UN chief, Ban Ki Moon, last night urged thousands of middle class British school children to help flood-ravaged Pakistan by launching the world’s most ambitious exchange of hand-me-down shite that would fit neatly inside the boot of a Renault Twingo.
A fan of the programme since childhood, Moon has witnessed many a Blue Peter presenter come and go over the years, either as a result of natural wastage, or an ill-timed fifty hour cocaine bender .
‘I, like many of you, wept when the Blue Peter Garden was vandalised back in the eighties,’ said Moon. ‘The sight of ninety prized ornamental carp laid out on the patio in the shape of a giant phallus is one that stays with me to this very day. Although, even I have to admit the detail was pretty good, even right down to the execution of the helmet centre-line – always tricky – and the trademark bits of jizz arcing out of the top. Those guys certainly knew how to draw a cock using expensive dead fish.’
He added: ‘Who’s this then eh? ‘Eeh by ‘eck - get down Shep!’
In the few hours since his plea, ardent Blue Peter fan Tabatha Braithwaite, aged eight, has already collected over three aluminium Sprite cans which she intends to stick together using double-sided sticky tape in the form of a sculpture entitled 'Colossal Western indifference' .
‘I’m not really old enough to remember the fish-cock thing,’ she claimed, ‘but I think it’s disgusting that people in the flood-hit areas don’t have access to an Ipod Touch or basic downloading facilities. Is there, like, even a Pret a Manger in Islamabad? OMG!’
Her father Brian, who runs a small business in Chelmsford, was less sympathetic:
‘People will insist on buying property in what is essentially a floodplain. The clue is in the word - see? Floodplain. Flood. Plain. Even when you’re done with burying your family and have managed to pluckily reassemble the strands of your shattered existence, you’re still looking at a nightmare getting the insurance to cough up.’
Meanwhile Mr Moon has admitted for the first time that calling for ‘waves of support’ was probably not the best metaphor given the nature of the tragedy.
‘I’m fairly new to the job and it’s a steep learning curve,’ he later told reporters.
‘I’d initially scribbled down ‘a torrent of help’ and this guy was banging his fist against his forehead going ‘No way – you can’t say that!’ So then I came up with ‘this unprecedented disaster requires a deluge of aid’, which I thought conveyed an air of gravity. Same response. ‘
‘What ?’
‘If the Blue Peter kids can’t deliver, we’ll probably just get Chris Martin to write some piss awful faux-angsty charity single and liven it up a bit with Phil Collins on drums’
‘Kind of Easy Lover meets Clocks’