Topping dead celebrity rich list ‘not much consolation’, says Elizabeth Taylor’s ghost

The ghost of Elizabeth Taylor has hit out at Forbes magazine after it claimed she would be ‘delighted’ to top the list of the world’s highest earning dead celebrities.

Taylor, who died in 2011 aged 79, pulled in $210m (£130m), much of it from the auction of her jewellery, which saw her overtake deceased musician Michael Jackson’s earnings of $145m (£90m), reported Forbes. ‘What an achievement,’ said the magazine’s chief editor Steve Forbes. ‘Yes, she died of congestive heart failure in March 2011, but we’re sure she’d be delighted to learn that by flogging off all her jewellery and clothes, her estate have managed to rake in all this cash. What could be better than millions of dollars? Lovely jubbly.’

However in a rare interview, Taylor’s shadowy grey spectre angrily rejected the magazine’s claim. ‘Why, what a crock of shit, darling,’ the phantom insisted. ‘Two years ago I was propped up in bed in Bel Air dripping with diamonds and trying to decide who my eighth husband would be,’ she said. ‘And now look at me. I’m feebler than Bill Roache’s alibi and there ain’t an eligible bachelor this side of Santa Barbara who’ll even look twice at me. Who needs two hundred million dollars when I’m having to wait for Bill Clinton or Harry Styles to die before I can reasonably expect to attract male attention again, darling?’

Millions of Romanians, Bulgarians preparing to “avoid UK like the plague”

Fears of a huge influx of immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria have given way to indignation after a poll showed workers from the two countries are preparing to ‘avoid Britain like the plague’, when movement restrictions are eased later this year.

A new survey of over 2,000 people in both countries revealed that, rather than preparing to flood into the UK and take all the jobs recently vacated by returning Poles, Romanians and Bulgarians are actually surprisingly well acquainted with how crap everything is and will most probably steer clear.

‘There was a time last summer when it looked quite fun in Britain,’ said Liana Domescu, a 25-year-old unemployed graduate from Timisoara. ‘You know, with the Jubilee and the Olympics and Kate Middleton and stuff. But since then it’s all been back to the Britain we know and hate – sex abuse, measles outbreaks, HMV going under, your failing post-war-era Health Service, David Cameron, how do you people cope?’

The news came as a surprise to analysts, who had predicted that up to 25,000 Romanian and Bulgarian jobseekers would arrive at Heathrow each day. BAA Ltd, the owners of Heathrow, had already warned that this would be ‘roughly 24,990 more than we can cope with per day’ and even hinted that queues could develop in the arrivals lounge.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage was ‘incensed’ by the news. ‘It’s a shocking insult to the people of Britain,’ said Farage. ‘We’ve been preparing a well-honed tirade of crackpot dogma, frosty glares and grumbling about the strain on public services to welcome these people to this country, only to find they’re only interested in coming if there are jobs! That’s the problem with foreign freeloaders, they just aren’t willing to put the work in. What am I going to do with this ‘Boris Out’ placard now? I can’t possibly use it for any other political purpose.’

For Domescu, the final straw came during the funeral of Margaret Thatcher last week. ‘I was still thinking of coming to Britain, but then they broadcast those pictures of your Chancellor Osborne openly weeping on national television and it finally hit home how bad things must be for that to happen,’ she said. ‘So I’ll just stay here after all – the weather’s far nicer and I hear there’s a job going at the local horse abattoir.’

Disgraced cabinet minister to represent UK at 2013 Eurovision Song Contest

Disgraced Cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell is to represent the United Kingdom at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest, David Cameron has announced.

The Prime Minister hinted in February that Mr Mitchell was due for rehabilitation into ‘a major European role’ but speculation had focused on the European Commission, where Baroness Ashton is due to finish her term of office this year. But the news that he will be performing the slow-beat rock anthem ‘Believe in Me’ has been greeted positively by observers.

Mr Mitchell was forced to resign from the Cabinet in the ‘plebgate’ scandal last October, after Downing Street coppers alleged that he’d launched a foul-mouthed tirade and called them ‘f***ing plebs’ after they refused to allow him to cycle at 70mph down Whitehall indiscriminately running over small children and innocent old ladies.However, an independent inquiry subsequently revealed that all the police officers involved were as bent as nine-bob notes, and Mr Mitchell was exonerated.

