The Bobby on the Beat 1829 - 2007

Following the news that the Police Federation has passed a vote of no confidence in Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, after her failure to backdate a 2.5% pay award, we at As A Dodo must sadly announce the death of The Bobby on the Beat, who has clipped his last ear, left his last bicycle unlocked outside the local pub whilst nipping in for a natter and a pint of mild and shot his last innocent victim in the face at point-blank range.

The Bobby on the Beat was born in 1829, the son of Sir Robert Peel. So proud was the then Home Secretary of his new offspring that he named it after himself. Sadly for Sir Robert, the name "Junior" did not prove popular with the public, who preferred to refer to the infant constabulary as "Peelers", "Bobbies", "Coppers" or, indeed, "fascist pigs". Given the understandable reluctance of the Victorian public to have a bunch of uniformed men wandering around the country armed to the teeth and frightening the living daylights out of people - especially as members of the army were already doing exactly that job so well - the decision was taken to arm bobbies with nothing more than a truncheon and a clip (the latter being used - if we've done our googling correctly - to attach to youngsters' ears).

Soon the Bobby on the Beat was travelling across the whole country as every borough and parish clamoured to appoint a jovial, overweight copper to prevent the theft of 'kerchiefs by urchins and to serve as the butt of jokes (normally involving the dismantling of his bicycle when he nipped into the local for a natter and a pint of mild). During the rest of the 19th century and the early 20th century the Bobby on the Beat became an integral part of local community life - calling everyone by their name and being called all sorts of, generally uncomplimentary, names by everyone in return.

For decades, the Bobby on the Beat was held up as a paragon of virtue, defender of the innocent and cheap alternative to the speaking clock. PC 49 smiled out from the pages of The Eagle, PC George Dixon patrolled the streets of Dock Green and The Laughing Policeman, fat though he be, was a hero of popular song. Yet all, in truth, was not well. As the 20th Century wore on, the Bobby began to withdraw from his beat, forced to replace his truncheon with a side-handled baton, his trusty whistle with a malfunctioning radio and his humble bicycle with a flashy police car. Driven (usually in that very same police car, at speed, with his siren on and in the direction of dreadful crime and/or his lunch) from the streets that he loved, the Bobby on the Beat had to find new pastimes for himself. Thankfully, his sharp mind and eager attitude had not been dulled by all the pints of mild and slow bicycle journeys he had taken in his youth. So it was that the Bobby on the Beat spent the Sixties and Seventies inventing exciting games to while away his dull days, such as "Chase the Irishman", "Beggar the Pornography Baron (Unless He Agrees To Give You a Cut of His Profits)" and "Snap ... Goes Your Leg, Sonny Jim, Unless You Sign This Confession". Unfortunately, these games did not prove popular with the public, and the Bobby on the Beat found his former popularity waning with everyone save only Dr Who, who continued to use the Bobby's police box as a handy refuge from the Daleks, despite the fact the Bobby himself usually preferred to be down at the station, carefully "examining the evidence" from that hardcore pornography raid.

Despite this - and the ever increasing amounts of paperwork successive governments loaded him down with in order to stop all that game-playing - The Bobby limped (or more accurately, drove) on as best he could, gamely venturing out to fulfil his quota of arrests ... usually by nicking people for driving 2 miles per hour over the speed limit or wearing a hoodie in a built up area.

It was not enough. The Home Secretary's decision to deny the Bobby on the Beat £200 a year extra in his kevlar-lined wallet was to prove a fatal blow. With his dying breath, the Bobby called for her resignation, announced his intention to have a think about reintroducing industrial action and threw himself down the stairs to the cells.

The Bobby on the Beat will be buried at St Jack Warner's Church, 999, Letsby Avenue. The service will be conducted by the Reverend Sir Ian Blair, who will later deny all knowledge of the event. The congregation will fail to turn up at all, having popped down the pub for a bit of a natter and a pint of mild.

The Bobby on the Beat is survived by Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith ... though not necessarily for all that long.

