'9 out of 10 riot cats jailed in a previous life' - Justice Secretary

Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke announced on Tuesday that as much as nine out of ten cats in England's riot-torn neighborhoods were found to have been imprisoned in one or more of their previous lives.

The shocking figures were revealed following close examination of court records from recent cases involving hundreds of cats arrested for looting tins of cat food at the height of the riots last August.

Damning indictment

Speaking at a hastily convened press conference in the Commons bar, Mr Clarke declared the revelation a "damning indictment of the British penal system," and called for changes that would ensure the full rehabilitation of cats before their release back into society. "Making them work harder while in prison would be a start. They could repair some of the millions of cushions cats are renowned for vandalising, and there are always vermin to be caught. Maybe a diploma in advanced purring techniques could be introduced, or even intensive technical drawing modules for the most intellectually capable. Other more socially useful courses could also be offered, such as food hygiene or possibly some that offer academic qualifications such as GCSE in Chinese. And perhaps neutering - or even killing - the hardcore of persistent offenders."

Suspicious

Referring to the "increasing administrative problems" of accounting for the number of lives cats enjoy, the Secretary added, "It's all too convenient - and dare I say suspicious - for these individuals to have nine lives. I believe the time has come to look at the possibility of limiting this life count. There can be no legitimate reason or innocent motive for possessing nine lives in this day and age. Maybe we could look at ways of shooting them all eight times before sending them to a Ninth Life Knitting Sanctuary in Cardigan, Wales, for rehabilitation. If they object, what have they got to hide?"

Horror

Cat welfare groups have reacted with horror. Appalled Angela Ruffy of the Twinkles Foundation has called on the Secretary to apologize immediately for "sweeping generalizations" and "inflammatory language" that could lead to an upsurge in hate crimes directed at an already disenfranchised cat population.

"It is no coincidence that the cats arrested for looting or throwing bricks at police come from deprived communities where poor access to education, career opportunities and public parks with enough mice and small birds has left a forgotten generation living on the edge, having no sense of belonging to society - or indeed to any household in particular. When I speak to cats on street level it becomes obvious that decades of social decline and neglect have produced feral kittens with no hope for the future, who are persecuted by heavy handed dog wardens who routinely disproportionately stop and sniff - and in some cases, beat up, or even eat - cats. You try being a cat walking the streets at night when that van pulls up alongside you. I know, I've done it. What they did to me was unspeakable."

Viciousness

Residents of affected communities don't agree, however. Tottenham councillor and restaurateur, Enoch Starkey Griffin insists cats have been a growing "malevolent threat" to British values in recent years. "They come over here with their 'catois' and 'bling,' their 'gang slang' and 'hip-hop thang,' spreading a culture of violence, viciousness and homoerotic boybandism among our children."

Stevo, 16, from Manchester, where the Arndale Centre was ransacked and thousands of pounds worth of cat food looted, said the furry 'homies' were giving the younger generation a bad name. "We all get called cats now innit. But we ain't cats, know what I's sayin bro."

Outrage

Feelings were also running high in Birmingham, where residents agreed with Mr Clarke's proposals. Outraged war veteran Harold Brown felt cats had an advantage over local people in fields such as public housing and benefits. "They've got nine lives, so they get nine houses each, depriving nine English families a home. It's got to stop."

His views were echoed by an elderly resident of a Peckham estate who did not wish to be named for fear of reprisals. "I ain't prejudiced. But they're all bums. Bogus asylum seekers hangin around street corners. We're scared to go out at night - women especially, what with the cats wiping their sex glands all over their legs and that."

Fur Balls

Accounts of alleged cat illegality and organised crime are common. Enthusiastically puffing on a Woodbine while clinging menacingly to a plastic Poundsaver bag stuffed full of pebbles, a grey-haired old woman ranted, "Send 'em all to Australia, I say. Or kill 'em. But nine times not eight. Bleedin hoodies, sellin fur balls to kids outside schools and getting millions in benefits. We pay for their houses, with brand new top-of-the-range litter trays - then they insist on getting a cat flap fitted so they can fuck off and shit all over next door's garden. Cunts."

