Sir Peter Hall lambasts Lord Treasurer’s thrifty quarter truncation of fiscal favours to the manufacturers of fictions of comedy and tragedy

Sir Peter Hall, who must be over 100 by now, has criticised the government’s intended 25% cut in its arts subsidies. Receiving an award last night at the Lah de Dah Evening Stannit Theatre Awards at the Savoy ballroom, Sir Peter, who is famous, described the cuts as ‘insane’. After drooling over his Golden Seagull, Sir Hall called upon writers and actors and to make ‘loud noises’ so as to put a stop to the cuts. He said, ‘For decades now, the entire population regardless of class, education, background, colour, religion, has paid for the arts through taxes just so that a tiny, tiny privileged minority could go to the theatre – and now we have a fight to keep it that way.’
A twenty-five per cent cut in theatre funding budgets would have some dramatic effects in theatre. The nation’s obsession with Shakespeare would be tested. ‘We would have to cut back the Baird’s works. Twelfth Night would be reduced to Ninth Night while other plays would have to merge to A Midsummer Night’s Much Ado or MacHamlet,’ bellowed Sir Peter to the stunned audience. Sir Peter then stomped his feet, burst into tears, cried ‘It’s just not fair!’ before exiting stage left.

Early snow is government’s fault say Labour

The Labour front bench has launched a scathing attack on the Condem coalition’s mishandling of the weather. Cheryl Nimbus, Shadow Weather Minister said, ‘It is no coincidence that, with the brutally anti poor legislation of the public spending review, we now have returned to the early snows and gloomy cold days of Tory rule.’
The last significant early snow fall was seventeen years ago – again during a long Tory spell. ‘Average temperatures during Conservative parliament consistently fall behind those of Labour Governments. The country suffered a daily average of just 4 degrees during Thatcher’s rule – seasonally adjusted of course,’ said Nimbus, ‘well behind Labour’s average of 25 degrees under Blair.’
The Condem Secretary of State of Weather, Nick Frost, defended the Conservative’s record: ‘How can the Labour Party have the front to criticise our handling of the weather when the two worst winters since the war of ;47 and '78 have both been during Labour rule.' However, according to the Shadow minister Nimbus ‘the worst winter anywhere in the world ever was in 1963 and that was under the ‘You’ve Never Had it So Warm’ Macmillan reign!’
When asked how the Condems could possibly control the weather at all, Ms. Nimbus said, ‘Well they obviously have a big shiny laser gun thing which they point at the sun or clouds or something don't they.’

Taliban imposter not the first

The so called Mullah Omar who posed as a Taliban official is not the first fake to reach the headlines over the last few decades. Operating from an office above Greggs the Baker in Watford, ‘Look! It’s..!’ Lookalikes and Imposters Ltd provides doubles and impersonators for every occasion and ‘Mullah Omar’ was one of theirs - and not a shop-keeper from Quetta as has been widley reported.
The man who met senior Afghan officials was Nigel Chalmers, a part-time bookkeeper from Bushey who also doubles as George Harrison and Rasputin at fun charity events. ‘We pride ourselves on our commitment to discretion.’ said managing director, Marilyn Monroe, ‘and Nigel pulled that job off brilliantly.’
The British government has refused to comment on allegations in the Washington Post about the faked Taliban official, suggesting they may have been duped by other imposters in the past. Closer scrutiny of images of Gordon Brown reveals that his glass eye swapped sides frequently. ‘Many of the world figures we provide doubles for have needed a few days off from their jobs at crucial times and we’ve stepped into help. Mrs Thatcher was, for many years, Steve Oak, a florist from Harpenden.’
The firm’s biggest job is far fresher in the minds of the nation. ‘It was an abject failure – we took on a job too far,’ confessed Ms Munro, referring to the performance of the England football team in South Africa, ‘When they say the England team failed to turn up, they were right.’
One saving grace for the British is that Ms. Munro’s company also supplied all the other ‘officials’ at the now infamous meeting in Afghanistan. ‘President Karzai was, in fact, a chap from PC World in Luton.’