Those Who Knew Them: Shambo the Bull 2001-2007

Following the removal for slaughter of Shambo the Sacred Bull from the Skanda Vale temple in Wales, his close friend and neighbour, Megan the Goat, pays a moving tribute.

Well when I first heard it I couldn’t believe it, isn't it? My dear friend Shambo dead – taken away like a lamb to slaughter, except he’s a bull. And not just any old bull but a scared… sorry, my mistake, not easy to type with cloven hooves… sacred bull – well I suppose it’s the same thing in his case, poor bugger.

I first met Shambo back in 2001. I have to say I wasn’t that impressed at first. What was he for? He wasn’t tupping every heifer in sight, he wasn’t being fattened up for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, he wasn’t even being allowed to roam the fields to gore English ramblers… No, he was being worshipped… I couldn’t believe it… I hadn’t seen anyone down on their knees worshipping farm animals since, well, those English ramblers wandered ‘accidentally’ into the sheep pen.

Admittedly we didn’t get off to a good start – while those monks next door were stretching their holy hands out to the chosen one, I had Dafydd Williams hairy hands tugging at my udders twice a day. So I wasn’t best pleased every time I popped my head over the wall and saw Shambo surrounded by more devotees than Tom Jones at a knicker factory.

But slowly I got to know him. As I was trotting up to the good grazing on top of the hill I’d always pop my head over the wall and say, ‘Bore Da’. He didn’t say much but he was a good listener. We’d chat about the weather – ‘rain again!’ – or discuss the dumbing down of The Archers, but we steered clear of politics and religion. Well, I’m chapel, see and, well, he was a god – like JPR Williams but not as fast down the left flank.

Anyway, it didn’t take long to find out that beneath all that high and mighty godliness he was just a down-to-earth ordinary bull who liked to share a joke – normally I’d ask him, ‘Is there a God?’ and he’d answer, ‘Yes, me!’ …Cracks me up, it does still… Lovely guy, great sense of humour.

Of course, as a Hindu he believed in the cycle of life and that his karma was to be reincarnated… whereas I’ll probably come back as a handbag or fake chamois leather sold for tuppence in Swansea market. He taught me a bit of Sanskrit like ‘What is found here, may be found elsewhere. What is not found here, will not be found elsewhere’… I thought he was taking about the endless bloody rain… And I’d teach him some Welsh words for ‘telephone’⁽¹⁾, ‘ambulance’⁽²⁾, ‘rain’⁽³⁾ of course, and ‘Look out, the English ramblers are back!⁽⁴⁾’

Then in April everything changed when Shambo was diagnosed with bovine TB. I mean, I know he was coughing and had the sniffles, but who wouldn’t with all that rain? The monks and nuns at the temple argued that he was a sacred cow but say that in Wales and it's usually just a cue for a gag about Margaret Thatcher.

Defra, the Welsh Assembly, The Appeal Court… they all refused to listen. They didn’t give a monkey’s that he was a sacred beast. Maybe he did have TB but there’s all kinds of ailments down here at the moment. Boris the duck – he’s got pneumonia, and Julie the donkey has bird flu… but schtum… we weren’t going to tell the man from Defra that.

Suddenly there were people from all over the world flocking to see Shambo and signing a petition on the internet. But to the end he remained calm and serene – not easy when you’ve got hundreds of monks - and quite a few out-and-out nutters - singing hymns, banging tambourines and chanting and praying round you morning noon and night. Sometimes he’d look at me and I knew what he was thinking – ‘God, I wish I could just slip away for a quiet pint’.

And then yesterday, the man from the ministry came back with 20 coppers and four riot vans – it was like a night out with Charlotte Church – and poor Shambo was led away… But do you know what the last thing he said to me was…? He had such a calm nature… He said, ‘Don’t worry, girl, I’ll see you next week… Who knows I may come back as a goat… But here’s hoping I don’t come back as a sheep…’ Cracked me up it did… God bless, Shambo and Nos da…

So, there it is, Shambo is dead. I can’t believe it. I’ve cried so much that I’ve started coughing and sniffling a lot… but I’m going to keep it quiet because I don’t want that vet putting his cold hand up where the sun don’t shine…

⁽¹⁾ 'telefon'
⁽²⁾ 'ambiwlans'
⁽³⁾ 'glaw' - see, caught you out with that one, isn't it?
⁽⁴⁾ 'oh bugger'.