Education, education, er...

Speaking from a cupboard in his office, London Mayor Boris Johnson fell short of supporting the Justice Secretary's proposals for curtailing the number of lives cats enjoy, but did support his call for better education. "Cats do have a role to play in society - all they need is an opportunity. Cats are historically quite adept at hunting small mammals, and they make jolly good children's entertainers too. I once watched one attacking a piece of string - the hearty little thing was at it for hours. It was hysterical. They're also jolly good plumbers."

While Mr Johnson's words were welcomed by Angelina Ruffy and the Twinkles Foundation, they did not go down well with those directly affected by the criminal cat gangs' activities.

"Oh, all they need is an opportunity, alright!" scoffed Roger Smith, 67, of Hackney. "I had a couple of cats tarmac my drive once, but as soon as I had my back turned, they drove off with it."

Snowdon 4 x 4 Man to be Burnt as a Witch

The man who left his Fronterra 4 x 4 near the summit of Snowdon is to be burnt at the stake as a witch, local elders have announced.

Prankster Craig Williams, 39, from Gloucestershire is to be burnt alive at dawn tomorrow, having been convicted of using "sorcery and magicke" to get his off-roader more than 3,000 feet up the highest peak in Englandandwales.

"There is no other explanation for it," quoth Geraint Cadwaladr, local councillor and chapel deacon of 60 years. "He's obviously in connivance with Satan. How else could he have got the car up there? He claims to have driven it, but that's just ridiculous."

Retired cakemaker and respected village elder Gwendolyn Roberts added, "Levitation is banned as a form of the Dark Arts. Such things may be acceptable in parts of England, but this is Wales, a hobbit-free country of sound Christian values. Enemies of God are not welcome, nor the practice of witchery and sorcecraft, for which we have severe penalties."

The story of Craig Williams' prank broke yesterday and has astounded many locals, some of whom are not even Christians. Many have also questioned how a wizard was allowed to arrive in their midst unchallenged and without stringent security counter-measures being deployed.

Chip shop proprietor Justin Batter pointed an outraged finger at complacency among the Elders themselves. "They're too busy being sanctimonious and self-righteous, too concerned with appearance and image. Meanwhile, the community is left undefended, at the mercy of the Forces of Evil. What if this demon had other things on its mind? A creature of this sort could easily have possessed a teenage girl, or even destroyed the whole village just for the hell of it. These things happen. We know. We remember Tryweryn, where a whole community was wiped off the face of the earth by the Beatles."

But Geraint Cadwaladr refutes the allegation, citing the probable use of a cloaking device as the "sorcerer's" possible mode of entry. "I have heard such things exist and are even openly sold at carboot sales and markets in lands beyond the mountains. A cloaking device would certainly avoid capture on CCTV. It would also hide the electro-magnetic signature of the sorcerer, thus rendering our state-of-the-art Electromagnetic Signature Recognition System useless. It's largely down to funding. Lottery money has dried up. I blame the Olympics."

News of the sentence has raised more than a couple of eyebrows among liberal minded circles in mainland Englandandwales. But locals agree that the punishment is justified. "Sorcery is the biggest threat to humanity as we know it," Gwen Roberts mused. "Those riots in England - were they the acts of decent God-fearing, chapel folk? No, they were the frenzied acts of those who were weak enough to succumb to a talking goat's sexual advances and copulated with it."

But not all people accept village elders' view that witchcraft was involved in Mr Williams' '50 Things to Do Before I Die' prank. Some argue it was all a publicity stunt arranged by Fronterra manufacturers, Vauxhall. Others, like local shepherd Jacob Jones, believe the jeep is an inflateable replica. "Either that or a hovercraft."

Rumours also abound of extra-terrestial involvement. A local window cleaner and amateur astronomer, who did not want to be named, informed us that strange lights had been seen in the sky for three consecutive nights prior to the Fronterra being found abandonded at Bwlch Glas, 400 meters from the mountain's summit.

