A London Borough has launched a new scheme allowing local residents to discard their nannies and au pairs in an environmentally friendly way. Since November 1, Richmond upon Thames has been operating a pilot scheme in which overseas workers can be left out with bottles, cans and newspapers, allowing them to be used again by residents in other parts of the borough.

‘The credit crunch has hit many of our middle class families quite severely and many of them are having to cut back,’ explained Martin Hall, from the borough’s recycling programme. ‘But now Eastern European employees can be used again and again, cutting down on flights home, distressed telephone calls and embarrassing emotional situations.’ In the leafy streets of Barnes and St Margarets, slightly distressed looking young Polish women can now be seen sitting in recycling boxes on Sunday nights before the lorry comes round. They are then collected on Monday morning by private contractors who relocate them in other local homes.

‘We had a marvellous Croation girl; very hard worker’ said Arabella Hutchinson from Sheen. ‘But when Jeremy didn’t get his bonus went we had to cut back. What was it to be; give up the gym membership, sell Jemima’s pony or let the au pair go. Luckily they have this splendid nanny recycling scheme round here, so it was an easy decision.’ There have also been problems with re-allocation of au pairs to their new families. After a mix up at the recycling depot, one Richmond family were given a sack of old Daily Telegraph’s to look after their children, while others were given a load of empty Chablis bottles.

‘Well it’s all much of a muchness isn’t?’ said Arabella. ‘We’ve got some crushed Tennants Extra cans babysitting tonight, but I’m sure the kids will be fine. The cans are actually much cheaper than that Croation girl. Unfortunately the Hutchinson’s were fined by the council for putting their au pair in the wrong coloured box. ‘It’s impossible to remember what’s what. Poles go in the red box, Hungarians in the green box, and the big sacks are for girls from the Baltic states. No hang on, that’s not right…’

South Wales Police are today hunting an armed robber who stole a luxury holiday from a travel agent in the Cardiff area. Witnesses say that the gunman burst into the high street shop on Monday afternoon, shouted at customers to lie on the floor and then demanded a weekend mini-break in Paris, incorporating first class tickets on the Eurostar. Police have had no success finding the thief and are beginning to suspect that he may have fled abroad.

Monday’s robbery was similar to a number of holiday thefts in the South Wales area over the past few months, which police are beginning to suspect may be the work of the same man. However this latest hold-up started to go badly wrong as the agents explained that there was very little available at such short notice. There were no train seats remaining, and although they could book his car onto a cross channel ferry, ‘it would mean a long drive from Calais to Paris and then there’s all the parking problems at the other end.’ The panicked gunman became increasingly agitated demanding that they try flights to Paris and explain connections from the airport. ‘But the times didn’t really work out for him…’ said Jenny Charteris, one of the traumatized travel agent staff who had been forced to co-operate at gun-point. ‘I offered him Center Parcs but he became even angrier’ she recalled, ‘or an off-peak canal barge holiday through the Norfolk broads, but again, he just kept shouting that he had his heart set on a City Break. In the end he took a whole bunch of them; Prague, Venice, Amsterdam, and then ran out of the shop still waving his gun and shouting.’

South Wales detectives have now begun a massive man hunt, beginning at hotels in the Caribbean and the Seychelles. ‘We are undertaking a pre-emptive operation, checking out his likely next move. We have staked out the beaches in the Maldives, Mauritius and Florida. There is also the possibility that he might make a move for a skiing holiday next, and so are sending officers to Val d’Isere and Aspen, Colorado.’ However as things stand, the police are no closer to catching the thief. ‘All we have to go on so far is his name, his car registration, the airport he is going to, the times of his flights and the hotel where he will be staying in. If anyone has any more information we urge them to come forward in confidence.’

Tough new border controls are being proposed at Britain’s ports and airports to prevent the mass emigration of Eastern Europeans from leaving the United Kingdom.

Under controversial plans being put together by a cross party committee, Polish people will now be stopped by customs officials and returned to their jobs as plumbers, builders and waitresses. ‘The British economy cannot survive the mass exodus of the most highly skilled and hardest working sector in the construction and service industries’ said a government spokesman. ‘And if they think they are going home before my loft conversion is finished they can forget it.’

One Conservative shadow minister was sacked from the front bench after allegations of racism against the departing Poles. In a speech to his constituency association he was reported to have said ‘Bloody Poles, they go over there, and leave all our jobs. Our street used to be a lovely area. But then one Pole moved out, and then his next door neighbour went back to Warsaw, and before you know it, the whole neighbourhood is empty of ‘em.’

The government is now introducing a points system under which people can only emigrate if they are without certain skills, qualifications or personnel recommendations. ‘We were actually thinking of a certain section of British populace. You know the Big Brother contestants, sacked hedge fund managers and estate agents. But the trouble is the really useless people can never get their act together to go.’

Bestselling author God has reacted with fury on learning that his book, The Holy Bible, is being made available for free in hotel rooms around the world. He made the discovery on a European book tour to promote The Bible: The New International Version – the latest volume in the long-running franchise that has captivated generations of readers and spawned a string of Charlton Heston movies.