The Freedom of the Road 1896-2007

The Freedom of the Road, that cherished tenet of British democracy that has allowed motorists over a hundred years of carbon footprint- to-the-floor driving, has crashed and burned after the announcement of plans to allow police to use traffic cameras to investigate all forms of crime, from minor matters such as terrorism all the way up to thinking bad thoughts about the government and failing to love Big Brother (in either its literary or televisual form).

The Freedom of the Road was granted to motorists at – absolutely coincidentally – the same time as it was denied to pedestrians accustomed to sauntering absent-mindedly along the middle of the Queen’s highway without a care in the world⁽¹⁾, a custom which still persists in many parts of East Anglia and throughout London and other cities during the rush hour.

As men, some uppity suffragette types and even toads⁽²⁾ began to bowl down the tarmacadam at ever-increasing speeds, Britain’s motorists began a long and heady affair with The Freedom of the Road - the freedom to journey hither and yon at speeds of up to eight miles per hour in their mighty Edmunds & Wadden Autotrix cyclecar free from worry or the fear that they may have a daguerreotype of their likeness passed to the police in the event that they may be in the act of committing a crime or imagining what Queen Victoria’s ankles looked like.

In the twentieth century thinking about the monarch’s disrobed ankles gave way to thinking about how to drive further and faster without a care in the world – or even the slightest suspicion that the AA man was saluting you to get you to turn your good side to the hidden camera as he secretly photographed you for MI5's files.

However motorists’ freedoms began to be eroded faster than Richard Hammond in a race against Jeremy Clarkson and James May, as the right to speed through residential areas, blunder the wrong way down the motorway, pick your nose at traffic lights or even drive a burning 4x4 into an airport terminal were heavy-handedly outlawed.

Motorists soon found themselves hampered by sleeping policemen, speed cameras, the high cost of petrol and millions of other white-knuckled, grim-faced speed-freaks clogging up the roads in their own pursuit of The Freedom of the Road. A nation of voyeurs who spent weeks watching a dozen morons people trapped in a TV studio every summer, became incensed at the thought of being photographed up to 300 times day in central London as they inched forward in first gear thinking about watching a dozen morons people trapped in a TV studio every summer.

The decision by the Home Office to give police access to traffic cameras in real-time rather than applying for the data on a case-by-case basis – or subscribing to Sky’s top-rating 24-hour Traffic Jam Channel – was the last potato in the exhaust pipe and The Freedom of The Road came to a sudden stop with a Flash! Bang! Wallop!

The Freedom of the Road will be buried at the St Alastair Stewart Church of Police, Camera, Action! The mourners will sing along to a selection of turgid mid-1970s guitar-based anthems from the Best of Top Gear CD while being photographed by undercover coppers posing as mourners. The service will be sponsored by Snappy Snaps and the driver of the hearse will be arrested and taken to Guantanamo Bay for thinking about picking his nose at a traffic light as he heads home.

⁽¹⁾ especially insofar as such cares related to being run over
⁽²⁾ The As A Dodo editorial team must apologise at this point for the sloppy work by the junior staffer who prepared this piece, who appears to believe that Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows contains an accurate record of motoring in the Edwardian era.

The UK Prison System 1166-2007

The UK Prison System has today slopped out for the last time following the news that 25,000 prisoners serving up to four years have received a Get Out of Jail Free (well, 18 days early) card from Justice Secretary, Lord Falconer, in a desperate move to provide 1,500 cells for more serious and dangerous criminals (none of whom, sadly, are believed to be members of the Government).

