English to return all French loanwords as part of Brexit deal

People in Britain will no longer have to put up with expressions like je ne sais quoi or pièce de résistance, thanks to a deal secured by the Brexit minister. Jacob Rees-Mogg has assured the country that "all those silly French phrases are going right back to where they came from".

The Sun and Mail have celebrated with "Take Back Our Language" editions, guaranteed to be purged of all "poncey Frogisms". "Reading your morning paper shouldn't be like going through a Guardian reader's wine catalogue", says Richard Littlejohn.

The decision has the full support of monoglot Middle England. "This will make watching TV so much easier", says Ethel Morrison, of Surrey. "I'm always reaching for my French dictionary when watching Hercule Poirot, to find out what très bien or mon ami means".

However, Professor James Needon of Balliol College has dropped a bombshell. He points out that English has been borrowing words from across the Channel for nearly a thousand years. "Seventy-five percent of our language is actually French", he says. He estimates that this move could end up costing Britain £100 billion in editing and rewriting.

"This latest bright idea is going to catapult the language back to 1065", he explains. "Basically, when you take out the French bits, all you're left with is Beowulf".

However, Britain's tabloids are not backing down in their support. When asked to comment, a Sun spokesman said, "þyss off, ðickheað".

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

6 bullsh*t reasons for dumping sewage in the sea

You might be struggling to understand why water companies regularly spurt out tonnes of our faecal matter into rivers and the sea. Perhaps you’re worried it might be a bit unhealthy, or that these big businesses are putting profits before a healthy water ecosystem?

Luckily Sir Henry McStopcock, a water company boss is here to provide some reassurance with the top 6 reasons why they simply have to dump their dumps:

1. Too much rain - Britain is known as having quite a dry, humid climate so when it does rain a lot, our little old Victorian sewage system simply can’t cope. For us water companies there is nothing we can do but watch in despair as a frothy mixture of your logs and used sanitary towels make their way into the English Channel.

2. too little rain - Britain is getting hotter and hotter due to climate change and this can result in cracks in pipes in the decrepit old Victorian sewer system that us water companies have sadly inherited, and tried our damnedest to maintain. And when it does rain again, well, as I’ve just clearly explained to you, this is just too much, resulting in a few thousand extra ‘brown trouts’ in the River Avon.

3. Combined Sewer Overflow events - this is a fancy name for us dumping sewage into the sea., so I’m well within my rights to call these ‘a reason’, aren’t I? You’ve probably heard about them as Feargal Sharkey has been a huge pain in the ass campaigning about these - he’s like a floater in our social responsibility whitewashing toilet that just won’t flush away. As he sung in his most famous hit about sewage discharge: ‘A big turd, these days, ain’t hard to find ( a big turd). Huge logs, the lasting kind’.

4. Lorry driver crisis - us water companies have suffered more than any other sector as a result of worker shortages. Without effluent we can’t purify water. Would you prefer dirty water in your domestic water system, or human waste floating around the beaches and rivers you swim in? Neither, you say? Sorry, that’s not an option at the moment. The shit really is hitting the Fens.

5. Fatbergs - You dirty bastards chuck all sorts down your sinks and toilets and expect us poor water companies to deal with it . Did I mention the Victorian sewer and pipe system that we’ve had no time to invest in and develop? You all need to clean up your act.

6. Shareholder dividends - this definitely isn’t a reason why we haven’t invested enough in upgrading infrastructure over many years and why sewage is increasingly being spewed out into seas. What a load of crap.

Image: aitoff | Pixabay

Government proposes to ban barcodes on goods and reintroduce price labels

Among the countless Brexit benefits already identified by Mr Rees-Mogg, he is proposing a bill be put before parliament that would ban shops and supermarkets from using barcode technology and return to good old-fashioned British price labels.

Mr Rees-Mogg's "accountant" explained that Jacob's personal success with massaging hedge funds came partly from his pleasure as a child, in mentally adding up the cost of the shopping in his nanny’s trolley as she placed it on the conveyor in Harrods food hall.

'He could tell her to the exact farthing what her shopping would cost and any discrepancy with what was demanded of her by the servant at the till, would obviously be due to fraud. Whereupon the store manager would call security and insist the till slave was whipped to within an inch of her life and denied gruel. Until she begged for forgiveness and promised to be trustworthy on fear that if it happened again, the graves of her dead children would be sent to Rwanda, or some other God-forsaken hell hole like Glastonbury.'

Enquiries into whether Mr Rees-Mogg had used the self-checkout systems that supermarkets now have, brought the following reply from his "accountant": 'Good Heavens no! A trip to a supermarket would be over as soon as one walked in, with those ridiculous EU-inspired things. A supermarket trip surely needs to allow sufficient time in the checkout queue to have at least a three-course picnic.'