Cherie Blair's WAGhood 1997-2006

The news that Cherie Blair's time as a leading member of the England WAGs (Wives And Girlfriends) has passed away after nine-and-a-half years has come as an enormous shock to expensive hairdressers and style consultants across Britain and an enormous relief to Labour Party supporters and Downing Street officials.

Cherie Blair's WAGhood was born in May 1997 when, with her husband elevated to the Premiership, humble Cherie Blair - the straightforward young woman who once told a reporter she could have grown up to be a simple Liverpudlian shopgirl - joined the ranks of "Wives And Girlfriends" of the international scene's most famous players.

Though often criticised for finding herself in the light of media stardom only due to her proximity to her silky-skilled husband, there can be little doubt that as a WAG Cherie brought something unique to the celebrity firmament, even if that unique something was merely a tendency to shoot her mouth off at extremely unfortunate moments. Certainly, things began well for Cherie's WAGhood - with her husband's electrifying pace of reform and exquisite bill-passing skills receiving praise abroad as well as at home, Mrs Blair soon found herself jetting first class around the globe, staying in the most luxurious locations and being pictured in the most glamorous nightspots in the most expensive of designer creations.

While Tony spent his days juggling balls with top-flight international players such as Silvio "I Own The Referee" Berlusconi and George "Bomb Your Legs Off" Bush, Cherie spent them indulging her hobby of being a lawyer, giggling with her style consultants and £275 a go hairdressers, or indulging in house-buying trips with Australian conmen. Her evenings were spent on Tony's arm, wining and dining with the country's leading celebrities, actors, artists, popstars and also Sir Cliff Richard.

It may be trite to assert that such a blessed life could not be long-lived but it was nonetheless true of Cherie's WAGhood. With her husband's pace and flair being sapped by the years, frequent conflicts with midfield maestro Gordon Brown, and tabloid rumours of an affair with George Bush, Cherie was soon facing the prospect of her WAGhood, like his career, being relegated to the bench. Attempts to carve out her own career in charity work were frustrated by the fact a major beneficiary so often seemed to be Cherie herself, while attempts to carve out a career as a respected judge were frustrated by her tendency to indulge in Mayan rebirthing ceremonies to readjust her energy flow. The final blow was to come when Tony suffered a dreadful injury following a tackle from behind by several members of his own team, led by Gordon Brown. Facing isolation and loss of her WAG privileges, Cherie's WAGhood spontaneously combusted.


The funeral ceremony was held in Manchester on Tuesday. As the WAGhood's small urn was placed in its niche before an honour guard of Hopi ear candle sellers and an audience who had been forced to pay £300 a head for the privilege of attending, Cherie herself was overcome by her emotions. That these emotions were chiefly malice and rage became evident as she had to be dragged from the graveside, screaming "F***ing Brown. I'll rip the lying Scottish get's f***ing throat out".

Cherie Blair's WAGhood is survived by a massive mortgage, a series of highly profitable "charity" lectures and Samantha Cameron.

Jeremy Clarkson 1960-2006

It is difficult to relay the impact that the sudden and unexpected death of journalist, broadcaster, motoring expert and professional loud-mouthed know-it-all Jeremy Clarkson will have upon the world.

Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson was born in 1960 to a long line of Yorkshiremen and exhibited the virtues of his home county, namely forthrightness and plain-speaking (or "being loud" and "being rude" as they are known outside Yorkshire). He learnt the craft that was to bring him fame as a child when - allowed into the pub to collect the crisps and coca-cola he would be imbibing in the family car while his parents chatted with friends in the snug - he spotted his first pub know-it-all, holding forth at length on why Richard Nixon would beat Leonid Brezhnev in a fight and how all Italians smelled suspiciously of garlic. As he watched the frankly terrified expressions on the faces of the know-it-all's audience, Clarkson knew he had found his ideal job.

After spending many a night hunched under his bedcovers with the Big Boy's Book of Facts and The Hitler Youth Guide To Everything (not to mention several mysteriously soiled copies of Health and Efficiency) young Jeremy was ready to find the perfect tool to display his burgeoning skills. After realising that the perfect tool was himself, he went on to search for the arena in which to express his art and was soon to find himself among the tedious, mileage-and-torque-obsessed men of motoring journalism. With his ability to deliver outrageous and ill-thought-through opinions by means of heavily-prepared and overwrought metaphors, Clarkson soon found himself promoted to television where he became a hugely successful presenter of the BBC's Top Gear programme and a hugely less successful presenter of the chatshow "Clarkson".