Before 1166 jails had existed in an ad hoc and unregulated fashion, the prison population kept low by the simple method of sending offenders to the gallows, chopping block or Iron Maiden (or, even worse, Metallica) for such serious crimes as being a peasant in a built-up area or looking at the King’s deer in a suspicious manner. When woolly liberal Henry II acceded to the throne, however, he ordered jails built in every county to hold those awaiting trial or convicted of non-capital offences such as whistling in the fields or smiling in church, and The UK Prison System born.

Thanks to the constant intervention and reforms of bleeding heart liberals the prison population grew steadily so that, by the 18th century, Captain Cook was dispatched to find an island big enough and far enough away to cope with the increasing number of uppity agricultural workers daring to withhold their labour for a fair day’s pay. On his discovery of Australia, Britain's lawmakers boasted that they had at last discovered a land where the country's ne'er-do-wells could inflict no more harm upon the British people, a boast in which they sadly failed to anticipate the subsequent creation of Neighbours.

Though social reformers in the 19th century campaigned for a penal system which reformed rather than punished, many inmates were still being sent to prison ships or filthy and overcrowded jails where they were not only deprived of their liberty but also expected to pay for the privilege – a system which would be condemned by later, reforming Home Secretaries ... and hailed as "the good old days" by their successors Michael Howard, David Blunkett and John Reid.

Indeed it was thanks to the enlightened policies of ministers such as these last three (and the fat one with the big ears… what was his name…?) that by the beginning of the 21st century Britain’s streets were safe once more - just about anyone who might consider walking down them having been locked up. As the Labour government presided over a 33% increase in the prison population, due in part to the government's desire to detain people without trial for looking at Tony Blair in a suspicious manner – The UK Prison System began to complain increasingly of ill-health and a constant feeling of being over-full and constipated. With The System bunged up, prisoners increasingly found themselves held in court cells, police cells, holiday chalets and B & Bs – in fact anywhere where a small, confined room costs an arm and a leg and a knife-fight might break out over breakfast or someone taking too long in the shower.

With The UK Prison System claiming to be completely full and unable to take another prisoner - even a wafer thin one - it was soon clear to everyone that it could not continue much longer. Even Gordon Brown's pledge of an extra 8,000 prison places by 2012 was to prove too little too late, when it was pointed out that number would be barely be enough to cover those expected to be convicted of illegally supplying steroids for the 2012 Olympics. Overstuffed and underfunded, The UK Prison System burst open and vomited forth thousands of prisoners onto the streets.

The UK Prison System will be buried at sea in a Prison Hulk. It is survived by a penal system that believes the best way to stop people committing crime is to lock them up with hardened criminals for 22-hours-a-day in tiny rooms with an amazingly good supply of hard drugs and by detention without trial, new stop and search powers, talking CCTV cameras, John Reid, Lord Falconer, Cash-for-Honours, BAE corruption allegations and Tony Blair.

Paris Hilton’s Dreadful Incarceration 3rd June 2007-7th June 2007: A Correction

Further to today's obituary for Paris Hilton's Dreadful Incarceration, we now understand that the aforementioned article was a pile of utter garbage a trifle premature, having been informed by Los Angeles Court officials that, on seeing the Incarceration collapse and Ms Hilton appear to get off scot-free, the presiding judge immediately applied his knowledge of CPRR⁽¹⁾ and successfully resuscitated the highly-talented hotel heiress's sentence of imprisonment - producing cries of amazement from onlookers and of "It's not right!" from the heiress herself⁽²⁾.

As usual we apologies profusely for this latest in our long line of obituarial cock-ups. We would promise to do better in future but for our understandable fear that none of our readers would believe us.

⁽¹⁾ Correct Punishment for Rich Recidivists
⁽²⁾ some present insist that Ms Hilton's cry was merely an attempt to remember the proper term for "left".