"When you think about it, all that stuff about wizards and witchcraft is just a little bit too far-fetched. Every one knows alien life forms have been visiting Earth for centuries. A twenty second operation with a tractor beam could easily transport a six thousand tonne ship up Snowdon, let alone a 4 x 4. There's also the possibility of teleporting it - which makes me suspect the vehicle itself may not be of this planet, but was brought here by the same beings who kidnapped me in 1976 and beamed down to the mountainside. Mr Williams may not be a wizard at all, but a being from the outer reaches of the Andromeda system."

North Wales Police have refused to comment on the matter but have issued a warning to any wizard or witch that may consider a copycat prank that the full force of Good will be deployed against them. Asked about the severity of the sentence and the speed at which it was handed down, the spokesman referred all matters of administrative justice to the religious authorities in Nant Peris.

There was no one in the office when we called, but in a press release delivered by a hooded horserider the Llanberis Pass Administrative Justice's Witchfinding Department confirmed that, "The sorcerer and servant of Lucifer, Craig Williams, was handed a fixed penalty notice of £60 for parking illegally, then detained and found to be a witch, before being taken to a place from where he would be taken to a place where he would await being taken to another place, from which he would await being taken to yet another place, where he would be tied to a stake, consumed by fire and his soul cleansed of all evil."

It is not clear if Mr Williams can appeal, though it is claimed on his behalf that he is not a wizard or a witch at all, but just a bloke who had a list of 50 things to do before he died, and that driving up Snowdon was the first on that list. It appears that, failing a reprieve, the other 49 will remain unachieved.

BP to use Wembley Stadium turf to plug leaking oil well

South American mud farmers breathed a sigh of relief today as fears their valuable mud stocks would be requisitioned by oil giant BP for its latest attempt to plug the leaking Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, were proved to be unfounded.

Fears of a peasant revolt that would destabilise the entire continent were averted as it emerged that new British Prime Minister David Cameron has offered President Obama free supplies of turf from Wembley Stadium's playing surface.

Widely regarded as 'good for fuck all else,' the pitch surface, which arrives at the stadium as a green, grassy substance and turns into brown shit-like sludge within minutes of being laid, will be flown to the Gulf - at no expense to the taxpayer - in the luggage hold of the Mexican football team plane.

In a statement issued early this morning, the Prime Minister said, "This is an excellent opportunity for English football to save the planet from environmental catastrophe. Hurrah!"

Wembley mud, he said, will finally find its place in history books, as fears that the oil spill would make landfall and "merge" with similar fatty fluids from millions of obese Americans and turn the planet into one giant frying pan that no amount of omelettes could fill threatened to cause the biggest Wall Street crash since last year's banking scam.

Questions were soon raised, however, as to whether Mr Cameron was referring to previous government Chancellor Alastair Darling when he claimed hopes that "pumping the liquified sod into a hole in the ground" would "finally plug a hole in the world's monetary deficit."

As for the fate of the Wembley quagmire itself, reaction has been mixed. Wembley ground staff, understandably emotional after months of overtime and recurring nightmares, were confused. Some claimed to have an emotional attachment, claiming the mud was their only hope of averting a replay of the Tartan Army's 1977 desecration of the hallowed turf.

Assistant Sod Fucker-Upperer, Nigel Diamond Geezer said, "Them Jocks think they're clever ripping lumps out of the heart of English football, but I'd like to see them try the same with this stuff. It'd be like eating soup with a fork."

But Dave (who didn't wish to be named), a labourer charged with the thankless task of painting the mud green again for the next match, was relieved. "I'm just happy the big, horrible brown thing will go away."

Answering accusations he knows nothing of English football's unique traditions which proudly include goalmouth mud-wrestling as one of its finest attributes, Mr Cameron retorted that he was well-accustomed with footballing culture as he had once explained the offside rule in a game of Charades with Chancellor George Osbourne.

Meanhwile, south American mud farmers are holding their breath - as are the Mexican divers employed by BP to carry the mud to the ocean floor in home-made tortilla wraps. The chances of success for the 'mud-pumping-thingy-method-plan-thing' remain as clear as mud.

