Daytime talk show host Jeremy Kyle is being sent to Gaza in an attempt to bring together Israel and Palestine in an historic peace deal. In a special episode of his show entitled ‘how can we sort out our differences when you’re sleeping with America?’ Kyle and his studio audience will publicly humiliate both sides into giving each other another chance and agreeing a mutually acceptable custody arrangement. ‘Perhaps Israel can have Gaza during the week and Palestine at weekends’ suggested Kyle optimistically.

Previous shows have turned nasty on air, with one guest even throwing a chair across the studio. There are fears that if the Palestinians did this then Israel would retaliate with six months of intensive bombing. The famously aggressive Kyle also plans to carry out a live on-air paternity test during the show to prove once and for all whose fatherland Gaza really is. ‘I really believe that my no-nonsense formula, which has enabled teenage sisters pregnant by the same married cousin to bury the hatchet, is perfect for this situation as well’ boasted Kyle. ‘We could offer Israel some anger management counselling, or maybe it will help if I tell the Palestinians to stop playing the victim in all this.’

Another part of the show will see George Bush taking a lie-detector test. The questions are likely to include ‘Do you really think you’ve contributed to Middle Eastern peace?’, ‘Do you really believe that your foreign policy is winning the ‘war on terror’ rather than increasing hatred of the West?’ and ‘Can you remember what your name is?’

However ITV have raised concerns about the so-called ‘Kyle Peace Offensive’ saying that their daytime TV star might be putting himself at risk by heading into a war zone. A British government spokesman was asked whether he realized that this plan could be a threat to the very existence of the Jeremy Kyle show if anything should happen to him, and simply answered ‘Yup’.

See also Gaza border crossing to get Tesco Metro

A Swiss man paralysed five years ago in a skiing accident has chosen to end his life early in the UK after shunning the local suicide clinic a few minutes drive from his home. ‘I want to end my life,’ said Max Friedland today, ‘but I don’t want to actually commit suicide. Which is why I have chosen a routine minor operation in an NHS hospital.’

Friedland, has an appointment in February at a London hospital for the removal of a benign mole on his back. ‘I am hoping that this short overnight stay coupled with the surgery will be enough for me to contract one of the many viruses present in NHS hospitals, C Diff, Norovirus, MRSA, I don’t mind as long as death is quick and relatively pain free.’

Asked whether he approved of the plan, health secretary Alan Johnson said, ‘To be able to welcome people from abroad who have specifically chosen the NHS for their procedures just shows how far we have come in recent years. It’s nice to see someone making a positive choice to use the NHS for once.’

Mr Friedland’s family are supporting his decision to end his life by staying in an English hospital; ‘It would be easy for him to make the short journey to Dignitas and to drink a lethal cocktail of chemicals, but he wants to end his life ended without intervention.’ said his wife, ‘We understand that if the superbug viruses don’t get him, then it is highly likely that some poor exhausted doctor will deliver a fatal incorrect dose of medicine to him, which is a nice safety net to have.’

Mr Friedland had originally been planning to end his life next summer but asked for his suicidal visit to England could be brought forward. ‘I was getting fed up with all those calls from Radio 4’s ‘The Moral Maze’. If anything made me want to end my life more quickly it was the prospect of talking to Michael Buerk about complex ethical dilemmas of our time,’

The Otis Elevator Company have announced the introduction of radical new technology in their latest range of lifts which actually increases the response time of the lift the more you press the call button. Following extensive consumer research, the company identified a niche in the market as elevators across the world were reported to be completely ignoring repetitive hole pressing.

The new technology, called Pronto, uses a patented ‘impatience accelerator engine’ to increase the speed of the lift depending on how hard and how often the call button is pushed. It also has a built in voice recognition facility which responds to the phrases ‘Come on, come on!’ and ‘For God’s sake!’

The new smart lifts can also recognize the fingerprint of people who are not welcome at the building, and will repeatedly offer them lifts going in the opposite direction to the one requested, or will sometimes just close the lift doors and then open them again on the same floor.

‘We want to take lift technology to the next level’ said the inventor of the Pronto software. ‘We are bored with just installing security cameras and then watching footage of people squeezing their blackheads in the lift mirrors.’

The technology is also being adapted for Pedestrian Light-Controlled Crossings, where a camera will monitor approaching cars, and will only turn the lights red if the pedestrians have already crossed during a gap in the traffic.

See also Elevator fantasy celebrates fifteenth anniversary of remaining unfulfilled

The Minister of Education, Ed Balls, has announced today that from September 2009, the teaching of hindsight will become a compulsory addition to the national curriculum at Key Stage 3 and above.

‘Clearly, the benefits of hindsight have long been recognised, but schools have provided little or no formal teaching of the subject to date. It is to remedy this deficit that we are moving straight to an expectation that a minimum of an hour per week’s hindsight will be taught to all children aged 11 plus’ from the beginning of the next academic year.’

Further details of the curriculum are to be released shortly, but the Minister did confirm that both GCSE and A level Hindsight would be offered to students, although pupils wishing to pursue the subject would not be able to sit their final exams until several years after the completion of their formal education.