Mr Mitchell said he was ‘incredibly honoured’ to have been selected to sing in front of an estimated 120m people at this year’s event in Malmo in May. ‘It’s a huge promotion,’ he said. ‘Better still the whole thing will be broadcast on live TV so you’ll be able to see exactly what I do and do not say to any of the backing singers, stage hands, Swedish police officers or other plebeians who will be on hand to support me.’

Commentators say that the prime minister’s choice of Mr Mitchell is a political masterstroke. ‘This really is brilliant news for Britain,’ said well-known Eurovision fanatic Iain Duncan Smith, whose own 2003 song ‘A Man Without Love’ achieved the infamous nul points and was dumped before the end of the Contest by his supporters.

‘It’s about time we had a victory in Europe. God knows we keep losing out every year at those ridiculous EU summits with all that endless caterwauling and political voting, so it’s only right that we’re taking the real business of Eurovision very seriously indeed.’

Leading pro-European Lord Heseltine (1990, “It’s My Time”) said the song choice was ‘suitably rousing’ and ‘will hark back to the glory days of the 1990s when Katrina & the Waves secured a series of important opt-outs from the Maastricht Treaty.

‘And, of course, it leaves the EU Commissioner role open for another senior figure able to provide the same kind of high-profile statesmanship we’ve all had from Baroness Ashton – Engelbert Humperdinck, perhaps, or better still Graham Norton.’

Meat scandal widens as Peppa Pig found to be 50% horse

Children’s favourite Peppa Pig has become the latest casualty of the food scandal after DNA tests forced her to reveal that she is ‘up to 50% horsemeat’.

A tearful Peppa made the admission at a hastily-arranged news conference this morning, which was broadcast in the five-minute slot usually reserved for the transmission of her colourful antics. ‘I just don’t know who I am any more,’ she oinked. ‘I’m not even sure whether the horsemeat crept into our family heritage shortly before my birth in 2004, or earlier in the supply chain, possibly when Granny Pig was still a young black-and-white TV starlet.’ Neither Mummy nor Daddy Pig were available for comment, although Granddad Pig promised to launch a full investigation ‘as soon as he got home’.

The news was greeted with dismay and outrage among the nation’s toddlers and their parents. ‘It’s a scandal,’ said a mother of two under-6s from Wigan. ‘We watch Channel 5 every morning in good faith, expecting a nice healthy diet of inoffensive family viewing. We don’t want people of questionable paternity influencing our kids to go off the rails and jump in muddy puddles without wearing their boots – well, not until Jeremy Kyle comes on at 10am.’

A Channel 5 spokeswoman defended the station’s decision to carry out random DNA testing of all its celebrities in the aftermath of the horsemeat scandal. ‘We did not want to be accused of peddling questionable, unhealthy mush to the nation’s children,’ she said. ‘We leave that to Findus, Tesco and CITV.’  Rumours are now focusing on Peppa’s little brother George, who is said to bear more than a passing resemblance to local road-digger Mr Bull.

Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come “despondent” after visit to George Osborne

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come has admitted that it feels ‘despondent’ after failing to convince the Chancellor, George Osborne, of the folly of his miserly ways or infuse him with a seasonal generosity.

‘I’ve not received a referral from my colleagues in the Christmas Past and Christmas Present department since 1843, so this came as a bit of a surprise,’ said the spirit. ‘I got the memo through but it only had one name on it – this Mr Osborne Esq of London must a right arsehole, I thought. I got that much right.’

The upset phantom conceded that he had hit trouble as soon as he had begun his visit. ‘Normally I wake the victim up with a little bit of ‘wooooo-ing’ to unsettle them,’ he said. ‘But he just opened one eye and said ‘Is that you, Alexander? Fetch me a cup of warm milk and my rose-tinted spectacles, there’s a good fag.’

The Ghost recounted how Osborne eventually awoke fully, sitting bolt upright and paying close attention during the visions that followed. ‘I showed him what Christmas would be like if he carried on his present path,’ he said. ‘Hospitals closing down, businesses going bust, benefits cut by 80%, freezing old people forced out of their care homes onto the streets, schools turning away poor children, the BBC taken over by Rupert Murdoch, rich people oppressing the working poor, Vince Cable driven mad and wandering the streets of Twickenham, Michael Gove all-powerful and hated by everyone. It was the most horrifying thing I’ve ever shown anybody. But he just licked his lips and said ‘Do you think you could speed all this up a bit? I could make it worth your while.’’

‘He didn’t even bat an eyelid when I showed him what would happen to poor little Tiny Clegg,’ the Ghost revealed. ‘Although to be honest I doubt there’s anything anybody can do to save that timid little runt from wasting away completely by 2015, so it’s not all bad.’