Giant Corn Flake Found in Space

Astronomers on the new Herschel satellite telescope team have discovered a giant corn flake floating in space. And remarkably, the previously unspotted corn flake which is twenty million miles wide and thirty million miles long, is only about one thousand miles from Earth - making it the closest celestial object to our planet.

The amazing discovery means scientists must re-map the night sky, our solar system and the galaxy as we know it, and must even rethink the Big Bang theory itself.

"The corn flake sits between Earth and Mars, and seems to be stationary," said Dr Boffin McBoffin of the European Space Agency's Herschel team.

Asked where it had come from and why hadn't it been spotted earlier, Dr McBoffin explained, "It seems it has always been there, but because it is made from special invisible particles called Fairy Dust, which must be viewed from a particular angle, we just hadn't seen it."

"Fairy Dust is a compound of corn, silk and bullshit atoms, and can only be seen by sticking one's head in a goldfish bowl and crossing the fingers of both hands, then making a wish while saying the magic words 'hubbledy-bubbledy-beam-me-up-Scotty.' The scientific discipline has never adhered to this practice, prefering instead to follow a more conventional perspective. It is, quite simply, a case of us not looking at it in the right way. It's as simple as that."

Mr McBoffin went on to explain that if it wasn't for his colleague, Dr Alan Star, who took it upon himself to practice the age-old 'fairy dust routine' - thought to have originated with the ancient Sumerian civilisation of the area now known as modern day Iraq - as a result of a drunken argument with a female colleague about the resonance of moon farts.

"He was very drunk at the time, as we were celebrating the succesful switching-on of the Herschel satellite's CCTV monitors. He decided he'd had enough of science's "blind" blanket denial of lunar flatulence, and announced he would from now on follow the Fairy Dust Code. Little did he know he was on the verge of an amazing astronomical discovery."

The scientists stress that, despite its close proximity to Earth, the corn flake poses no threat to life as we know it.

"Due to its bullshitty composition and silky texture Fairy Dust is much too soft to cause any damage whatsoever. It is too light to have any gravity of it's own. The entire mass of this enormous corn flake put together would be no bigger than that of Kate Moss, or perhaps the two Cheeky Girls put together."

"Can you imagine Kate Moss falling towards Earth from space? She wouldn't make it into the earth's atmosphere without evaporating in a flash of light not bigger than a mosquito hitting a mosquito killing whatcha-ma-call-it thing in a Bangkok back street restaurant."

On the prospect of finding more giant corn flakes 'lying around' in space, the Doctor confirmed it was very likely there were others "out there, somewhere."

"We are now working on developing a Fairy Dust Lens that can be fitted onto telescopes. It is hoped we will then be able to look for corn flakes further afield, right on the edges of known space. The probability is that we will find more of these objects, if not here in our solar system, then certainly floating around in the Milky Way."

Lassie was KGB Agent Claims Book

A new book claims Hollywood star Lassie, the famous 'talking' Scottish Collie that solved murders and saved hapless humans from certain death, was a secret Soviet spy.

The claims made by Donald McDonald in 'Ruffled: Lassie's Secret Collied War' are sure to break the hearts of millions of fans across many generations who grew up watching the loveable long haired mutt on their screens from the 1940s right up to the present day.

It is not clear excactly what secrets Lassie (pictured above on set of Lassie Come Home) passed on to the KGB but the dog's increasingly hedonistic antics and string of affairs with high profile US Senators in the 50s and 60s will surely raise concerns that she may have gained access to secrets relating to the US nuclear programme.

Shocking revelations about the constipated collie, renouned for never shitting on set, include the dog's battle with bulemia, anorexia and amphetamine addiction, and of ten day drink, drugs and sex binges littered with violent rages and scrapes with dog wardens in California and New York, leading up to her death from worms, distemper and alcohol poisoning in June, 1971.