Paris Hilton’s Dreadful Incarceration 3rd June 2007-7th June 2007

Paris Hilton’s Dreadful Incarceration has died cruelly in its infancy after only three days – although her lawyers argued it was five – following the release of the world’s greatest hotel heiress and sex tape celebrity on unspecified medical grounds, rumoured to be Vacant Personality Syndrome.

The heir to a share of the Hilton Hotel fortune - alongside her siblings London Hilton, Tokyo Hilton and New York Hilton – Paris Hilton has for years led an existence troubled only by the threat to the Hilton fortune from long-lost cousin, Wolverhampton Travelodge. Yet, despite being born into a life of untold wealth and privilege, Paris has become one of this century’s creative artists.

As one of the foremost actresses of her generation she starred in the horror film House of Wax – a terrifying tale of a bikini-line treatment gone wrong – and has made four series of a groundbreaking neuroscience documentary filmed inside her own brain, The Simple Life. Doubtless inspired by the brilliant work of flagrant self-promoters controversial artists such as Jeff Koons, Paris went on to explore the world of the photographic arts, first coming to the art world's attention with her in-depth and probing video installation 1 Night in Paris and later stunning the cognoscenti with her series of Getting Out of the Car triptychs, featuring the shaven pudenda of herself and fellow artists Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. As well as her achievements in the visual media, Paris was also to prove herself in the world of music, becoming one of the most startling interpreters of popular song since Hylda Baker and Arthur Mullard with her eponymous album, Paris⁽¹⁾ featuring such timeless hits as Turn It Up (No, God No, Please No, Don’t!), Nothing in This World (Except $50 Million in the Bank) and Stars are Blind-Drunk and Behind the Wheel.

All these great works were put under threat in September 2006, when the brilliant heiress was arrested for driving under the influence of too much money and over-exposure on TV, the internet and the press and sentenced to 36 months' probation and had her licence suspended. Understandably unaware that the law could ever apply to one of such enormous global stature (and significantly more enormous wealth), and - as she was later to tell the court - incapable of performing such humdrum tasks as reading her own mail, who could blame her for popping out in her car almost immediately after her sentence and blasting through a 35mph zone at 70mph with all the grace of Mr Toad of Toad Hall in pursuit a canary-coloured cart.

Despite her obvious innocence of the charges brought against her due to her total lack of mens rea⁽²⁾ (having little or no mens at all) and pleas from her friends and relatives to the Governor of California himself, Mr Arnold Terminator, the uncaring authorities decided to break the Hilton butterfly upon their legalistic wheel. Careless of Paris's impassioned courtroom plea that one of her ability should not be forced to spend time with the little people, she was sentenced to 30 days in Los Angeles County Jail. So it was that this brilliant young lady was banged up in front of the watching cameras (in truth, not the first time this had occurred) and Paris Hilton’s Dreadful Incarceration was born.

After just three days and nights, the butterfly was truly broken: Paris had developed a serious medical condition known to laymen as "being a rich white woman in a US jail". Deeply concerned at this, a sympathetic sheriff's office swiftly acted to free her from her plight, choosing to let her serve the rest of her sentence under house arrest wearing an electronic tag - just as soon as they could get Prada to make one for her. So Paris Hilton's Dreadful Incarceration was brought to an end.

Paris Hilton’s Dreadful Incarceration will be buried in a lavish ceremony attended by a weeping Statue of Justice. It is survived by yet more front-page coverage for Ms Hilton and thousands of poor and unconnected people serving out their sentences in the normal manner.

⁽¹⁾ A title Paris arrived at after having the meaning of "eponymous" explained to her no less than 17 times.
⁽²⁾ "Guilty mind".

The Bullingdon Club c.Mid-19th Century-2007

Waiting staff, pub landlords and other inhabitants of the city of Oxford are today breathing sighs of relief and downgrading their insurance policies, following news that The Bullingdon Club, Oxford University's most notoriously irresponsible "dining club", is expected to pass away after calls by its most celebrated member, Conservative Leader David Cameron, for a new "responsible society".