The Government are also considering the teaching of ‘Retrospective Foresight’ ‘Tip of the Tongue’ phenomena and ‘Unknown Unknowns’ although there have been delays drawing up the syllabus for the latter.

While the Opposition supported the new plans, the Conservatives said that the teaching of Hindsight should have been introduced much earlier. ‘Knowing what we know now, it’s obvious that hindsight should have been introduced ages ago,’ said Tory education spokesman Michael Gove. ‘I can’t believe that they have waited until now.’

See also National Curriculum to include ‘Bleedin Obvious’

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin yesterday took a break from running the country to unveil his new ‘Sovereign Democracy’ winter knitwear range. The collection, exclusively designed by the former President and promoted under the banner ‘warm, manly and timelessly appealing’, responds to the market’s need for clothing that ‘elegantly combines cosmopolitan style with rugged outdoor performance’. Russian state television has been quick to hail the collection as ‘perhaps the greatest union yet of politics and fashion.’

The collection is in two parts and includes the ‘Comrade’ and ‘Traitor’ ranges. The ‘Comrade’ range comprises a number of attractive cable and Aran sweaters featuring bullet-proof torso sections, removable sleeves to ensure no restriction of movement should the wearer engage in impromptu arm wrestling, and twenty-six separate pockets for storing anything from flasks of vodka to small quantities of radioactive material. All the knitwear has been specially produced with anti-extradition ‘Lugovoi’ micro-fibres which prevent the wearer having to face charges overseas for crimes that they may or may not have committed.

The ‘Traitor’ range meanwhile is deliberately less high-end. It contains hole-less balaclavas for impaired vision, a scarf designed to be worn over the mouth in public forums, and a host of jumpers and trousers in day-glo colours to ensure visibility in even the most extreme pursuit conditions. The first customers were yesterday surprised to find that the security tags on their clothes were not removed at the checkout, and that although no store alarms sounded as they left, a TV license enforcement van followed them slowly home at a discreet distance.

The brochure features a number of images of Putin modelling his own creations. In one shot he stands proudly over the corpse of a large bear wearing a tasteful mauve jumper bearing the logo ‘Don’t mess – Ex-KGB’; in another he models knitted camouflage trousers and is naked from the waist up, the view of his washboard stomach unimpeded by a jumper draped casually over his shoulders.
Fashion journalists have praised Putin for his modern interpretation of traditional styles, with many arguing that his combat-wear exceeds all past attempts to strike a balance between the insulation people expect from traditional knitwear and the flexibility needed for free-moving one-on-one combat. Despite rumblings from some quarters that the underwear in the collection offered warmth and chafing in equal measures, the army and FSB have nevertheless placed significant orders with suppliers in contracts whose terms cannot be disclosed on grounds of commercial sensitivity.

The Queen has this year chosen not to recognise those who have made the greatest contribution to Britain in her annual New Year Honours List, and has instead published a document naming those relatives who have brought the greatest shame upon her family. Those named in the New Year ‘Honour Killing’ List will be summoned to Buckingham Palace for an audience with the Queen in which she will tap them lightly on each shoulder with a ceremonial sword before plunging it deep into their midriff.

‘If one’s honest, one tires of pronouncing the same old platitudes to do-gooding nobodies and halfwit entertainers’ said Her Majesty. ‘One fancied doing something different this year, and regrettably some have sullied the good name of this family more than one is able to overlook. Besides, there’s little point in the Royal Prerogative if one’s not going to use it, and as an 82-year-old woman it won’t be too many more years before disembowelling an annoying relative is beyond one.’

Those named in the New Years Honour Killing List include grandson Prince Harry for his ‘uncertain lineage, and drunken behaviour’ husband Prince Philip for his ‘lifelong commitment to gaffing,’ and heir to the throne Prince Charles. ‘One wishes Charles would find something to do with his life,’ said the Queen. ‘Instead of just loitering about the place asking ‘Can I have a go yet?’ and ‘When will it be my turn?’ It really tries one’s patience, so one feels one’s left with no choice but to see him off.’

The move is part of the Royal Family’s ongoing efforts to modernise and reflect current social and multi-cultural trends. ‘There are those who might suggest that it is barbaric to kill a member of one’s family, such as say, a daughter-in-law for bringing the shame of divorce into the family, or cavorting with a man from another religion,’ said the Queen. ‘But that wasn’t us, honest; we’ve never even been to Paris…’

Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, announced that the Jewish people are to withdraw from Israel explaining that the whole ‘Holy Land/Chosen People’ thing had all been a lot more trouble than it was worth and that it might be better for all concerned if they simply went and lived in Brooklyn.

‘We gave it our best shot,’ said Mr Olmert as he boarded one of a fleet of ships preparing to leave the port of Haifa , but we had a chat about it last night and we decided that it’s time to call it a day.’

The announcement came after sixty years of effort to secure a Jewish state in the Promised Land had resulted only in ongoing hostilities and constant condemnation from the world’s media. On hearing the news of the Israeli withdrawal, Palestinians were reported to be shocked and upset. ‘Come on guys, don’t go. You were here first; it says so in your Bible. I’m sure we could maybe work something out.’ Middle Eastern leaders such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. of Iran and President Assad of Syria said they miss their old sparring matches with Israeli politicians and that the old place ‘would not be the same without them’.