Friends believe Mr Clarkson was deeply affected by his friend and co-presenter Richard Hammond's recent, appalling, high-speed accident and - unable to cope with being second best in any area - was driven to outdo Mr Hammond's near-death experience by going "just that little bit further". This, at least, is the only reasonable explanation anyone can come up with for his decision - aided only by a BBC camera crew, a large collection of over-extended similes and extensive gurning to camera - to break into Her Majesty's Naval Base Clyde, Faslane and smuggle himself aboard nuclear submarine HMS Vanguard. Once inside the sub, Mr Clarkson strapped himself to a Trident nuclear missile and - having acquired the launch codes from a senior Naval official after reducing him to a quivering wreck with a three-hour tirade on the obnoxiousness of the French - launched himself at the nearest Greenpeace headquarters with a cry of "Eat atomic death, treehugggers" and a few pithy remarks about the lack of leather or walnut trim on the latest Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles. As a result of his actions, it is understood several of Mr Clarkson's remaining atoms now hold the British water, air and land speed records.

Jeremy Clarkson is survived by a long-suffering family and a note reading "In your face, Hammond".

The Beautiful Game 1863-2006

Sports fans are in shock following the death of The Beautiful Game. The Game has been followed for decades by millions of soccer fans across the globe, all eager to gather in front of their newspapers, radios and television screens for details of the latest transfers of players from club to club and of money from sports agent to football manager.

The Beautiful Game was born in the 1860's when, only months after the Rules of Association Football were first laid down by the FA, the manager of the N.N. (No Names) Club, Kilburn was offered his weight in Millingtons Unfiltered Gaspers to agree to the transfer of dashing, young centre-forward Aloysius "The Flying Cad" Formby from Blackheath Proprietary School.

Over the following decades The Beautiful Game was to make little progress, confining itself to building the odd manager a cheap patio or installing an avocado bath suite in a chief coach's home. This was due partly to the rectitude of those involved in football and mainly to the fact that all the money in British soccer at the time was insufficient to maintain a single sports agent. All was to change in the early 1990's, when hundreds of millions of pounds were diverted to the game from Rupert Murdoch's War on Culture to set up the Premier League.

Soon The Beautiful Game was advancing apace and developing exciting new moves, including the bung, the backhander, the sweetener, the tap-up and the illegal approach. Followers of The Game frequently marvelled at displays of extraordinary skill as the most outrageous bribes were explained away with straight faces, their enjoyment heightened all the more by the comic ineptitude of the governing authorities. Indeed all agreed that The Game was at its very peak when, only this week, it was brought low by a series of inquiries, investigations and a tragic outbreak of football.

The Beautiful Game is survived by diving, professional fouling, lousy refereeing, numerous assault allegations, hundreds of kiss-and-tell-stories and David Beckham.

The Living Death of Sir Menzies "Ming" Campbell 2006-??

Political colleagues and fellow members of the non-living community last night paid tribute to Sir Menzies “Ming” Campbell, whose brief reign as leader of the Liberal Zombies continued this week at the annual party conference in Brighton, following his success in persuading part members to drop their promise of a 50p tax rate for high-earning living people and replace it with a range of green taxes ... on green bile, green blood and green putrefying flesh. With Sir Menzies's continuance in office, the dream of Britain’s first Zombocracy remains alive undead.

Sir Menzies had thought that at the overripe old age 65 he had missed his chance to lead a major political party. Indeed, he was right and was comfortably elected a member of the living dead in March 2006, becoming Liberal Democrat leader after beating off the insufferable one who drives around in a taxi and the happily-married one who likes rent boys. In taking up his new position, Sir Menzies ensured an orderly transition of power from one undead leader to another was assured, Charles Kennedy having led the Liberal Democrats for many years despite being embalmed for many years.

During the funeral ceremony (or "conference" as the Liberal Zombies prefer to call it) Mr Kennedy himself was to rise up briefly from his embalming vat (believed to be a barrel of 12-year-old single malt) and take his place under the banners "Trust in Zombies" and "Make Britain Gorier" to deliver an address full of praise and pledges of loyalty to his corpse-like leader. Mr Kennedy also used his funeral oration to declare his intention to remain in politics and the Liberal Zombies - causing much scratching of suppurating heads among his audience.

The Living Death of Sir Menzies Campbell is survived by Charles Kennedy.

The 21st Century 2001-2006

The population of the Vatican was today mourning the 21st Century, after it was declared dead by Pope Benedict XVI in a brief address from St Peter's Square.