Born in the mid-19th Century (the details are, like so many members of the society, a little hazy) the Bullingdon Club was a late flowering of Regency irresponsibility in a more sober Victorian age. Though originally conceived as a sporting society, before its first year was out the club was already establishing for itself a reputation for drunkenness and debauchery previously only held by the Hellfire Club and now rivalled only by Premiership footballers and British under-30s on their summer holidays. It is understood that it is in order to distinguish themselves from the last two groups that the Club's members insist to this day on wearing an eccentric uniform of blue tailcoats (though, sadly for the club, this has led to many claims that former boxer and present-day oddball Chris Eubank is an honorary life member).

So irresponsible was the Bullingdon, indeed, that to this day those invited to join the Club's 20-strong membership are welcomed by having their rooms trashed (something which, admittedly, many students are capable of achieving without the aid of some chinless types in dinner dress) and then required to book a private room at a local establishment where the Club's members can drink themselves into near insensibility before reducing the room to a state where it would look far from out of place in Central Baghdad.

Down the years the Club's reputation grew and grew. Lampooned by Evelyn Waugh as the Bollinger Club and attracting such (usually only briefly) upright members of society as bad artist and zookeeper Lord Bath, fraudster and thug Darius Guppy, gleefully caddish former minister Alan Clark and er, David Dimbleby, the Club spent its time in glorious irresponsibility, throwing bikes through windows, smashing street lights and carrying out assorted other activities which lead lesser mortals to criminal charges and Club members to throw large amounts of daddy's money at the victims.

With members such as Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, Shadow Minister for Higher Education Boris Johnson and Mr Cameron himself all poised to take power, a future of untrammelled irresponsibility seemed assured. Who could have predicted that one of the Club's own offspring would forsake his vows and turn against it, using a speech to the Royal Society of Arts and an article in The Guardian to espouse the virtues of social responsibility and condemn those who cause wreck and ruin in their failure to offer others the respect that they deserve?

The Bullingdon Club will be buried at a secret dining event at St Alan Clark's Church of the Extended Wine Tasting. The Vicar will read from The Book of "Dear Lord You Can't Really Be Doing That In The Font Can You? Oh, 'Here's £500 For The Church Roof', You Say? Just Carry On". The church itself will be condemned as structurally unsound tomorrow.

The Da Vinci Code Litigation 2006-2007

In what is - extraordinarily - our third update of the day, we at As A Dodo present an obituary for The Da Vinci Code Litigation, which recently passed away. Sadly, it would appear that our reporter on the scene was so affected by what he saw that he has absorbed more than a little of the Da Vinci Code style. Please forgive us.

Renowned conspiracy theorists, 59-year-old Michael Baigent and 64-year-old Richard Leigh staggered through the neo-gothic archway of the Victorian Royal Courts of Justice yesterday. They lunged for the nearest reporter they could see, a representative of As A Dodo. Grabbing my gannex mac forcefully they told me a grim tale of dark conspiracy, of the death of their beloved Da Vinci Code Litigation at the hands of a secret society and of vast amounts of publicity for "The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail". In the crisp air of a March afternoon in London they told me The Truth.

Now at last I can reveal The Truth about The Da Vinci Code Legislation to the global world.

It is time.

The Da Vinci Code Litigation was born in 2006. It was the child of two men, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh and of the billions of dollars made by dashing, cardigan-wearing author Dan Brown. Together Baigent and Leigh had built up one of the greatest conspiracy theories ever known, a theory that could make them millions. They were shaken by the dreadful knowledge. All they had to do was claim Jesus Christ had married Mary Magdalene and had children, that their descendants married into the ancient line of ancient French Kings, the Merovingians, and that a secret society planned one day to restore them to the French throne of France. They knew they could do it. They wouldn't even need any evidence. People are stupid.

The plan was brilliant. The pair published a book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. People believed it. But now the plan was under threat. The threat came from the sinister figure of sinister Dan Brown, who beneath his dark jacket, dark turtleneck sweater and light chinos was a secret member of the Society of Authors. Brown saw the genius of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. He knew he had to act. He spent hours in dark corners of the hallowed halls of his local Barnes and Noble bookstore, reading through the book. With a trembling hand he noted down the book's ideas in his leather-bound notebook. Now they were his.