God first found a copy of his one-hit wonder in the bedside drawer of the Erasme Hotel in Brussels, and initially was amused that He had checked in to the room after one of his fans. It was only when the same thing happened at the Hotel Mozaic in The Hague that God looked at The Bible more closely and realised that it wasn’t a version published by Him, and that He was getting no royalties from it. ‘I haven’t been this annoyed since everyone started banging on about the King James version and how they thought that the rewrite was better than the original,’ said God. ‘And now I discover that some character going by the name of Gideon is just giving away his version in hotels? I mean, what the fuck?’

God now plans to take legal action against unauthorised versions and ‘smite’ those who are found responsible. ‘They will face prosecution, court orders to pulp any versions breaching copyright law, and their lands shall be ravaged by locusts and famine for seven years.’

God’s book tour has already run in to difficulties when fans of The Bible started quizzing God at Q&A sessions about the meaning of certain parts and what they perceived to be inconsistencies in the plot. God has refused to directly answer the questions, telling fans ’it stands as written, I don’t think it needs further explanation’.

Q. As a mother of seven I am worried that the value of my children may have fallen over the last year. My eldest daughter has been getting good grades at school but should I cash in now before her first GCSE year? I am also thinking that putting the twins into a hedge fund might protect against future market free fall but is it best to act now or hold on for a few months?

A. Selling your children is one of the most stressful decisions a parent has to make. I would not want to advise further without knowing your social status. Working class children are changing hands for a pittance at the moment but the market may recover in the next quarter. Upper class children attract premium rates however so now is a good time to sell especially if it looks like there is a risk that they are an underperformer.

Q. I am a level 3 Elf thief with strength 13, dexterity 14 and charisma 11. I have gained 250 experience points in the last few weeks and I also have a collection of blue vials taken from recently vanquished foes. How will the credit crunch affect me.

A. Bad news, I’m afraid. The blue vials are likely poison and are probably worthless. You will also no longer be able to roll 2 Dice in the chasm or the shadow woods, back to the single die. I would also seriously consider changing your allegiance to evil, if it is not already.

Q. Hi there. I am currently in possession of large amounts of booty, a chest of various trinkets, pieces of eight and doubloons. I have not invested this as of yet and I am unwilling to consider sharing these spoils with my men, who are a swarthy lot, dishonest as the day is long, but a finer more loyal crew ‘tis hard to come by. Any thoughts?

A. I would not hesitate in recommending that you find a sandy beach and bury it all. A desert island with tax-exempt status would be ideal.

Do you have a question about debt and financial problems? Then email your credit card details and security code to our Nigerian office and we will make sure that money worries are a thing of the past!

Shocked civil servants were at a loss today as to what to make of a phone call from a service user who apparently had no complaint to make. A member of helpline staff at the DVLA took the call yesterday afternoon from an office worker in Chelmsford. The man claimed he had just felt like saying thanks for their online car tax renewal facility which had saved him wasting his lunch-break braving a squally shower and a post office queue, where he later found out there had been a fight, an incontinence episode and someone trying to pay for their TV license with softmints which had held up the queue for ages.

‘I just kept waiting for the ‘but’ and it never came’ said the Helpline assistant at the Swansea-based offices, ‘It got a bit awkward really. He said it was a really easy system to use, really quick, and had saved him a lot of bother. ‘A great example of a successful government IT project adding real value to people’s lives’ he said. Trouble was, our customer care helpline software doesn’t have a drop-down for any of that so I had to pass him on to a supervisor’.

The caller was then passed up the chain of command as increasingly senior civil servants pored through procedure documents in an attempt to log the issue. Eventually the Secretary of State for Transport, Geoff Hoon was called out of a meeting to take the call. Similarly stumped, Mr Hoon apologized profusely for the general crapness of the entire government and offered to resign immediately.

The call eventually returned some two hours later to the original operator on the helpline. ‘At this point the bloke had had enough’, he said. ‘Bloody helpline system, bloody paper-pushers, bloody waste of tax money’. He was fuming. So I ticked the boxes for complaints about ‘attitude of staff’, ‘query not resolved’ and ‘abusive customer’ which meant I was no longer obliged to manage his call, so I hung up’.

A low, continual thud could still be heard around Cambridge University’s Departments of Mathematics today as eminent intellectuals continued to bang their heads against college walls, reeling from the powerful, seemingly unanswerable argument put forward by a young undergraduate. Earlier that week, first year Cultural Studies student, Thomas Brown, had stunned college professors by entering into a debate with Stephen Hawking, who is Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, forcing a rebuff on the existence of worm holes and the origins of the universe.

Hawking was at first happy to explain his theory but became agitated by Mr Brown, who repeatedly responded with a sarcastic, ‘Yeah, in YOUR opinion’. The world’s leading thinkers are reportedly stunned by this new intellectual development, and believe that they may have been witness to a whole new branch of philosophy.

Rising to the challenge Hawking offered a combination of the theory of general relativity with quantum theory, explaining ‘one can get rid of the problem of time having a beginning in a similar way to that which disposed of the edge of the world. Suppose the beginning of the universe was like the South Pole of the earth, with degrees of latitude playing the role of time. The universe would start as a point at the South Pole. As one moves north, the circles of constant latitude, representing the size of the universe, would expand. To ask what happened before the beginning of the universe would become a meaningless question because there is nothing south of the South Pole.’ To which Brown asserted ‘Yeah, but that’s like just you imposing your cultural views and values on me. It is just YOUR opinion’.

