows. That innocent-looking Satanic beast, sitting there, chewing its cud, just waiting for its moment. I hated that Yves St Laurent fucker, but not so much I’d kill him, eat his flesh and wear his skin on my back as a trophy. Probably.”

PETA pointed out that “the vast majority of fur these days comes not from hunters as he suggests, but from Chinese fur farms.” Lagerfeld suggested similar farms to produce size zero models. “The size zero issue is insignificant compared to the zillions of fat people. We provide much-needed balance and a good example to provide ambition for young people. In a time of recession, dreams are important. And size zero is so much more attainable now.”

Models saw a chance at publicity by disagreeing with Lagerfeld’s comments, with the new I’d Rather Get In The Papers For Having My Tits And Arse On Show Than Wear Fur, Until Next Season Anyway campaign.

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DOWN T’ PIT, London EC1, Wednesday (NNN) — Business leaders were unanimous in their protest against the European Parliament vote to scrap the UK’s opt-out from the Working Time Directive.

“Workers should be free to work any seventy hours they choose. There is of course no element of coercion whatsoever in any workplace we could find, and we actually asked the proprietors of as many as two or three.”

They also noted the terrible effects such a ban would have on the hospitality industry, with the normal British worker no longer needing to down six pints in their three spare hours a week in order to regain the power of speech.

Alejandro Cercas, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party MEP who brought the vote, said the parliament’s 421-273 vote to end the opt-out would help create “a social Europe,” where all workers, jobs and pay packets would be interchangeable and indistinguishable and everyone could live in clean and spacious grey concrete blocks just as good as everyone else’s.

The NHS cautioned against the possibility of junior doctors no longer working 72-hour shifts, as having enough time off shift to be aware of their surroundings might lead to them realising what a hellhole they had signed up for.

Alan Duncan, the Shadow Business Secretary, attacked Gordon Brown for failing to control Labour’s MEPs. “The only way out of the recession is to allow workers an unimpeachable excuse to get the hell away from their families. British business will be unable to compete if individuals do not have the free and untrammeled choice to choose to slurp heartily at the anus of their undoubtedly charming and personable line manager for seventy hours in a week while being paid for forty.”

When it was pointed out that business leaders had said this about the five-day week, every health and safety rule ever written, the abolition of child labour and the abolition of slavery, he said “British business will be unable to compete if it has to spend time thinking up new excuses.”

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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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ALÞING, Westminster, Saturday (NNN) — President Gordon W. Brown has declared there will be “no compromise” on Icelandic terrorist attacks on British money.

Icelandic terrorism has brought the City to its knees. London transport and council rubbish collection has stopped because of the Icelanders having all their money. Police response has been hampered by the Icelanders having all their money. Their terrorist leader Geir bin Haarde is rumoured to be hiding in terrorist volcanic caves near Reykjavík, sleeping on a great big terrorist bed made of British money.

“They come over here,” said Mr Brown, “and sell us cut-price frozen foods, run very hard TV quiz shows and sing incomprehensible airy-fairy gibberish with a terrible hairdo. We will respond with the Mother Of All Diplomatic Protests!”

Icelandic business assets have been frozen, Icelanders’ money is being shipped to Guantánamo Bay and Björk and Sigur Rós have been required to participate in Eurovision. “Together!”

Mr Brown warned: “This could have dire consequences for our nation. But we must stand firm even in the face of a new cod war.”

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VATICAN RAG, Rome, Monday (NNN) — The global financial crisis is proof that the pursuit of money and success is pointless, Pope Benedict XVI has told the Twelfth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome.

“Those who seek success, career or money are building on sand. They should look instead to the Church and build on the solid rock of guilt, sexual repression and jam tomorrow.” Attendees duly placed sand into the collection plate.

“The Church must bring people to a vivid encounter with God,” said the former leader of the Holy Inquisition. “There is no reason to fear that the church and its members will go too far and harm freedom,” he added, leaving everyone feeling thoroughly reassured.

Secular governments, he added, have “no reason to fear” the social teachings and activities of the Church, which “does not aim at power, nor does it expect privileges or aspire to economic or social advantage,” in an inexplicable change from hundreds of years of historical evidence.

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THE TOMBS, Downing Street, Friday (NNN) — Gordon Brown today explained his astonishing decision to bring his bitter rival Peter Mandelson back into the Cabinet as business secretary: “My God, I am so completely fucked, even Mandy looks a good idea.”

Baron Mandelson, 679, of Transylvania, smiled for the cameras, only having to reconstitute himself twice when the flashes dissolved him into dust. “I only enter where I am invited,” he said in sepulchral Eurocratic tones. “When I am called upon, I shall return.”

Labour MPs rushed to greet the chief architect of New Labour, many carrying wooden stakes, garlic and crosses.

Mr Mandelson has had a chequered career in office. Previous Cabinet terms have ended with unfortunate resignations due to being beheaded by angry villagers, burnt at the stake, wrapped in chains and thrown to the bottom of the Volga and, in one case, nuked from orbit.

“Serious people are needed for serious times,” said Mr Brown in a monotone, staring glassily into space. “I hear and obey. Am advised.”

David Cameron was unavailable for comment, with only the sound of cackling glee and champagne corks audible on the line.

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