Mr Olmert declined to apportion blame for the failure to set up a peaceful Jewish homeland in Palestine; ‘Sometimes these things just aren’t meant to be. I think mistakes were probably made on all sides, but it’s only a bit of land, so we thought it’s not worth fighting over; let’s move on and make a fresh start somewhere else.’

In the meantime the empty homes in the state formerly known as Israel were thought to offer an ideal opportunity to give secure homes to displaced populations from other parts of the world. A UN spokesman said ‘We thought we could put the displaced Serbs and Bosnians in Jerusalem, Kurds, Ethnic Russians and Chechnians in Tel Aviv and maybe the Hutus and the Tutsis in the West Bank. ‘It’s a perfect solution all round’ said one UN official.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson refused to be drawn on reports that he plans human sacrifices as part of the government’s latest attempts to stem the economic downturn.

‘The gods are angry’ Lord Mandelson explained, ‘but the government has always maintained that blood sacrifices are a last resort. However, as we don’t seem to be getting anywhere with the goat or chicken entrails, more drastic steps may have to be taken.’

It is believed that immediately after the holiday period the governors of the Bank of England dressed in hooded robes were summoned to a pentangle deep in the bank’s vaults. Lord Mandelson wearing a deaths-head mask and carrying a curved blade is then said to have killed various livestock on a stone altar in what the opposition have described as ‘a last ditch attempt by the government to find a way out of the credit crunch.’

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve criticised Lord Mandelson for ‘dangerously glamorising knife crime’, and expressed concern that the idea of ‘appeasing the gods’ showed little understanding of the complex economic forces at work in the run up to the current financial crisis.

The government is expected to make a decision by twilight on Wednesday as to whether religious murder is the ‘magic bullet’ required to reverse the plummeting value of sterling and ensure UK Public Sector Borrowing Requirement comes down next year.

Meanwhile, Downing Street has denied rumours that Robert Peston and Frank Field were the front-runners for potential human sacrificee. A spokesperson said that Peter Mandelson has yet to make his choice explaining that only the minister has ‘the experience, the contacts and let’s face it the look to pull off such a task.’

The eagerly awaited 2009 Government Charity Calendar went on sale yesterday sparking controversy in political circles about the decision to allow cabinet ministers to be photographed in the nude. The twelve images feature the major Labour ministers in ‘relaxed and artistic’ poses carrying out their ministerial duties completely in the buff.

One Tory MP said ‘This is yet another cynical bit of New Labour self-publicity if you ask me. The sight of Margaret Beckett is a challenge at the best of times, let alone when all she is wearing is a smile.’ But a Downing Street spokesman defended the Calendar saying ‘The shots are very tasteful. It was very courageous of members to pose naked for charity. We think that it shows our softer side.’

A particular favourite is Alistair Darling’s picture in which his modesty is protected by his famous budget briefcase, while the ensemble photograph for December, features the entire team sitting around the Cabinet Office table, taken only last week upon Gordon Brown‘s return from Afghanistan.

Husband and wife team Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper appear naked together in a ‘domestic setting’ while the shot of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith celebrating her stewardship of the police also stands out. A number of critics expressed their relief that at least John Prescott is no longer in the cabinet.

There was no word from Buckingham Palace on whether Her Majesty approved of the idea of her government being photographed in the nude. It is thought that the Queen might not mention the Government calendar because she did not want to give any publicity to the main rival to her ‘Royal Family Nude Calendar’ that goes on sale tomorrow.

It has emerged that a plot to kill millions of civilians has been foiled by a handful of secret service agents who exploited the inability of plotters to shoot properly.

Barry Dearden, a former MI5 agent, said that in this respect the TV series Spooks (shown as MI5 in the US), which had just finished another run, was extremely accurate. ‘Some of the gadgetry and the code-breaking exploits are a bit far fetched, but the scene where four agents walked down a street unscathed by the bullets of gunmen and rooftop snipers was entirely accurate.’

Surveys show that as many as 95 percent of baddies, as well as being extremely dim, are poor shots because they can’t be trusted with guns to practice with. In a typical scenario of hiding behind cars or buildings and leaping out to take pot-shots, the bad guys repeatedly miss the good guys but then get taken out themselves by a single shot.

‘Their other weakness is the gloating’ explained one MI5 insider. ‘The scene where a sniper had his laser sights fixed on Harry Pearce and then didn’t shoot was so true to life,’ said Dearden. ‘It’s that second or so of sadistically relishing the moment, after a life of being put down for being bad, that lets them down time and again. How many times does a Bond villain or the Master say that in 17 minutes the world will come to an end, and then sit back and gloat? If only they took five fewer minutes and gloated less, the civilised world would be history by now.’

Dearden was unable to give further details of the recent incident, but said that MI5 was always on the lookout for recruits. ‘If you’ve ever felt that something wasn’t quite right, and then leant back in your chair as a bullet passes in front of your face, you’ve got what they’re after.’

The government has announced a new location in which toxic waste can be safely placed without affecting the surroundings or increasing the risk to British public. Henceforth all poisonous substances and hazardous material will be dumped on the page of Daily Mail columnist Allison Pearson.