At this point one eye witness reported that Hawking threw his keyboard at Brown and flung himself out of his chair. ‘It was quite shocking’, said Lise Johnson, a 3rd year Mathematics undergraduate; ‘it was as if Hawking was admitting that he was just not as smart as Brown.’

Thomas Brown has since used his revolutionary style of argument to defeat numerous intellectuals in varied fields, including Noam Chomsky, Umberto Eco, Richard Dawkins and The Archbishop of Canterbury. The four were gathered for a special edition of the Moral Maze, in which Brown contradicted all of their points with a loud ‘in YOUR opinion’, after which the recording suddenly goes dead. Brown was later seen at his local casualty unit, suffering from multiple bruises and a cut above the eye.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has offered his services to the new president of the United States in what he describes as a key role at the centre of the White House.

‘No it is not demeaning’ Blair told reporters, sporting a rented cartoon dog costume; this is the special relationship in action.’ Tony Blair has undertaken a number of key posts since resigning as Prime Minister last year, but has alway made it be known that he was interested in cementing Anglo-American relations. His duties would include a number of strict retrieval projects, accompanying the First Lady on walkabouts and security responsibilities in the backyard of the White House.

‘When the paper boy throws the Washington Post over the gate, we need a puppy that can catch it and bring it through the hatch without ripping it to shreds. It is a very high level appointment.’

However it is thought that The White House is looking at a number of European statesman to take up the role of the President’s puppy. ‘We might consider a French poodle or a German lap-dog, or a loyal English sniffer dog. We haven’t decided yet,’ said a White House spokesman.

It was revealed that a number of leaders have already been brought to the Obama family for consideration ‘Mr Blair was possibly a bit too licky for us. But at least he didn’t try and hump Michelle’s leg like President Sarkozy.’

In the latest in a series of apparent personal data blunders, the government has been forced to admit that an Isle of Wight resident found a book containing the names and telephone numbers of hundreds of thousands of people ‘literally left on his doorstep’.

‘As soon as I found the book I knew something was wrong,’ said Michael Sexton who found the incriminating volume. ‘I started flicking through it looking for myself and my family, and it was all there. I just can’t see how something like this could have been allowed to happen. How could they know my number, my address, my postcode and everything? It’s frightening.’

Sexton fears that had the book been found by a less honest individual, they might have been able to commit identity fraud, although he admits that he isn’t sure exactly how. ‘When I realised that,’ he said, ‘I immediately resolved to contact my MP and discuss the security breach with him. Unfortunately I don’t have his phone number. Is there something where I can look them up?’

A representative of the Home Office told reporters that the information contained in the book does not constitute a leak. ‘This is the telephone directory,’ he said to the scorn of reporters. ‘The phone companies compile it and you can opt out at any stage. Everybody gets a copy. I… I don’t understand what you think has happened here.’

But Sexton is not convinced, and with the backing of the Daily Express has launched a campaign to force Gordon Brown to start an inquiry into how so much personal information came to be left on his doorstep. The campaigners have also announced that they intend to investigate the claim that a group of children recently visited his home asking for a donation of chocolate. ‘How did they know where I live? That’s what I want to know.’

Internationally renowned folk mantra group The Hare Krishnas announced today that they are splitting up. The announcement was made by the group’s manager Ramai Swami during a hastily arranged press conference in New York, the group’s Western birth place.

‘It is with deep regret that I today have to announce The Hare Krishnas have taken the decision to call it a day and disband’ said Swami. ‘The main reason behind the decision is musical differences, though this is an amicable split and the group’s members wish to extend their eternal gratitude to their many fans around the world for the support they have given over the years.’

Written off by many as one-hit wonders, the group rose to prominence in the sixties and their debut smash ‘Hare Krishna’. This coupled with their outrageous performance style of creating a sense of bemusement and mild discomfort in public places, soon brought them fame the world over. However, the decision by the group’s management that they should ‘play it safe’ and stick with the same material for over four decades saw their popularity steadily decline, with many disillusioned fans feeling that the group had become creatively bankrupt.

‘It just wasn’t fun anymore’ said Moonshower Thompson, a call centre worker from Hampshire who left the group in 2007. ‘There was quite a bit of infighting going on, and the only thing that surprises me about today’s announcement is that it didn’t come sooner. Many of us were desperate to take the group in a new direction. Some wanted to add a third note to ‘Hare Krishna’, some wanted to add a fifth line, whilst others felt that we should be going in a more electronica-based direction. One member started dressing as a Goth, and doing Marilyn Manson covers, but he was made to feel unwelcome. I thought ‘Hare Krisha, Empty Sound of Hate’ and Hare Rama Dead Thrill Anthem’ were an interesting change of direction…’

A woman from Stroud has caught Man Flu, prompting fears that women may have become susceptible to a new strain of the disease for the first time. Thirty-five-year-old Andrea Jennings complained of a sore throat and feeling ‘a bit bunged up’ and then instead of just struggling on regardless announced she was going to take the day off work and endlessly complain about how ill she was to her partner. It was at this point that government scientists confirmed Andrea was suffering from Man Flu.

‘I’ve had colds before and in many ways this very feels similar,’ said Andrea. ‘But since I realised it was Man Flu I’ve struggled to do anything more strenuous than lying the sofa watching Match of the Day DVDs and reruns of Top Gear on Dave. It’s been awful.’ Concerned that she might actually be dying caused Andrea to visit to the doctor who gave her a patronizing chuckle and informed her that she just has a bit of a virus and advised her to take paracetamol and drink plenty of fluids. Scientists say that a rare mutation has caused the Man Flu virus to spread to women for the first time, although there have already been instances of Man Flu being passed to birds. In the Far East, millions of chickens were destroyed when farmers noticed them lying in bed all day, showing signs of headaches, dry mouths and other symptoms quite similar to those of a hang-over.