Leigh and Baigent blanched white when they saw the product of Brown's work: The Da Vinci Code. They ripped it furiously from the shelves, flipping rapidly through its pages with white-knuckled hands. In it they saw all their ideas. They even saw themselves, cunningly disguised in a codex of extreme cunningness, as Sir Leigh Teabing. Their plan had been exposed to the world. And now it was making millions.

Swiftly Leigh and Baigent set out quickly for revenge. They ran speedily to the murky halls of the Royal Courts of Justice. They were met by three men, their thinning hair covered by horsehair wigs, their aged bodies covered by blood red robes. One of the men stepped forward.

"Mr Leigh, Mr Baigent", he said, chillingly close, "You have no case - these crazy ideas of yours are far too general to provide the basis for litigation"

Leigh and Baigent turned to each other. How could these men have known? There was only one answer: these "judges" must have been members of the Society of Authors too. As they looked behind the men in front of them, towards the part of the Royal Courts of Justice that was named the Bear Garden by Queen Victoria in 1882, Leigh and Baigent saw before them the sight they dreaded. On the floor lay their precious litigation, strangled to death. They fled.

The quest for The Da Vinci Code Litigation is the quest to kneel before the bones of Leigh and Baigent's hopes of millions, to kneel before the hopes of the outcast ones and weep. Now it is over, ended in the ancient Royal Courts of Justice on a floor on which Romans might once have trod if it had been built before 1882.

The As A Dodo editors add: The Da Vinci Code Litigation will be buried under massive legal bills. It is survived by ludicrous conspiracy theories, the works of Dan Brown and millions of people who wouldn't know a decent book if it bit them on the arse.

Lewis "Scooter" Libby's Political Usefulness 1981-2007

Lewis "Scooter" Libby’s Political Usefulness as assistant to President Bush and Chief of Staff to Dick Cheney was legally terminated yesterday when it was found guilty on four counts of obstruction of justice and perjury in the cover-up of the leaking of the name of a CIA operative, and one count of being named after a character in The Muppets.

Scooter Libby’s Political Usefulness was born in 1981, the offspring of a legal career defending dodgy businessmen and military-industrial corporations and a job offer from his friendly old Yale professor, Paul Wolfowitz, who always likes to help out someone in need, provided that someone is already a hugely successful, go-getting, higher-rate-tax-payer and not some welfare-guzzling schmo who might actually be in, er, need.

The Usefulness quickly proved its worth at the State Department, specialising in East Asian and Pacific affairs, before moving to the Pentagon in 1989, as Principal Deputy Under-Secretary Of Defense For Strategy And Resources And Making Up Stuff About Foreign Countries As An Excuse To Start A War With Them.

By the end of the century, The Usefulness had become part of George W Bush’s core security team, along with Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Mr Wolfowitz – a network of neo-conservatives known as “The Vulcans”, completely devoid of human emotion, able to kill a liberal with their “death grip” but, strangely, singularly unsuccessful in achieving a mind-meld with the President.

In 2001, The Usefulness was made Vice-President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff becoming so close to the Vice President that it was known as “Dick Cheney’s Dick Cheney”. At the same time, it also became an assistant to Mr Bush (“Dick Cheney’s Dick”) and national security adviser, shaping policy on Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea and other countries neocons thought the US could easily whup in a fight that posed a threat to world peace.

It was during the build-up to the invasion of Iraq that the seeds of The Usefulness's demise were sown, when former US ambassador Joseph Wilson publicly cast doubt on the President’s insistence that Saddam Hussein had the ability to develop nuclear weapons. Why Mr Wilson should have cast such doubt no one can say, perhaps it was out of envy of Mr Bush, perhaps a deep and abiding hatred of freedom or perhaps even because Saddam Hussein was not developing nuclear weapons. Nonetheless it was at this time that The Usefulness's nemesis arrived, in the guise of some shadowy figure - who may or may not have loved hunting quail and septuagenarian lawyers - authorised the leaking of the fact Mr Wilson’s wife, Victoria Plame, was a CIA operative and – far, far worse – the owner of several Joni Mitchell albums, details which were both capable of putting her life in danger and ending her career.