Inspectors found the weekly rant in of the famously-opinionated writer had a massive capacity for poison and toxic fuming, pointing to her attacks on the eldest daughter of Sarah Ferguson for allegedly being over-weight, ‘pear-shaped’ and ‘a little Miss Piggy’.

‘We are satisfied that the addition of radio-active waste to this column would make a negligible difference to the safety of the nation,’ said a government spokesman, ‘if the public can tolerate the current levels of poison, the damage from a few isotopes isn’t likely to make a big difference to their mental state either way.’

Allison Pearson’s weekly column in the Daily Mail was established some years ago, before the effects of exposing unsuspecting readers to high levels of poison were properly understood. However, some critics say that, given the improved levels of awareness, nobody should be exposed to an Alison Pearson column these days.

Scientists expressed concern that these small leaks of toxic material could be the forerunner to something more cataclysmic. ‘She was supposed to deliver her second novel back in 2005, we are just all praying that it never happens.’

A Consumer’s survey has revealed that only 4% of the presents opened on Christmas day were exactly what the recipient wanted or asked for. All the rest were either slightly but irritatingly wrong or actually be so completely inappropriate or misjudged that it would have been better to buy nothing at all.

‘The crassest errors were made by parents buying technical presents for their teenage children’ said the editor of ‘Which?’ magazine; ‘Kids that asked for an iPhone were bought an iPod Touch by mistake. Or an O2 phone which their dumb parents thought was the same thing. That’s why grown-ups say it is better to give than receive. Because receiving is either disappointing or really annoying.’

Another classic error is to ‘the book with the tenuous link’; ‘I go jogging before work in the morning’ said one Derbyshire housewife, ‘So my husband bought me the history of jogging. What the hell do I want that for? It’s bad enough having to do it without bloody reading about it as well.’ It is estimated that over a million books with tenuous links to the recipient were given all over Britain yesterday; illustrated guides of places where a wife casually suggested they might go on holiday one day, or dull biographies of actors who were in a film they recently saw together.

Other presents that were just ‘a bit wrong’ were the classic wrong size clothing, the same thing that you bought last year or the deeply irritating starter kit for a hobby that will never be taken up. ‘I got a set of watercolors last year’ said one Nottingham man. ‘And some chisels for woodcarving, and a computer programme and DVD about how to research my family tree.’ I have no intention of ever using any of them. My hobby is drinking beer and watching television.’

But perhaps the most misjudged present was the inappropriate and slightly offensive sex toy. ‘My husband just gave me some pink fluffy handcuffs, a leather basque and KY jelly,’ confessed one London woman. ‘I said to him, really George, that’s never really been our scene has it? He went red and said, ‘Sorry, you’ve opened my present to your mother…’’

A young Hampshire boy claims that he has uncovered the secret identity of Father Christmas, and that the world’s most famous gift-giver is actually his very own mother. Seven year old Jamie Brown, from Portsmouth, called a number of national newspapers this morning to reveal the shock news that Santa Claus does not in fact live at the North Pole, but at number 7 Willow Gardens, Portsmouth. ‘And he’s not a man, he’s a lady’ he told shocked reporters.

Confronting his parents in front of his twin five-year-old sisters with camera-phone proof that no one had come to the house to bring presents, Jamie’s mother Linda had to concede that Santa being her secret identity was ‘the only logical explanation’ for being caught distributing Scalextric and Elmo dolls to the Brown children. It appears that Mrs Brown must have been living some kind of double life, during which she convinced friends and family she was a learning support assistant at the local school, when in fact she was commuting to the North Pole to make toys with elves.

Neighbours were reported to be shocked to have had the real Father Christmas living in their midst, describing Mrs Brown as ‘a quiet type, who kept herself to herself’. Police said there were looking into the possibility of a criminal prosecution, since the business of distributing toys to all the children in the whole wide world must have meant leaving Jamie and his sisters ‘home alone’ for most of the night.

Women’s groups have welcomed the news that ‘Father’ Christmas was actually a woman; Germaine Greer said it was typical of our phallocentric society to have presumed that this generous spirit was a man, while for the government Lord Mandelson said it was a source of great pride for Britain that Santa Claus was a UK citizen ‘doing so much for exports at this difficult time’.

Despite all the attention Mrs Brown was keeping a low profile this morning, but as well as the police enquiries has a number of impending interviews later in the week with H.M Customs and Excise, Health and Safety Officials and the RSPCA.

Santa Claus, an elderly man residing at the North Pole, who describes himself as ‘toymaker and philanthropist’, has been the victim of serial identity theft according to the police. They have recorded literally thousands of examples of impostors attempting to pass themselves off as the distinctively dressed bearded man, using his name and attempting to take advantage of the goodwill felt towards Father Christmas at this time of year.

‘Some of them are quite brazen about it’ said D.I. Hooper of the Metropolitan Police; ‘Going around in gangs of eight or ten, all of them trying to pass themselves off as the same individual!’

It is not known how they identity thieves got the personal details of Santa Claus, but they seem to know where he lives, how he dresses and even the names of his pet reindeer. ‘Apparently he uses the password ‘Rudolf’ for everything.’