Although police have cordoned off the area around Stroud, experts say there are now real fears that a Man Flu pandemic infecting millions of women may follow. Andrea is currently being cared for by her husband, Roland, and is thought to have originally caught Man Flu from him. ‘Andrea’s symptoms are quite similar to what I had a few weeks ago, although when I had it, it was much worse.’

With the Bush administration keen to provide a smooth transition for the incoming president, Barack Obama has been given unprecedented early access to a whole range of classified government files. However, it has emerged that Mr Obama spent most of the afternoon ignoring larger issues of the day such as Russian interventions in the Caucasus and Iranian Nuclear expansion in favour of finding out what actually, really happened to President John F Kennedy.

Veteran presidential aide Lucas Whiteman said; ‘All the new presidents do it. You try to let them know all about what’s going on in the world but they always go straight for the ‘Dallas ‘63’ file to find out for themselves what really went on. Carter was the worst, he couldn’t speak for days after he’d seen it but everyone put it down to him having eaten too many peanuts, so he kinda got away with it, but all of them came out with this smug grin on their face like they finally knew something you didn’t and they sure as hell ‘weren’t gonna tell ya!’’

With every new president for the last three decades asking the same things Mr Whiteman admitted it had become almost a tradition now to usher the President Elect into the Oval Office and seal the doors for a couple of hours while they sift through the files that senior aides have left on the desk. ‘There’s JFK of course, then Marilyn, Roswell, Bay of Pigs, Chappaquiddick, Watergate, Barney Rubble’s middle name, it’s all there,’ said Mr Whiteman, ‘and Obama was one of the most vocal about it. All afternoon all we could hear through the door were things like ‘Well I’ll be darned…’, and ‘Oh God, that’s good…’ and ‘Well I’ll be a son of a ….’. Ya know, stuff like that. The only one he didn’t read was the one marked ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ as he said he ‘pretty much knew all about that one already’.’

‘Mr Obama has now become one of the very few people to know the truth behind America’s most notorious and talked-about recent history and has been briefed on how to answer and deflect questions about the events,’ said Mr Whiteman, ‘although we didn’t give him the file marked ‘Obama, Houston, 2010’. I don’t know why, but President Bush didn’t want him to see that one just yet.’

The newly elected United States President is to be stripped of his title, after a random drugs test revealed that Mr Obama’s urine sample, which was provided immediately before the final Presidential debate, was found to contain ‘above average’ levels of banned substances.

‘This is a stitch up; that sample has been tampered with!’ claimed the man many had expected to become America’s first black president. ‘How come it’s Fox News and the outgoing president that are in charge of political drug testing?’ Mr Obama’s sample allegedly contained unusually high levels of adrenaline, testosterone and beta blockers, even though he strenuously denies taking drugs. His situation was not helped by some of the celebrity supporters who rushed to defend his integrity. The athlete Marion Jones and musicians Snoop Dogg and Whitney Houston, all excused the test results with the explanation that he had been under a lot of pressure recently.

Under the rules, the title should pass to his nearest challenger, but a separate post race invesigation has found that Team McCain breached the strict regulations surrounding modifications and/or adjustments to bodywork and chassis, finding their political vehicle ‘almost entirely powered by launch control, pistons, puppetry and computers’. McCain will almost certainly have his points deducted from this final tally, with the result that the title is retained by the previous winner for the next four years.

Colleagues of Nigel Stokes, an advertising sales executive from Epping, claimed to have identified a way of determining how long it has been since the 31-year-old last had sex, based on his regular jokes and observations about women. His latest remarks make it clear ‘he hasn’t had any for quite some time’ they say.

Stokes’ workmates picked up on the conversational trend several months ago, not long after his split from his partner of three years, and proceeded to monitor his progress in an Excel spreadsheet. When in a relationship Stokes would often comically observe that women tend to have more pairs of shoes than men, or spend more on haircare products, but this was usually accompanied by a deprecating reference to his emerging male pattern baldness. After the break-up however, the comments were seen to become increasingly vindictive and bitter.
Stage one was making jokes about celebrities in magazines. ‘He made a joke about a photo in the paper of Paris Hilton “wearing a belt not a skirt”’ explained his colleague, Sarah Whitcombe, ‘I walked past him ten minutes later and he was still staring at the picture, rather angrily I thought’.

Stokes quickly progressed through stage two, which his colleagues called ‘homosexual envy’ and featured his pondering ‘how lesbians ever get any work done’ while fondling a pair of his own imaginary breasts, to stage three; musings on whether ‘them Muslim extremists’ might not have a point on gender relations – before stabilising for some time at stage four, inexplicable rage at the mention of Harriet Harman.

There was a surprising reversal back to stage one last summer, which happened to coincide with Stokes’ return from a stag do in Amsterdam, but he soon resumed his journey through the stages until he reached stage five, where he would, at any opportunity, explain precisely the consequences of his ever meeting any of the female leads in the Sex and the City movie.