Mr Uppity ‘furious’ after secret video reveals disparaging comments about Mr Men

A secretly filmed video has emerged showing presidential candidate Mr Uppity disparaging people who vote for Mr Happy.

In the recording, made at a private donor dinner for Uppity supporters, the wealthy top-hat-wearing aristocrat is shown describing 47% of Mr Men and Little Misses as ‘scroungers’ who would ‘only ever’ vote for his opponent.

‘I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility for their lives,’ Mr Uppity is shown as saying. ‘They’re just a bunch of greedy, lazy, messy, fussy, noisy, clumsy scroungers,’ he goes on. ‘They’d vote for that grinning yellow dunderhead whatever I say to them, the multicoloured plebeians.’

There was particular anger at Mr Uppity’s allegations that nearly half of his Misterland compatriots were ‘dependent on the government’ and expected something for nothing. ‘Just look at Mr Lazy,’ he said callously. ‘That dozy pink bastard has never done a day’s work in his life, so he just lives off the tax paid by hardworking people like me or my good friend Mr Busy. It’s a fucking outrage.’

Mr Uppity’s campaign has so far focused on Mr Happy’s perceived shortcomings as a leader. ‘He just stood there chuckling to himself while the economy slipped into recession,’ said spokesman Mr Forgetful. ‘Who’s going to bail us out this time? The rich? No, really, I’ve forgotten. Is it Little Miss Splendid? I know it’s not Mr Uppity, anyway, he only pays 0.8% tax.’

The Happy campaign was quick to capitalise on the gaffe. ‘It’s just another example of the nasty side of Mr Uppity,’ said Vice-President Clever. ‘He’s completely out of touch with ordinary people. And I think we all know that some of his key supporters have some very unsavoury views about colour,’ he added, referring to allegations that Mr Uppity’s campaign has received donations from a blue supremacist group.

The incident caps a bad month for the Uppity campaign. His choice of Mr Mean as running mate is proving controversial, while his poll ratings have slipped nationally and in several key battleground states, although he is still ahead in Nonsenseland by a considerable margin.

Cast of EastEnders to be responsible for Olympic security

Following the successful foray of the Olympic torch relay into the fictitious London Borough of Walford, Home Secretary Theresa May has announced that responsibility for Olympic security is to be transferred from G4S to characters from  BBC’ soap EastEnders.

‘It’s been my suspicion for a long time that a lot of what G4S were telling us about how organised they were was basically made up rubbish,’ said Mrs May. ‘And when I saw Billy Mitchell carrying the Olympic torch on TV the other night, I thought ‘Well, being made up and rubbish clearly isn’t an obstacle to playing a successful part in the Olympics for them’, and I was on the phone to the BBC straight away.’

The move is expected to be popular with TV viewers and terrorists in particular. EastEnders fans have already hailed the news as ‘likely to generate some significantly improved storylines’, although early script drafts in which Kat Moon abducts Tanya Branning’s closing ceremony tickets after her own go missing in the post has been criticised as ‘not very interesting’ by charities.

Olympic spectators have already seen some improvements on the previous security regime, said Locog. ‘Up to yesterday they were all moaning about having to queue for four hours to get in, and not being allowed to take any water with them,’ said Locog chair Lord Coe. ‘Now, of course, we’ve just let Phil Mitchell loose in the crowd to yell ‘Shut it you tart’ and ‘Leave it, ‘e ain’t worth it’ at anybody who kicks up a fuss. Much better. Although we’ve also seen a rise in pub fights, adulterous relationships, murder and domestic violence, but I’m sure that’s completely unrelated.’

Theresa May also announced additional funding to get Barbara Windsor back to scream ‘Get out of my Olympic Lane’ at people trying to drive around London during the Games. ‘If the approach is successful, and we have no reason to think it won’t be, then it’s quite likely we’ll hand over other areas of government policy to fictional people,’ she said. ‘The Prime Minister has already consulted Peppa Pig over macroeconomic policy, and of course we’re all dying to know what Nick Clegg thinks about the recession – oh don’t be silly, of course he’s fictional. Isn’t he?’

Nation’s husbands call for lawnmower ban

Four UK water companies have lifted the last hosepipe bans, triggering calls by Britain’s husbands to introduce a lawnmower ban instead in order to prevent dangerous levels of nagging about the state of the nation’s gardens.