Distraught 80 year old fan, Emma Lou Ellen, who grew up reading the books and later became hooked on the films and TV series, could barely find the words to describe her feelings. Fighting back the tears she could only muster the odd sigh. "Oh my," said her sister Marylou. "Oh my, oh my, oh my...!"

Devastated brothers John Boy and Billy Bob Williams from Indiana were a little more forthcoming. "It makes you sick don't it?" spat John Boy. "That poor dawg probably got corrupted by them queer cocksuckin commie drug snortin hippy film folk."

Barely containing his anger, his brother added, "We wus all huddled up in front of the Tee-Vee, us and our cousins, Megan, Jenny, Maggie, John JR. We loved that goddamned dawg. And all that time, the bitch was a dirty filthy traitor!"

But many fans refused to believe the claims and condemned the book as an "evil smear campaign" against Christian values and "the word of God as manifested in Lassie's goodness towards her fellow man."

"These evil lies are the words of Satan," roared Martha Clanton of the Official Lassie Fan Club. "What further proof can one need than the fact they are written in a book. A book! We know books are evil and are the vile teachings of heretics and false prophets. There is only one true book and that's the Holy Bible of our Lord, Amen. Although, it must be said that Sarah Palin's 'Cooking With Guns' is a mighty fine read by a mighty fine woman."

"But Lassie was the vessel of Christ our Lord. And she loved America. This here pack o' lies is a direct attack on Jesus and America, plain and simple. Someone's gonna swing for this here pile of shit."

Another aspect of Lassie's controversial lifestyle discussed in detail in the book - and one sure to rile those who, like Martha, are unaware of it, is the open secret among Lassie's closest circle of friends that Lassie wasn't female at all, but was a gay transvestite dog named Fido (above, without wig), who regularly cruised public parks and used rent poodles to satisfy his insatiable appetite for gay doggie sex.

Party Leaders Agree to Public Custard Wrestle

Gordon Brown has finally accepted the homoerotic and slightly creepy challenge thrown down by Eton-educated Conservative leader David Cameron, meaning the long awaited live custard wrestling contest between the two leaders will at last go ahead.

Excitement spread through Westminster as the news circulated that the participants will fight naked apart from their socks - a tradition, the Stick understands, that is rooted in the Duke of Wellington's defiant "we'll knock your bloody socks off" war-cry before the battle of Waterloo.

And in a further development, it emerged that the Lib-Dem leader, Erm Clegg, who's always hanging around trying to be one of the boys, will also join them - even though he wasn't invited - meaning that the public have a three-way slimy mangrope to look forward to (a sort of '50% extra free' deal), as opposed to standard two-way twat-making.

It is unclear as to where excactly the bout will take place, although Government sources have dismissed reports that it will be staged at Lord Mandelson's country estate as "mischevious".

But it has been confirmed that, in an attempt to further popularize the event and to give the combatants the 'common touch', the wrestle will be preceded by a live Expletive Exchange, in which the three cunts will insult each other using every day 'fucker on the street' language and terms the general public normally use when refering to them.

This exchange will be engaged while strutting their stuff on the podium before diving headlong into an inflatable paddling pool filled to the brim with 1,000 gallons of Bird's Custard. And, in a further twist, a freshly introduced rule states that at least 50% of the exchange must be performed through the medium of rapping.

Judges with stopwatches will monitor the exchange, counting swearwords and original put-downs while ensuring the minimum requirement of rap usage is observed.

The referee for the wrestling match has been named as BBC election result forecaster extraordinaire - manic graphic maverick Peter Snow - who could hardly conceal his excitement at his nomination as he threw a whole bag of Mexican mushrooms down his neck and ran out to sacrifice a chicken on his front lawn.

As news of the Prime Minister's decision broke, Mr Cameron responded by saying it was about time "that bounder and cad Brown faced up to a bloody good thrashing."

"I've waited for this moment for a very long time. I shall show him what a Conservative Party Leader can do. He may be big, but I have studied him, and he is what one calls 'all mouth'. I shall fill that mouth with a bunch of fives. A bloody good 'rogering' is well overdue."