It was at this point that a new member of staff made an official complaint, which is being addressed by Stokes’ line manager Phil Rafter. ‘As a company we pride ourselves on our compassionate response to people’s personal difficulties, as I learnt myself when I went through a messy divorce recently, and we need to look at why Nigel is behaving like this,’ explained Rafter. ‘Maybe I should ask my PA to give him a quick seeing to in the photocopier room. I bet she would just LOVE it too.’

Just hours after Americans elected their first ever black President, Barack Obama has dropped a political bombshell by announcing that he is in fact French. The revelation has sent shock-waves through Washington, with Republicans furious with themselves for having failed to spot the one major flaw in their opponent’s apparently impenetrable political armour.

‘I can’t believe we missed it’ wailed a distraught John McCain. ‘This would have won it for us for sure.’ Despite constant attention being focused by Republicans on his father’s allegedly Islamic roots, on the fact that his surname sounded like ‘Osama’ and his middle name was ‘Hussein’, no-one had picked up on the fact that ‘Barac’ is a popular French name, and a clue to the fact that Obama was actually born in Marseilles, and smells strongly of garlic.

‘We actually had this photo of him wearing a stripy jumper and a beret, with a string of onions around his neck,’ admitted a McCain campaigner. ‘But we put all our efforts in trying to identify the guy next to him in case he was a terrorist.’

The effects of the revelation are expected to be widespread, with the new president already announcing that cheeseburgers are only to contain high quality French cheeses such as Brie or Camembert and the Surgeon General recommending that pregnant women drink a couple of glasses of red wine every day.

The Washington monument has been replaced by a replica of the Eiffel Tower and Hollywood is to stop making action thrillers and rom-coms, switching to slower placed, more thoughtful French language films about the internal anguish of a bereaved poet with writer’s block. Baseball, NFL football and ice hockey will also make way for cycling, rugby and boules. Political reporters demanding to know when these changes might be put into effect were not able to find anyone to answer their questions, as all of Washington was closed for lunch between 12 and 2.30.

American voters have reacted badly to the news. ‘I thought a black president would be the end of the world’ said one Alabama resident, ‘but French! That’s even worse!’ ‘Eurgh – just taste this French style bacon – they have forgotten to flavour it with cinnamon and vanilla!’ Thousands of US residents have been spotted making their way towards the border, where the Mexicans have had to increase their patrols. The Republicans have already started campaigning for the 2012 election with the slogan ‘Obama – Non!’

Radical film-maker Michael Moore announced today that he has begun filming a damning indictment of the first term of the 44th President of the United States. Although American voters have yet to decide which of the two candidates will lead their country for the next four years, Moore declared himself ‘already sickened’ by what he called ‘the new president’s pathetic toadying to big business and the war mongerers dictating domestic and foreign policy.’

‘The new president is a sick joke – whoever he is’, declared Moore, ‘he’s even worse than Bush.’ For the opening scene of his new film, Moore lined up some mutilated Iraqi war veterans with lung cancer, and got them to sing ‘God Bless America’ outside Wal-Mart before asking why smoking wasn’t yet banned in public places in Iraq. He then re-dubbed footage of the candidates’ campaign speeches, replacing their words with the sound track of Hitler speaking at Nuremburg to demonstrate how right wing they both were. The massed ranks of Nazi supporters then apparently sieg-heiled Obama and McCain to make the same point again.

Moore isn’t the only radical voice to express his utter disillusionment with the new regime before it is even elected. With the Democratic Party looking set to win both the Presidency and its first workable majority on the hill for a generation, a split is already opening up in the party over the anticipated causes of disappointment and disillusionment that will inevitably follow.

‘The right wing Democrats are claiming that the disenchantment is going to be over our leaders’ failure to change health care,’ said one Democrat activist. ‘I can’t believe that those schmucks think that we are not going to become more cynical over Obama’s failure to find an exit strategy in Iraq.’

‘Actually I don’t think the disappointment will be based around either of those issues‘ said politics graduate Abigail Fox, 23. ‘I start work as White House intern on Monday.’

Both Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain were claiming victory today, after the traditional eve-of-poll Candidates’ Wives Mud Wrestling Match ended in a messy but at times entertaining draw.

After months of appearing dignified and supportive at their husbands’ sides, the two wives were at last given a chance to let their hair down and get down and dirty against their rival for the post of First Lady of the United States of America.

‘I beat that bitch good and proper’ claimed Michelle Obama, afterwards, wiping the mud out of her eyes and mouth. ‘She is a cheating redneck cow, and if she wants a rematch in four years time, then bring it on!’ she shouted to the cheers of Democrat supporters. Cindy McCain however, who had been training hard for this match using young Republican interns and campaign volunteers, appeared to have nearly won the contest early on, when she had Michelle in a head-lock and was stuffing lumps of mud into her opponents’ mouth and nose. If Michelle hadn’t poked the brewery heiress hard in both eyes, it might have been all over.

Since the undefeated Eleanor Roosevelt introduced the idea of the candidates’ wives slugging it out, half naked in liquid mud over seventy years ago, there have been some memorable encounters, often more entertaining than the Presidential debates themselves. Jackie Kennedy memorably defeated Pat Nixon the day before the knife edge 1960 Presidential election in a result that may have helped tip the result her husband’s way. A tired and rather prissy Nancy Reagan however, was easily beaten by Joan Mondale back in 1984, but that did nothing to stop her husband easily winning the Presidential contest that year.