Police have warned the public to be extra careful when dealing with members of the public who may at first seem to be dressed like Father Christmas. ‘If you see a group of office workers staggering down the high street clutching vodka bottles, the one at the back wearing a Santa hat may not necessarily be the real Father Christmas.’

Parents of young children however seemed unconcerned that there may be one or two impostors out there. ‘Every year we take our children to the department store to meet Father Christmas’ said one mother in a Leeds shopping centre. ‘We send them into a dark little grotto on their own to sit on Santa’s knee. Why would anyone but the real Santa want to do that all day?’

Children across the Christian world are reaching a point of near-hysteria about the prospect of going to church on Christmas morning and listening to another sermon about the birth of Jesus.

‘It’s the highlight of my year’ said seven year-old Tom Brydon from Chicago, USA. ‘Every Christmas morning I can’t wait for mom and pop to tell me to put away my new toys and to visit the local church. Sometimes as a special treat they let me stay behind in the church hall after mass and talk to lots of old people. It’s wicked.’

The story is repeated across the globe. Five year-old Sophie Morris from Worcester in England shares Tom’s enthusiasm. ‘When mum says it’s only two hours until we have to leave for church we’re all gutted – why do we have to wait so long? I think the church should open earlier so that we can spend longer there. Hopefully the old people will want to sing 20 or 30 of my favourite Christmas hymns before we have to go home. I just wish we could stay there all day.’

Some social commentators have expressed concern at the lack of interest among today’s young people in presents, chocolates and TV specials, with so much of Christmas now revolving around the arrival of the son of God and ways in which he might be worshipped. ‘I like the long sermon about children in Africa who don’t have any presents’ said one excited child. ‘My favourite is singing all the hymns. Sometimes I try and start an extra one, and Mum has to nag me to come home and open all my presents.’

Many children commented that the only thing that made returning from church bearable was the thought of a plateful of overcooked sprouts and some dried out turkey. ‘Turkey is the highlight of my year’ said six-year old Jean Lemond from Nice, France. ‘Being French, I care a great deal about quality food and I love nothing more than eating part of a 16Kg bird which has been in the oven for 24 hours. Normally vegetables are served al-dente, but Christmas day is the exception and we all love the Brussels sprouts after four hours of ferocious boiling.’

Last year a number of children asked if they could repeat the whole experience on Boxing Day morning but were unable to persuade their parents. ‘Perhaps they need a good sleep after all the turkey and sprouts’ said one understanding child.

Prime Minister Gordon ‘Ebenezer’ Brown has denied claims that he was taken surprise by three harrowing spectral visits in the run up to Christmas which caused him to turn from a dour tight-fisted miser to a generous give-away Prime Minister. The government dismissed the idea that Brown was frightened into a policy U turn as ‘ludicrous smear tactics’. ‘The visits of these ghosts was part of an organised summit and a range of policy shifts were discussed’, said a Downing Street spokesman.

Gordon Brown now claims that this Christmas will be made much easier for hard-working families and cited the example of a Mr Bob Cratchit as the type of middle-to-low earner who would gain under the new benefit changes. ‘We have reduced VAT by half of one per cent, and introduced a new system, which is not all that complicated, by which parents of disabled and tiny children can apply for tax credits on crutches, if a series of simple financial metrics are met to the satisfaction of a not enormous team of actuaries’ he explained, adding; ‘I have saved Christmas.’

One of the economic advisors, known only as ‘the ghost of socialism past’ is thought to have particularly disturbed the Prime Minister. ‘All we know is that Brown was clinging onto or clawing back every last penny until this so-called ghost summit’ said Nick Robinson. ‘Now he is bailing out companies, nationalizing the banks, giving out money all over the place. This morning he shouted ‘Happy Christmas Jaguar!’ and threw a load more money at them. It’s a shame all the cash is borrowed, but he said he’ll worry about that in the new year.’

Match of the Day pundit Mark Lawrenson was this morning the toast of London literary society after his ‘inspired and timely use of Christmas imagery’ to describe the generosity of a Premiership back four.

Poet Laureate Andrew Motion declared himself excited and ‘perhaps a little jealous’ at the brilliance of Mark Lawrenson’s seasonal metaphors. ‘We have been looking to our novelists and poets to take modern literature on to the next step, but it fell to an ex-footballer to find new similes and imagery to both surprise and delight.’

‘It just came into my head,’ said Lawrenson. I thought – it’s Christmas; Middlesbrough have just given away a gift of a goal, maybe there is some way I could work up the theme of giving and presents and all that.’

With Fulham already two nil up, the Middlesbrough defence failed to mark Fulham midfielder Clint Dempsey, and Lawrenson paused for effect, then looked to Alan Hansen and Gary Lineker and said ‘I think the Boro defence must think it’s already Christmas if they’re giving away goals like that!!!!’