Abnormal rainfall levels during the recent drought have left gardens across the UK in a state of parlous overgrowth. ‘We’re at a very volatile juncture,’ said husbands’ rights campaigner Brian Grahame, 50. ‘If the government doesn’t take immediate action, we’ll be faced with a tidal wave of nagging from ‘er or, increasingly nowadays, ‘im indoors to get the lawnmower out. And nobody wants that, believe you me. Think of the noise. Of the mowers, as well as the nagging.’

Grahame insists that the crisis is ‘the greatest threat to the peace and quiet enjoyed by British husbands’ since the Major government introduced Sunday shopping in 1994, which saw countless husbands driven out of their sheds in order to convey wives and shopping bags to and from out-of-town shopping locations. ‘We’ve actually had a reasonably successful summer up to this point,’ Grahame explained. ‘The latest figures show that tinkering in the shed has been at an all-time high, aided by the wet weather which tends to put the missuses off from going outside to poke their noses in and spoil a nice quiet afternoon with moaning about housework, teenagers or, of course, so-called ‘half-finished DIY’.’

But the picture for the next quarter was much bleaker. ‘A lawnmower ban may be the only way to preserve our peaceful existence,’ Grahame warned. ‘Our only other hope is persuading this EL James bird to knock out another Fifty Shades book – I don’t know what’s in it but I didn’t hear a peep from my Maureen for twelve days when the last one came out.’

Nancy Cameron in failed bid to distract David Cameron from ruining anything else

Nancy Cameron has apologised to the nation after her bid to distract her father from messing anything else up by hiding in a country pub ended in failure.

Although the prime minister’s daughter, eight, managed to abscond during a family lunch at the Plough Inn in Buckinghamshire, she only managed to get as far as the kitchens before Mr Cameron’s chauffeur returned to the pub to retrieve her.

‘My plan was to lay low in the soft play area while the family chose which car to be driven home in, and then stay on the run for maybe a month to six weeks so that my daddy would have to stop working until they found me,’ she said. ‘Everybody is always saying what a total cock-up he’s making of everything so I thought I would be doing the country a favour.’

Nancy added that she hoped that if Mr Cameron was ‘sick with worry’ about her, he might reverse his planned cuts to the Cameron family’s Peppa Pig DVD budget, announced during a recent family meeting.

But her plan was thwarted when she was seized and returned to the Cameron family, having interrupted Mr Cameron’s tenure as prime minister by just fifteen minutes. ‘Still, my little brother Arthur worked out that I saved the economy £280m worth of cuts in that time,’ she said proudly. ‘And at least I got on the news – they left Mr Clegg out in the cold months ago and I don’t think anybody’s even noticed.’

 

 

 

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Daily Mail holds swearing-at ceremony for new French president

The Daily Mail has welcomed the new French president, Francois Hollande, with a lavish swearing-at ceremony to mark his first day in office.

The ceremony, attended by a host of Mail dignitaries, was held in the newspaper’s London HQ. Over a dozen figures gathered round a TV set broadcasting pictures of Mr Hollande live from the effete and decadent surroundings of the Elysee Palace, where he began his reign of left-wing terror this morning. During the proceedings, a rainbow of expletives were issued towards the new French leader by the assembled journalists, beginning with some informal messages about ‘lazy Frogs’ and culminating in the formal proclamation of Mr Hollande as ‘that intransigent French Socialist bastard’ by the paper’s editor, Paul Dacre.

‘In the 108 years since the Entente f***ing Cordiale, these f***ers have elected c**t after c**t to be their leader, each time sticking two fingers up at the British in their evil attempts to submerge us in a federal Europe,’ said Mr Dacre in a moving address. ‘That f***er de Gaulle, then that lecherous b****rd Mitterand, that f***ing crook Chirac, and now they’ve chucked out that titchy bugger Sarko and brought in this bespectacled Commie f**kwit. Well we say, bonne chance, you speccy French git.’

Mr Hollande was said to be ‘very moved’ at the Mail’s tribute. ‘I consider this humble address to be the highest praise my British friends can muster,’ he said after the ceremony. ‘My only regret is that I now have to go to Germany to cook up a new diabolical scheme to dominate Europe with Mrs Merkel, instead of flying to London and telling the editor of the Daily Mail how grateful I am for his kind words.’

Mr Hollande concluded his statement with the traditional French greeting reserved for British tabloid journalists, ’Va te faire foutre, trouduc, tu es un putain salaud et branleur qui ne peut qu’ecriver des conneries. Encule un mouche! Brule en enfer, menteurs!’, which sources indicate is French for  ’Rule Britannia’.