When pressed that his inexperience in 'fuckery and cuntery' would be a handicap in the expletive round, Mr Cameron frowned. "Look, just because one is middle class, it does not mean one is incapable of having the common touch needed to communicate with rough, foul-mouthed working class types."

Adopting a strange and unconvincing Cockney accent littered with posh slips, Mr Cameron insisted he could "jolly well swear with the best of 'em, guvnor. I ain't no ponce, dear boy. That Gordon Brahn, e's fackin fackd. Cahnt."

Though he wasn't asked for it, Lib-Dem leader, Erm* Clegg, gave his reaction. But we can't really remember what it was because we didn't listen.

(*our researchers swear that's his real name, but this could not be verified)

MOTD to Stop Screening Ugly Footballers

The football world was plunged into crisis last night as the BBC's flagship football highlights programme Match of the Day defended its decision to stop screening football matches involving "ugly" footballers.

Following new government guidelines on child traumatic stress the BBC has issued a directive calling on all departments to look closely at high risk programmes where children could be traumatized by what they see on their screens.

Some of the Premiership's biggest clubs will be affected by the ban, including champions Man Utd, who have "Shrek lookalike" Wayne Rooney on the ugly list, and free-spending high flyers Manchester City, who's Carlos Tevez and Joleon Lescott have already been warned by police to to stay indoors after 8pm.

Though Match of the Day and its sister programme Match of the Day 2 are televised after the watershed, producers are aware that half the programmes' audience are children under the age of 10, hence the light-hearted, whimsical and condescending tone of Gary Lineker's presenting.

Referring to the 'Beardsley Debate', when more than a thousand children needed psychiatric treatment and/or counselling in 1993 after watching Newcastle's hunchbacked beast Peter Beardsley's post-match interview following a hatrick in the Magpies' 4-0 thumping of Wimbledon, Match of the Day producer, Mark Mantoman, said the governent position meant they can no longer "take such chances."

"We are currently in the process of identifying those clubs who have ugly players in their first team squads, with a view to enter negotiations to explore ways of avoiding the loss of revenue incurred by the loss of television fees."

"There are many suggestions on the table. Editing techniques would be useless if the uglies were to score a goal, and employing digital pixelation of the players' faces could be risky, as such techniques can sometimes enhance the deformities of the unfortunate creature's facial features."

"It's a difficult one. We can't ask managers not to play their grotesque palyers, but we may ask them to consider making them wear hoods, masks or have plastic surgery. A compromise may be possible, whereas we ask managers to release their team sheets one day in advance to enable us to drop the matches from our schedule. Failure to find a solution may result in those clubs being excluded entirely from future programmes."

It is understood, however, that the BBC have drawn up a system of grading players' suitability to be televised. The numbered Ugly Scale proposed ranges through 1 - 'ginger or back-of-the-team-photo jobs' like Stoke and Portsmouth stars Dave Kitson and Nwankwo Kanu, 2 - 'thuggish, scary and villainous' such as Aston Villa defenders Richard Dunne and James Collins, 3 - 'weird and/or plain ugly' like Spurs beanstalk Peter Crouch and Villa Laa-Laa lookalike Gabriel Agbonlahor, 4 - abominable and/or deformed, such as United ogre Rooney, Everton's Frankenstine freak Phil Neville and Liverpool alien Dirk Kyut, and 5 - complete write-offs such as Tevez and Lescott.

In a pro-active move "aimed at maintaining fairness and an unbiased approach to the new guidelines" the BBC confirmed it had already sacked Match of the Day 2 presenter Adrian Chiles, who's rating on the proposed Ugly Scale was 5+.

The ban will also be extended to the BBC's new Football League programme which follows Match of the Day on Saturday nights and covers Championship, League One and League Two matches.

"There are some monsters playing in the lower leagues - some species we are yet to discover," said a BBC spokesperson, adding, "We apologise to fans but maintain we have to be dilligent in our responsibility to safeguard children from nightmare-inducing images on our programmes."

It's not clear if the ban will include managers, but Harry Redknapp's lawyers are said to be preparing a legal challenge, lest any such moves are initiated.