It appears from his His Holiness's speech that, despite being born in a vigorous bout of distrust of modernity brought on by inoculation with the Millennium Bug, the still young century had been showing increasing signs of ill health over the past six years. In particular there was evidence that it had inherited several afflictions from its parents, the 19th and 20th centuries, including freedom of thought, belief in Darwinian Evolution, women's liberation, the unfortunate practice of prosecuting priests who wish to display their affections to young choir boys and a distressing lack of crusades in the Holy Land. The Century having failed to improve despite the finest leechcraft of the Vatican's doctors, the Holy Father eventually found himself with no alternative but to administer the last rites to the century ... whilst also administering a red hot poker to the Century's fundament.

Speaking to an assembled crowd of serfs, freemen, pardoners, clerkes, reeves, apothecaries and villeins, Pope Benedict announced that henceforth the 21st century will be replaced by the ever-reliable 14th century, adding that from now on the Sun will travel around the Earth, the Black Death will be endemic across Europe and the best way of improving Christian-Muslim relations will be at the end of a long and pointy lance. His Holiness's address was greeted by rapturous applause from the crowd, though the effect was somewhat lessened when several of the lepers' arms fell off. Fortunately the festive air was soon restored by the burning of an assortment of witches.

The 21st Century was buried on Saturday morning in a moving ceremony, marred only when Pope Benedict told the assembled relatives that the 21st Century was "evil and inhuman", although officials later explained His Holiness had not meant to cause any offence.

NATO 1949-2006

Fans across the globe are mourning the death of NATO, the supergroup that had rocked much of the globe since its foundation in 1949. Brought together from some of the leading powers of the Western World, and Canada, the band was soon building a powerful reputation as it played gigs across much of Western Europe, picking up new members on its travels.

All seemed to be going well until France - angered at what it saw as America and the UK hogging the limelight - split from the group in the sixties, intent on pursuing solo projects including "Gaullist Arrogance" and "Building Nuclear Bombs". Despite this the other NATO members soldiered on. Acknowledged as the mightiest group in the globe and rivalled only by "The Warsaw Pact", notorious for a series of drunken performances during which many of their own members got beaten up, NATO's own act became increasingly bloated and unwieldy, with trillions of dollars spent on stage equipment that would never be used. Rumours began to circulate of money problems, arguments and even dark ceremonies involving millions of dollars being sacrificed to right-wing terrorists.

Despite this, when "The Warsaw Pact" eventually folded in the early 90's, many of its members decided to combine their forces with NATO. Soon even France was welcomed back into the fold, it's unique stylings a welcome addition to the line-up. It was not long before NATO was performing in new and exciting venues, preaching a new message of peace and reconstruction - accompanied by lots of heavy metal bombing - in the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.

Facing an ever-heavier tour schedule, band relations became increasingly fractious, with America - backed by Britain - spending more and more of its time on ill-conceived concept project "Bombing the Heck out of Iran" and the even more ludicrous "Invading Iraq". Differences became ever stronger and when, in 2006, America and Britain called for members to get together for a rooftop concert in Afghanistan, only two Latvians turned up.

NATO will be buried this weekend, if anyone can be bothered.

Paul Burrell's Link To Reality 1958-2006

Doctors at the St Diana Hospital for the Self-Deluded have confirmed that former Royal Butler Paul Burrell's Last Link To Reality passed away this week. Although reports from the hospital remain unclear it appears that The Link - which had been in poor health for many years - entered a coma early on Sunday after a brief, seventeen-hour, chat with Mr Burrell himself about the former butler's deep and abiding love for Diana, Princess of Wales and how much he meant to her.

The product of a childhood in a coal-mining village in the North of England, The Link spent much of its troubled life in Mr Burrell's company. When he first joined the Royal staff, The Link decided to go with him, taking it upon itself to listen to young Paul's tales of Royal goings-on while quietly reminding him of his position - at that time Third Under-Footstool-In-Waiting.

The relationship between the pair became more difficult in 1987, when Mr Burrell was appointed butler to the Prince and Princess of Wales. With Mr Burrell spending much of his time in the glare of the media spotlight (even if only at the very edge of that glare and usually concealed beneath the princess's shopping), The Link found itself seeing less and less of its old friend. Things worsened still following the Royal divorce when - apparently prompted by an offhand remark from Diana - Mr Burrell spent several months believing he was a rock.

Following Diana's death, The Link's attempts to see Mr Burrell became ever more infrequent. Soon it became content to sit at home, watching its old friend as he chose to maintain a quiet and dignified silence by selling his story to the world and eating kangaroo testicles on ITV 'reality' programme "I'm A Nonentity - Get Me Out of Here".

Soon The Link's health began to fail, even as Mr Burrell was finding a new role for himself as keeper of a private museum containing a surprisingly large assortment of Diana's property and as defender of the princess's reputation against all those who might wish to do her wrong, such as her own children.

The Link is survived by the only person on this Earth who ever really knew and understood Diana.