Most commentators agreed that this year’s First Ladies’ Mud Fight was not a classic, but both husbands expressed their pride in the way their wives fought their corners.
‘Michelle has showed that she can bring an enormous amount to the post of First Lady,’ said Barack Obama, ‘I think her approach to mud wrestling represented the change that America needs right now.’

Later that evening, the wrestlers made subsequent public appearances at last minute rallies, though both of them had changed out of their mud-soaked bikinis. Asked on TV whether there was any danger of this level of mud-slinging and dirty tactics spreading to the actual Presidential campaign, both candidates said they felt this to be highly unlikely, while a caption saying ‘Irony’ flashed on and off at the bottom of the screen.

Five members of Conservative-run Backworth District Council were forced to resign today when a leaked memo revealed that 12,000 tons of meaningless newspapers were printed and distributed in the last six months simply to help meet government recycling targets.

Minutes of a secret council meeting revealed that take-up of the district recycling scheme had been relatively poor due to the need to sort seventeen different types of materials into separate colour-coded bins. Newspaper recycling, however, was well established and it was proposed that the Council simply print its own local paper in order to increase the weight of material being pulped.

‘Nobody reads past the first few lines of this sort of thing’ commented one anonymous ex-councillor, ‘so we had one of the members write a particularly dull front-page item about the workings of local government, called the paper ‘Window on Your Council’ and filled the remaining 45 pages with the achievements of made up council departments in parts of the borough that didn’t actually exist. It worked a charm, and with a great banner saying ‘Please recycle me’ in green across the top, we estimated that 98% of them went straight from the doormat into the recycling box.’

The same paper was then successfully distributed every four weeks for nearly seven months, until a pair of seven-year old girls, looking for something to line a gerbil’s cage with, found the paper and asked one of their mothers to take them to the new council swimming pool in ‘Narnia Ward’. Realising immediately that something was amiss, the mother then contacted a real local paper and the scam was uncovered. ‘And we would have gotten away with it, if it hadn’t been for those pesky kids – and their gerbil’ said a council insider.

A huge national outcry was expected to follow, but it transpires that once readers have pulled out the small ads page for ‘Personal Services’ the local paper goes straight in the recycling bin as well.

Elderly residents of Manchester are reporting that they found it much easier to walk the streets yesterday evening, since the trick-or-treaters were in fact far less frightening than the same youngsters in their normal clothes.

‘It was such a relief’ reported Edna Jeffries, 76, of Whitefield. ‘I can cope with skeleton masks, devil outfits and ghost costumes. It’s the rest of the year when they lurk around with their hoods up that terrifies me.’ Other pensioners were reported to be delighted that just a handful of stale chocolate buttons seemed enough to make the muggers disperse. ‘Normally they take my purse and my keys, and then come back to the house to get the television and the bottle of sherry.’

Local residents were reportedly using this brief period of calm to stock up on supplies and shopping so as to avoid having to venture outside in the run-up to Bonfire Night, when the youngsters will be armed with projectile explosives.

In other parts of the country, police were called out to a cul de sac in Norwich where youngsters had been left confused and disorientated when a householder responded to their rhetorical question ‘Trick or Treat’ with the cryptic reply ‘Trick!’ Eleven year old Darren Hayes later told reporters: ‘I didn’t know what to say – in all my four years of trick or treating I’ve never seen anything like it. Normally people just hand over the goodies without a fuss.’ His friend, 10, agreed, adding: ‘this came completely out of left-field – we were quite simply lost for words.’

Meanwhile, parents groups took the opportunity of Halloween to reiterate their assurance to children that there were no such thing as ghosts or monsters, and that their children should not take sweets from strangers. They then dressed them up as ghosts and monsters and sent them out to knock on strangers’ doors to ask for sweets. ‘You think that’s weird’ said one Thames Valley policeman. ‘We’ve had a report come in of a Bracknell family, actually eating the flesh of a pumpkin!’

A gang of dangerous but physically small armed robbers were left blaming each other as an ambitious bank raid, intended to secure £20m from a City of London bank, went awry on Halloween as the criminals, wearing ‘Scream’ fright masks and George W Bush disguises, failed to find anyone in the financial institution that would take them seriously.

After months of meticulous planning, two members of the East End gang burst into the Chancery Lane HSBC brandishing sawn-off shotguns, shouting ‘Open the safe or we’ll blow your heads off!’ However, the bank robbers did not get the reaction they had expected; instead of staff handing over stacks of unused notes amid scenes of hysterical panic, queuing office workers gave them a patronizing chuckle, while the cashier told them ‘to wait while she got them some sweeties’.

‘I blame the boss Thommo,’ said ‘Wheels’ Wilson the getaway driver, ‘sending in ‘Alf Pint ‘Arris and Mitch the Titch to do the business with the shooters was a schoolboy error. They have trouble seeing over the counter at the best of times and watching that old dear on the CCTV rustle their hair and give ‘em a fluffy old Werther’s Original while they tried to take hostages…We’ll never live it down.’

However Mitch the Titch blamed the robbery’s failure on getaway man Wilson who provided the robbers’ latex masks. ‘How was I supposed to be taken seriously disguised as Casper the friendly ghost or a bloody smiley dracula?’ asked the diminutive ex-con as he counted out the proceeds of the hold-up, I’m not going to get my English pub on the Costa del Sol on a load of fun-size Mars bars, that’s for sure.’