His fellow Match of the Day pundits were lost for words, while the cameramen and studio directors could be heard gasping and applauding. Alan Hansen attempted to continue with the Christmas theme, but struggled as two players squared up aggressively, ‘Not much er, Easter goodwill between those two’ he said, ‘No, hang on that’s not right…’

Despite offers from University English Departments, the London Review of Books and Literary Review, Lawrenson is already working on his punditry for Boxing Day. ‘I thought if a player was a bit too slow,’ he mused, ‘I could say he looked like he’d had a bit too much Christmas pudding!!!’ At which point everyone groaned as Gary Lineker mumbled ‘What a bloody cliché…’

A 1000 year old Oxfordshire village is to close after it was deemed not to be economically viable to the local Tesco superstore. Villagers received the news at a tense public consultation meeting last night when Councillor Shapley revealed that not a single person from the historic village of Stony Bridgeford shops or works in the Tesco store a few hundred metres away. ‘It’s no good being sentimental about these things. In this modern competitive environment, villages either have to pay their way as far as the supermarkets are concerned or face closure.’

There had been some hope of keeping the village open, and just closing down some of the older and more annoying residents as a compromise but this was rejected as impracticable. David Gordon representing the village commented ‘We are devastated by this ruling from the local council. We have been good neighbours to Tesco and never gave them any bother despite having lorries thundering through the village at all hours making deliveries. Our village has stood since the Doomsday Book, Tesco has been here six years.’

A Tesco spokesperson said ‘We have tried time and again to encourage people from the village to shop and work in our store, but to no avail. We have tried to engage with the community by sponsoring prizes at the local school and distributing leaflets to allow the villagers to take advantage of our excellent deals on personal finance, but all these efforts have been ignored. The village is just not sustainable and we’ve had to apply for it to be closed down and bulldozed.’

Tesco has also intimated that there are other larger villages that may have to close, as well as the entire county of Shropshire which may no longer be viable. After the Saxon church and thatched cottages of Stony Bridgeford have been razed, the area will be turned into a car park with a small children’s playground and picnic area in the corner. ‘Tesco will pay for all this work,’ said Sir Terry Leahy, head of Tesco worldwide; ‘we want to make this a special place for people to meet, shop and have a real sense of community. The playground will have a slide and a swing and some bark chippings made from the 700 year old oak tree that currently stands in the centre of the village, which I think is a nice touch. Plus we will be offering mortgage deals to the villagers to buy a house in the development across the road which was co-funded by Tesco when the store was originally built.’

The Isle of Wight has moved swiftly to bring an end to the disorder that has broken out among the island’s carol singing community. Henceforth festive revellers will have to follow a strict code of practice laid down by the official Christmas Carol regulator ‘OfCarol’.

Confusion still reigns on the island with no official policy on whether singing should start as soon as the callers reach the doorstep. Many Ventnor residents have complained of being ‘duped’ into answering the door by silence, only for carollers to start singing while the householder stood there attempting to maintain a well-meaning smile. It is believed many residents may prefer ‘warning singing’, so they can pretend to be out, thus not only avoiding making payment, but also the social discomfort of deciding how much is appropriate.

OfCarol will also establish a ‘going rate’, so that payment can be made using a complex formula that takes into account the quality of singing, the difficulty of key changes, descants, solos and the number of verses sung. ‘Last week three hoodies just mumbled four lines of ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ and then just held out their hands expecting a fiver,’ complained one Shanklin resident.

In Sandown last night, the emergency services had to be called when two rival groups of carollers squared up in the town’s main square. ‘We were enjoying ‘Silent Night’, when all of a sudden, we heard a second group start singing it in German,’ recalled one shaken witness. ‘Well, the first lot just sang that bit louder, but the ones across the street launched into ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’. It was beautifully sung, but before they’d even got to the second verse, the first bunch started singing it in Latin, complete with that tricky descant Soprano twiddly bit. Before we knew it, they were facing each other down in the middle of the street like something out of some ‘Gangsta Rap’ music video!’

Isle of Wight residents are hoping that the creation of OfCarol will save the island from the Carol singing anarchy that has overtaken the mainland where teenage boys accompanying their parents were reported singing rude versions of ‘We three kings of Leicester Square’ and shouting ‘Hosanna in ex-CHELSEA!’

President-Elect Barack Obama has been preparing for his new job of President of the United States by talking very fast, using incomprehensible acronyms, showing his human side, losing a small battle but then making a principled moral stand an hour later (or 40 minutes if you were watching the DVDs).

His training session begins with him walking in a suit down a corridor, with a number of dedicated, principled and occassionally witty aides bringing him a number of confusing but important sounding updates; ‘Sir, here’s that data for the CPR claw-back on the Titan project!’ or ‘Get me code-G status defense briefings on Dahrain!’

When his training started he kept stopping and saying ‘Sorry, I haven’t got the faintest idea what any of this means, everyone just slow down and explain one thing at a time.’ Also he objected to the fact that they had to keep walking round and round the corridors of the West Wing. ‘Haven’t we gone down here three times already? Can’t we just stand still and have this conversation?’

Now when we say to him ‘Sir, the gig-fish banana house is looking bra-wise on RSPCA’ he just nods and looks concerned. Then he quotes Benjamin Franklin or Aristotle and we see a life-affirming moment with his wife and daughters. The only problem was when we put the wrong DVD in the player, and he spent the rest of the day being interviewed by David Frost denying there had been a cover up.

Scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN were left counting the cost today after conmen posing as building contractors took them for a large sum of money in return for shoddy and unnecessary repairs. The fraudsters, dressed in workmen’s clothes and orange jackets, turned up at around 4pm while the unsuspecting scientists were watching Countdown and enjoying a cup of tea. They rang the doorbell and when one of the scientists got up to answer it, they told him they were from the ‘Black Hole Board’ and they were there to check if any super-conducting magnets needed repair.