Electrification plan to replace steam trains on London - Swansea line on hold

The government has once again stalled on plans to electrify the London to Swansea railway - a line that still operates coal fired steam trains. Wales, an area the size of Wales, has once again been left behind according to The Shadow, Peter Hain: “It is a disgrace that in this day and age, rail travel to Wales still entails travelling in an open top carriage at speeds of 15 miles an hour.”
The situation is, of course, not the Condems fault: "We should not forget that the last government failed to electrify a single centimetre of track in Wales during their 13 years in office, “ the Secretary of State for Wales, Cheryl Gillan, said.
But, according to Peter Hain, “The minister should get her facts straight. The Labour Government electrified an inch and a half of line in east HaveveverFordwest - the bit just behind Big Daddy’s Niteclub.”
When asked when the issue would be addressed again, Cheryl Gillan said “I am thinking about it but Christmas is on the way and I have lots of presents to buy - and my aunt’s family is coming over from New Zealand.” She added, “Wales is full of poor people who probably can’t afford rail travel anyway, unless they’ve nicked the tickets.”

Threat of Data Protection fines forces BBC to stop using names.

Following the first fines meted out under the Data Protection Act the BBC has announced it will no longer use any personal names for anyone either working for - or appearing on - the BBC.
The BBC has often been in the firing line for the flagrant disregard for the privacy of members of the general public. Last year, a local news item about litter in Dorset hedgerows featured anti-litter campaigner Hermione Chubbwater. Chubbwater’s life became ‘rubbish – a living hell’ following the report’s broadcast. She was forced to change her name to Sheila Prattle and now lives in Exeter.
‘We do not want to take any chances’, said the BBC’s Legal Officer, John Smith. ‘We use public funds to provide a service for that same public and they don’t expect us to grass them up.’
Anyone featuring in a news report will be referred simply as A, B, C, or, if they prefer, Mr. or Mrs. Smith. This will apply to presenters throughout the BBC’s media with sport and televised football posing a particular challenge. ‘We intend to keep player’s names confidential. This will result in one team being referred to as 1 to 11 and the other, A to K.’ said BBC’s Director of Sport, John Smith. The practice of using cover names is, however, not new. John smith explained, ‘We have been using pseudonyms – albeit very obvious ones – for many years in horse racing to protect the horse. You may have guessed Red Rum was not that horse’s real name.’
Other suggestions for aliases include job related names. The weather, for example, would be presented by Bob Cloud rather than Peter Cockcroft.

Cap for foreign migrants

The Coalition government has reached an agreement with other European Union member states on a cap for non EU skilled migrants. The cap, which will be sown onto the scalp and contains a microchip, will make foreign skilled scumbags from outside the EU more easily identifiable so that abuse and discrimination can be targeted more effectively at the right people.
The agreement addresses a consensus that it is no longer clear who is who in the work place. A spokesperson from the coalition Condem government confirmed, ‘For many years now an increasing problem with migrants from Eastern Europe or the USA is that they look just like us whereas before it was much easier to target Commonwealth citizens who actually had every right to be here. We want to create a level playing field where everyone knows if they are Us or Them.’
The cap will be manufactured in partnership with Apple and be known as the I-Cap and the design will be chosen by Simon Cowell from entrants in a Blue Peter competition to be announced shortly. Mr. Cowell said, ‘I’ll be looking for something that jumps out at you and says ‘I’m here’ – even ‘X marks the spot’. I do not want to see wishy-washy pastels or those appalling crocheted things that hippies wear.’
Other solutions to the problem had included removing limbs, tattoos across the forehead and a rather attractive one piece shell suit in royal blue in which the migrant would effectively live. The Condem spokesperson added, ‘We felt that with the options available to us whilst wanting to identify the migrants, we also felt the means should be dignified as we still want to encourage sufficient numbers of migrants into the country so that we have a clearly visible scapegoat when the economy really goes through the floor.’