Although the failure to be taken seriously did enable the hoods to make a clean escape, the police are now looking for anyone trying to launder large amounts of chocolate Celebrations or Cadbury’s Heroes.

The gang members’ reputations in the criminal underworld are now said to be ‘totally screwed’, principally for their naïve belief that any bank in the UK would have ‘anything like twenty million going spare these days’.

Refugees fleeing the Civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo said their suffering had been made far worse this week after learning of the obscene radio broadcast made by ‘so-called’ comedians Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. The brutal African war is entering its tenth year, but UN observers on the ground say that this week’s BBC Radio 2 scandal has left morale in the region at an all time low.

‘It was bad enough having our homes burnt out, seeing our neighbours gunned down in cold blood, and then losing limbs from land mines hidden along our escape route. But then to hear about this experienced comic actor being teased by two younger comics, on a programme no-one heard at the time anyway, well that is more than any humans should have to endure.’

The refugees, mostly ethnic Hutus are now heading towards Goma, away from the scene of the original broadcast at the BBC headquarters in West London. The two sides in the Civil War remain bitterly divided over whether the BBC were right to suspend Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand over the prank phone-call. The refugee Tutsis believe that Ross should follow the example of his foul mouthed friend and resign from the BBC, whereas the Rwandan Hutus have claim that these comedians always sail quite close to the wind, even if they may have gone slightly too far this time, ‘although it’s not that big a deal’. There had been hopes that a negotiated settlement to the war might be reached this week, but this scandal has proved a deal breaker, with neither side prepared to back down.

The UN Security Council were not able to debate the crisis as they were drafting a letter of condemnation to BBC Radio 2. In America, both Barack Obama and John McCain agreed to suspend their presidential campaign to focus on the scandal, while a unified European response was complicated when President Sarkozy announced that he too had slept with Andrew Sach’s granddaughter. ‘She is sexy girl. I am President of France. Is no big deal. You want I ring Manuel, and tell him?’

Confirmed atheist Richard Dawkins was forced onto the defensive yesterday after he died but subsequently rose from the dead in a miraculous resurrection, much like that of the son of God Jesus Christ.

‘There are a number of perfectly logical scientific explanations for what has happened’ he told journalists flocking to hear his story or just touch the hem of his clothing. ‘Although I was pronounced dead after the unfortunate incident on Friday, the doctors clearly made a mistake. The fact that there was thunder and lightning, and those around claim to have heard the sound of angelic voices is completely irrelevant.’

Dawkins suffered a shocking but ironic death on Friday having been seized by a mysterious gang of burly men dressed as Roman soldiers. They nailed him to a cross, and left him there until he died some hours later. However on Sunday, his body was no longer to be found in Slough mortuary, and he was seen walking on the A4 towards his home, where his resurrection was hailed as a miracle.

It is being suggested in some quarters that Richard Dawkins was being taught a lesson by God, who has now given him magical powers including the ability to walk on water and cast out demons. A bitter Pope Benedict said ‘Why is it the naughty ones get all the attention? I have been saying that I definitely, definitely believe in God for ages and I haven’t been given the ability to perform a single miracle. Unless you count progressing from the Hitler Youth to being God’s representative on Earth, I suppose.’

Despite the miraculous events of the past few days, Richard Dawkins was standing by his militant atheism. ‘All of it can be explained by science and rational thought’ he insisted to reporters outside his front door. At this point a leper rushed through the crowd, and kissed Dawkins’ feet, only to stand up apparently totally cured of her hideous affliction. ‘OK, that is pretty impressive, I admit’ said the author of The God Delusion. ‘Oh shit, I think I’m going to get pissed.’ At that he touched a bottle of mineral water, turning it into Chateau Lafite 1967, and slunk inside to drink it.

See also: Atheism renounced to avoid working bank holiday weekend.

John McCain’s campaign suffered another setback last night when his running mate and the official Republican candidate for Vice President announced that she had decided she would be voting for Senator Obama on November 4th. ‘I don’t really know much about this whole politics thing, but it just seems to me that Obama is not just for change but change we can believe in,’ said the Alaskan governor sporting her new Obama/Biden lapel badge. ‘Also I heard he chose someone really dumb to be his running mate, and that sounds kinda dumb’ she added looking pleased that she seemed to have made the Press Corps laugh.

Sarah Palin represents the latest in a series of high profile Republicans who have come out for the Democratic candidate. John McCain refused to accept that having his running mate vote for his opponent represented any sort of a set-back and claimed that many people would be switching their allegiance back and forth over the next week or so. ‘But I still believe that my wife and I will be on our way to the White House by next Tuesday,’ he declared.

At this point Cindy McCain leaned forward to interject, announcing that in fact she had decided to vote for Obama as well. Although she didn’t know the Democratic candidate as well as her own husband, she admitted, she felt he offered the kind of optimism and fresh start that America needed right now. ‘And he isn’t going to drop dead after a year in office and let that mad woman take over the United States either.’ In another blow to the Republican ticket, President George W. Bush also said that McCain was too closely associated with the disastrous policies of the last eight years, and that somebody had to do something about the terrible mess out there in Iraq.