‘They made it sound so serious and said that if something wasn’t done about them right away then we might loose the whole LHC’ explained one professor, who preferred to remain anonymous. ‘They even suggested that Switzerland could be sucked into a black hole if we didn’t fix it and that we would be liable for the damages.’

The bogus workmen then entered the building and began pulling at bits of equipment, poking holes in the liquid helium cooling system while making tutting noises, and asking ‘What clown put this thing together then?’ As the scientists grew increasingly alarmed, one conman took them into the kitchen to discuss ‘urgent’ repairs while the others rifled through the building, stealing several laptops and the coffee fund. The ringleader then demanded £14million to begin work and took the scientists to a cash point to withdraw the money.

An engineer who later examined the LHC was shocked to find the super-conducting magnets replaced with bits from a Renault Clio starter motor, and the liquid helium cooling system held together with lengths of hosepipe and duct tape. ‘I’m afraid this sort of thing is all too common’ said a spokesman for the National Audit Office. ‘Contractors often target large projects, which are seen as an easy touch for cost overruns and shakedowns. Earlier this week Wall Street was left $50billion short after investors were tricked out of their cash by an impostor calling himself Mr Madoff.’

A split has opened up in the campaign by Native Americans for historical compensation after descendants of East Coast Indians have defended the infamous real estate deal that swapped the island of Manhattan for some beads.

‘What nobody acknowledges is that these were really nice beads’ said Karl Skywolf who is on the more moderate side of the Native American movement. ‘They had these dinky little shells and sparkly bits, and you could double them up and wear them as a bracelet as well as a necklace.’ he went on. ‘People always criticize our ancestors in the Carnarsee tribe for handing over the most valuable real estate in the world for a handful of sparkling trinkets, but you have to appreciate that Manhattan needed a lot doing to it. It’s had a lot of cash spent on it since then, and the beads seemed a good deal at the time.’

More militant Native Americans point to the infamous exchange as a symbol of their exploitation at a time when Indians did not recognise the concept of land ownership, and accepted the trinkets as a goodwill gift. ‘We demand the return of all the land in the metropolitan area of New York as rightfully ours’ said one militant. ‘Oh come on, it’s not going to happen…’ responded Skywolf, ‘it’s not as if we still have the jewellery to give back in return.’

However the Mayor of New York refused to dismiss the idea out of hand. With falling property prices, rising crime and unemployment, the mayors office is open to all ideas. ‘If you can find the beads after all this time’ he said, ‘we might be able to do you a deal on the Bronx and part of Queens.’

There was controversy during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons this afternoon after Gordon Brown responded to a backbencher’s question by saying ‘I refer the Honourable Gentleman to the hand as the face is not listening.’ The Prime Minister then proceeded to raise his hand in the general direction of Conservative Paul Goodman and turn his head in the opposite direction. Stuck for an appropriate response, the MP for Wycombe simply sat back down.

However, following a brief spell of stunned silence, Conservative leader David Cameron hit back at the Government front bench by exclaiming ‘I swear down, that Harman hoe is wearing some sketty skirt, bruv!’, signalling a tirade of name calling during which several Labour MPs could be seen making gang-like hand gestures at the party opposite. To gasps from the benches opposite the Right Hon Harriet Harman just shrugged and said ‘Your mom…’ Speaker Michael Martin, wearing his wig backwards, tried for several minutes to calm things down by saying ‘ llow it, ‘llow it…’ while Alistair Darling declared ‘Rah man, you is dryyy’ to the agreement of Labour backbenchers who agreed ‘This is well lonnggggg, blud.’

Finally the Speaker asserted some authority by standing up and rapping ‘Don’t make me click my fingers in the Zee formation’ and members dispersed from the chamber as quickly as was possible considering that they were wearing trousers much too big for them, with crotches somewhere round their knees.

‘This signals a new breed of politics’ said BBC political correspondent Nick Robinson, wearing a hoodie and and a Yankees cap. ‘The House of Commons has long had a reputation for heated, some might say boisterous debate, but Brown’s approach today hint towards something new entirely. But Blood Set seemed heartened by his new attacks upon the Cryps, and the talk in the lobbies was of the Prime Minister ‘setting his bredren against Cameron’s crew, to shank them up nicely’.

Peter Morgan has penned his latest winner in the wake of his smash hit West End and Broadway play, and now major motion picture, ‘Frost/Nixon’. ‘I still wanted to stick with the TV interview-as-feature-film-format. I just needed to find the right subject.’

‘Parkinson/Emu’ is a dramatic retelling of the original Michael Parkinson and Emu interview from 1976 when the six foot bird with the blue glitter mane and yellow felt beak attacked popular chat show king Michael Parkinson, pecking aggressively into his inner thigh, swivelling him round in his chair and dumping him onto the floor. The incident caused a sensation and made news around the world. As a result there were several high-level resignations from the EBC (Emu Broadcasting Corporation).