With the hunt for this shadowy figure on in Capitol Hill and among the press and indictments being threatened, The Usefulness entered its last moments, nobly allowing itself to be cast into the path of the ravenous pursuing lawyers, who set upon it with glee. Even as it was being devoured the Usefulness strove to protect those who had cast it aside, unwilling to call on its former masters even to speak in its favour. Found guilty of covering-up the Plame leak, The Usefulness was useful no more. It blinked its last and died yesterday in Courtroom 17.

Scooter Libby’s Political Usefulness will be buried at the Lee Majors Church of the Fall Guy. It is survived by Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Richard Armitage, Paul Wolfowitz and a pardon from George Bush just before he leaves office in January, 2009.

The Attorney General of England and Wales 1315-2007

Legal and constitutional experts are lowering their wigs and closing up their dusty tomes this morning following the announcement by As A Dodo that the office of Attorney General of England and Wales has passed away, after an attempt to advise itself on the decision to advise itself about advising the government of which it was a member on the legality of a member of the government of which it was a member advising the government of which it was a member about its decision to take out of injunctions which might be seen to be to the advantage of the government of which it was a member resulted in a rip in the fabric of reality, not to mention assorted conflicts of interest.

The office of Attorney General was born in 1315, when Edward II took time out from being defeated at Bannockburn and avoiding pointed fire irons (especially the heated ones) to appoint an individual (ideally someone who worked out a lot and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of all the latest madrigals) to prosecute his business in the Court of Common Pleas.

Over the following centuries the office of Attorney General went happily about its business of advising the Crown (and whoever happened to be wearing it) without anyone ever questioning its role. Soon it was deciding who could and could not bring cases in the courts, handing out injunctions, being responsible for the criminal law and representing the public interest.

Early signs of future disaster began to appear in the late 17th century and early 18th century when the gradual spread of a phenomenon experts have identified as "democracy" first began to appear in the British constitution. By the 20th century definite questions had begun to arise over whether, as a government minister, the Attorney General could really safeguard the public interest when the government kept doing things that the public weren't interested in at all like having wars and buggering up the National Health Service.

It was in the early 21st century that the Attorney General embarked on the course which was to lead to his office's doom. The first sign of the disaster awaiting humanity came in 2003 when Lord Goldsmith was asked to advise his cabinet colleagues on the legality of war with Iraq and, when he indicated that he wasn't one hundred per cent sure it was legal was told to go away and think again until he came up with the answer Tony wanted. With the fabric of reality already beginning to twist as the Attorney General engaged in a novel form of quantum superposition, being at one and the same time a loyal member of the government and also an impartial law officer, many experts were already issuing dire warnings that "the constitution cannae take it captain".

Undeterred, the Attorney General ploughed on with his experimentation, insisting that the British constitution itself required him to test the public's tolerance by being the final arbiter of whether his cabinet friends and colleagues, including the Prime Minister that appointed him could ever be prosecuted should the police decide that they had been offering passing billionaires a "touch of the old ermine" for a loan of a spare million or two. Matters came to a head when, acting on a request from the police, the Attorney General attempted to obtain injunctions to prevent the public from finding out anything about the police's investigation and to prevent them from knowing he'd asked for an injunction in the first place. The attempt to act "completely independently of government" whilst at the same time being a member of that government caused the public's belief in reality to explode, irrevocably destroying the Attorney General's office.

The office of Attorney General will be buried under a vast selection of constitutional hats at the Heisenberg Church of Quantum Uncertainty. It is survived by the equally confused offices of Solicitor General and Lord Chancellor as well as being both survived and not survived at the same time by Schrödinger’s cat.