McCain had also rather been counting on the vote of the Grand Master of the Ku Klux Klan, but the White Supremacist also confessed that he had been won over by the charismatic Illinois Senator. ‘Sure race is an issue, but we have to look at it in context of a whole lot of other factors. Some say many southerners will switch back to McCain at the last minute as voters suddenly pander to racism. But we’re all really hoping America will pander to ageism instead.’

BBC chiefs are confident that they have another hit on their hands with their new prime time entertainment remake, ‘Celebrity One Man and his Dog’. The revamped classic which will see professional shepherds compete to herd skittish groups of minor show business personalities into small pens with the aid of just one Border Collie.

Producers had originally planned to take a group of celebrities and train them in the ancient but dying traditions of shepherding but, inundated with declarations of interest from former pop stars, unemployed soap actors, and reality TV contestants, decided it was ‘cheaper and easier’ to use them all and ‘ditch the sheep altogether’.

‘It was a logistical decision really,’ explained Karen Donohue, the show’s executive producer, ‘someone pointed out that by using the celebs, the tidy-up after any studio section of the recording would involve just one researcher following a collie around with a poop-scooper, rather than getting in the industrial cleaners to rectify the disgusting mess forty farmyard animals would make in a confined space full of expensive TV equipment. Of course, that was before anyone had seen what happened in Kerry Katona’s dressing room.’

Over the course of the series, twelve farmers will herd their flock of showbiz stars into small pens, replacing the traditional whistles and shouts of ‘Come by!’ with enticing references to celebrity magazine deals, and the promise of free drink and class A drugs. ‘It’s amazing to watch these shepherds work, keeping the celebrities under control and out of the rehab centres scattered across the countryside,’ commented host John Craven. ‘One mis-timed cry of “Paparazzi!” and all the boys try and lamp anyone that might be a photographer while the girls stop dead to thrust some cleavage in into the cameras.’

As well as boosting the careers of its famous contestants, the BBC expects the show to create entirely new celebrities out of the hard-working country-folk that will farm them. Sixty seven year-old Cumbrian shepherd Bert Jenkins has already been photographed for Hello! ‘relaxing at his luxurious sheep dip’, while a seven-figure publishing deal was signed for an ‘explosive’ kiss and tell autobiography aimed at the Christmas market, written by Bert’s three year-old sheepdog, Jessie.

The world of competitive tennis has been rocked following the shock discovery of the uncanny likeness of a tennis racquet to a guitar. Thirty six year old father of two Gerald Davis of Essex was playing at a public tennis court in Ilford with his eleven year old daughter Moira, when the ball went out of the court. In the time taken for Moira to retrieve the ball, Mr Davis found himself using the racquet to mime to ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ His daughter was not embarrassed at all, and other tennis players on adjacent courts were soon unable to continue for laughing so much at this inspired observation that a tennis racquet might be used for an improvised strumming mime.

‘We thought he must be some sort of professional comic filming a TV show, to come up with something like that’ said one witness. ‘We felt like we were there at the birth of something really new.’ Soon other tennis players had abandoned their games and were miming ‘Whole Lotta Love and ‘Wonderwall’ as crowds gathered to laugh at the new craze. When word reached the All England Tennis Club, Britain’s top seeds were keen to try the guitar mime out for themselves.

Unfortunately the discovery of this uncanny racquet/guitar similarity has made it impossible for the professionals to concentrate on their game. Andy Murray, Britain’s number one hopeful lost in straight sets to a rank outsider yesterday as his concentration on the game was wrecked by the urgent need to mime to ‘Smoke on the Water.’

In a separate development, comic Graham Norton was playing tennis yesterday and observed that it is normal practice to put spare tennis balls in your pocket when serving. He has announced that he and his writers are taking a few weeks off to try and work out if there is any sort of innuendo that might developed around this theme.

Calvin Monroe, who recently quit his job as a securities analyst to dedicate himself to writing his debut novel, has finished cleaning his house from ceiling to floor for the first time since moving in back in 2005. It is the latest in a long line of mundane household tasks completed by 36-year-old Monroe since he left full-time employment in the City in July so he could focus on his dream of becoming a writer. Other tasks he has completed include taking his old suits to Oxfam, putting up the curtains he bought in 2006 in the spare bedroom, and clearing out the rubbish left by the house’s previous occupants in the garden shed.

‘Some people have asked me what the three weeks I spent sitting on the sofa watching the Die Hard films had to do with my novel, but they don’t understand the way that the creative writer does his research,’ he said. Monroe’s novel will apparently centre on a 36-year-old former City worker who gets drawn away from his dull, everyday life into an underworld of gangsters and vice, when his path crosses with a curvaceous tattooed brunette with a beestung pout called Angelique Julie.

When Monroe completes the novel he is hoping to sell the film rights and perhaps see it adapted into a Japanese Manga book. The novel is however, still very much at the planning stage, although the author confirmed that he has typed Chapter One at the top of the first page. ‘I just don’t think you can be too prepared before you write that opening sentence,’ he explained. The book does not actually have a publisher as yet, as Monroe does not want his imagination stifled by the pressure of deadlines and publishing timetables. ‘Everything I have done is actually integral to the creative process. I mean, I can’t think of one great work of art that was created by someone whose herbs and spices weren’t alphabetized correctly.’

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has vigorously denied allegations that he spoke to a working class man and asked him for a donation to Conservative Party funds. The incident is said to have taken place last Sunday at a public house in Osborne’s Cheshire constituency during an otherwise quiet Sun