Morgan is at pains to point out that ‘Parkinson/Emu’ is in no way a sequel to ‘Frost/Nixon’, though he does concede the parallels are striking. ‘In ‘Frost/ Nixon’ we have a TV satirist on the skids and a disgraced ex-president of the USA. They’re trying to subtly out-manouevre each other. In ‘Parkinson/Emu’ we’ve got a bloke from Barnsley and a spangly bird with Rod Hull’s hand up its arse. The resemblances, I’m sure you’ll agree, are uncanny.’

Casting has already started with Peter Morgan favourite, actor Michael Sheen, pencilled to play the lead. ‘I’ve done a lot of research,’ said the Welsh thespian, ‘I can’t wait to give the world my Emu.’

A man who dumped his girlfriend with the words ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ has been dubbed ‘a real gentleman’ by women’s groups around the world. Twenty eight year old Martin Halliday had been seeing Joanna for four years but explained to her that he was ‘not ready for a relationship’ and that it might be better if they could just be friends.

The couple had just moved in together and had been talking about getting engaged, but last month Martin decided that he wanted to end their relationship. ‘He was lovely about it’ said Joanna. ‘First he suggested that we sat down as we needed to talk. Then he told me that he still loved me, but he wasn’t in love with me and that perhaps we needed some time apart. I asked him why and he just looked me in the eye and said ‘it’s not you, it’s me’. I was disappointed, but I was just relieved that it wasn’t my fault. He was even kind enough to give me until the weekend to move out of our flat. His kindness has really helped me to get over it.’

Women from around the world have hailed the gesture as ‘a truly selfless gesture of chivalry’ and have dubbed Martin ‘a role model for all gentlemen everywhere’. Leading feminist Germaine Greer, who has interviewed both Martin and Joanna since their break up for her new book ‘Actually Some Men Are OK’ said ‘When you think about all the things he could have blamed for the split; her continued failure to have his dinner on the table on time, the bit of weight she’d gained over the last few months and the fact that he found sex with her really dull compared to sex with her best friend.’

Martin has since finished with Joanna’s best friend as well, this time with a text message that said ‘u r chckd ’ ‘It was a really sweet way to do it’ she said.

In an attack that will go down as the first non sectarian piece of violence in Northern Ireland for over 50 years, James McDonnell of Glassmill Road, Derry, was beaten to within an inch of his life by a gang made up of both Catholics and Protestants yesterday.

Speaking to reporters besides a mural that has been commissioned to mark the historic milestone, the Most Rev Seamus Hegarty, Bishop of Derry said, ‘It shows just how far the Peace Process has come, that both sides of the historical divide can work together like this. If so-called loyalists and nationalists can work together to carry out punishment beatings, then why not gun-running, drug dealing, knee-capping and extortion? It gives you such hope for the future.’

Local politicians were eager to emphasize that McDonnell was not attacked because of his religion, but was beaten up because he was ‘a complete and utter bastard’. ‘McDonnell was a small-time gangster who had made life a misery for over thirty years’ explained the Bishop of Derry. ‘To be honest if they hadn’t done him over with those baseball bats I was planning something similar myself.’ His wife Patricia McDonnell 54 claimed, ‘I don’t know what it is about Jimmy but he just seems to be horrible to the core. Of course we condemn violence in general terms, but just not where my husband is concerned. But all credit to him for bringing the whole community together in this way.’

As one of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement, Tony Blair welcomed the historic breakthrough. Speaking from Jerusalem in his capacity as Middle East Peace Envoy, Mr Blair said he was still working for the day when both Palestinians and Israelis came together to throw stones at the army, before being gunned down by mixed Jewish/Muslim security forces.

Microsoft has proudly announced a raft of new ways to frustrate users and lower productivity with its new version of its celebrated Concentration Breaker software.

The company’s stated aim was to build upon the success of previous productivity blockers, such as the Pop Up cartoon paperclip, the upgrade warnings and the indecipherable error messages. But ‘Concentration Breaker’ was not succeeding in completely stopping people from working, explained Bill Gates. ‘These individual distractions are annoying, but they’re not the holistic, end to end, integrated distraction we believe is possible’ he said.

With Concentration Breaker 3.0 Microsoft has dreamed up a imaginative range of ways to stop you remaining focussed. The layout of your favourite application is automatically shuffled every time you switch on your computer, and the shortcuts alter even during the time you are using a given programme. The ‘Are you sure’ feature, traditionally one of the strongest areas for inducing frustration, has been greatly enhanced; now the user is asked twenty-one questions before he can send a single document to the printer. These include ‘What is the cube root of 512?’ and ‘What is the capital of Chad?’

The language software is now programmed to recognize definitive statements as they are typed into Word or emails, at which point an electronic voice will say ‘Rubbish’, ‘Not true’ or ‘You’re a big fat liar’. And best of all, in place of a paperclip or a little animated dog, the image of an ugly and aggressive man pops up at random moments and makes obscene gestures at you from the screen.

Unfortunately the official launch of Concentration Breaker 3.0 was cut short when the computer froze and all the work done that morning was permanently lost. At which point the assembled reporters realized that this too was part of the software’s work-preventing design and spontaneous applause broke out across the hall. The programme is expected to get rave reviews once the journalists have worked out which laptop keys now correspond to which letters.