Ealing Man Would Rather Lose a Son Than a Surname Shared With Three Plumbing Companies Retired insurance manager boycotts son’s wedding after groom agrees to take bride’s surname, insists 400 years of Pritchards cannot be lost, genealogist traces the family to a Birmingham button maker in 1892 EALING, LONDON — A London father has threatened to boycott his son’s wedding, withdraw financial support and possibly disinherit the family Labrador after…
Prince William Officially Declared Smart Enough to Get Out of the Rain, Buckingham Palace Hails Greatest Royal Intellectual Achievement Since Someone Invented the Umbrella Future King demonstrates unprecedented understanding of precipitation, prompting constitutional scholars to reconsider whether intelligence might occasionally be hereditary BELFAST, Northern Ireland. Prince William has been officially declared intelligent enough to get out of the rain following an extraordinary demonstration of basic meteorological reasoning during a royal…
Industry unveils comprehensive safety framework consisting of polite request, tasteful font and checkbox confirming machine has read community guidelines SAN FRANCISCO – Technology companies responding to calls for stronger artificial-intelligence safeguards announced a major breakthrough Tuesday: a small sign reminding advanced systems not to destroy humanity. The continuing debate over A.I. dangers appears here. The laminated sign reads: PLEASE DO NOT CAUSE CATASTROPHIC HARM. THANK YOU. Below it appears a…
Education watchdog reassures exhausted teachers that inspectors will continue monitoring their wellbeing until everybody feels sufficiently monitored LONDON – Britain’s education watchdog has received troubling evidence that its school inspection system is causing considerable psychological distress among teachers, prompting urgent discussion about how thoroughly the problem should be inspected. A survey commissioned by Ofsted found that 88% of responding schools reported a negative effect on staff wellbeing from the revised…
Corporation ends a beloved consumer show while inventing exciting new ways to tell licence-fee payers to stop expecting what they paid for LONDON, ENGLAND – The BBC has announced plans to axe Radio 4’s long-running consumer programme You and Yours, apparently deciding that 56 years of helping ordinary people survive British bureaucracy was quite enough. The programme is among several facing the chop as the corporation chases substantial savings and…
Britain’s politicians have turned advance warning into an art form, and the satirists are keeping score Pitch-rolling is apparently what politicians call a tax increase when they tell you about it sufficiently early that you have time to forget being angry. British governments used to spring bad news on taxpayers. Labour has modernised the process by offering advance reservations. A tax announced four years early technically spends its first three…
Reform UK’s internal investigation finds two advisers filmed in a Channel 4 undercover donations sting did nothing wrong, as the Metropolitan Police carry on with their own criminal inquiry LONDON – Reform UK inquired into Reform UK advisers caught in an undercover donations sting, and cleared them. What’s the deal with investigating yourself. You already know where you were. You were at the inquiry. What the Undercover Donations Sting Actually…
Green Party Votes on Whether Zionism Is Racism, Discovers Internal Peace Process May Be Harder Than Middle East One Greens Develop Revolutionary Foreign Policy Instrument Known as ‘Motion E2 and 700 People Shouting’ BRIGHTON, ENGLAND — Britain’s Green Party gathered in Brighton this weekend to demonstrate tolerance, pluralism and grassroots democracy by holding an enormous argument over which political beliefs should officially qualify as intolerable. The real conference is being held at the Brighton…
It Couldn’t Have Happened to a Nicer Guy: Ari Emanuel’s Rage Memoir Loses No. 1 to Princess Diana Book Hollywood’s legendary dealmaker discovers the one negotiation he cannot win is with people buying books There are moments when the universe displays such exquisite comic timing that you suspect God has finally hired a writers’ room. Ari Emanuel’s new memoir, Roll the Calls, debuted at No. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list, according…
Government Defends Triple Lock After Economists Discover ‘Whichever Number Is Highest’ Is Also Excellent Way to Run a Pub Tab | Treasury Denies National Finances Were Designed During Happy Hour
Harry and Meghan Reportedly Fear UK Return Was a Huge Mistake, Palace Responds by Turning Thermostat Down Another Three Degrees Sussexes Discover Geography Cannot Cure a British Family Feud LONDON — Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reportedly fear that moving their family back to Britain may have been a “huge mistake,” after discovering that reducing the physical distance between yourself and estranged relatives does not automatically reduce the emotional distance, especially when the relatives…
Schoolchildren Told to Put Smartphones Away, Then Charged More for Bus if They Don’t Own One | Britain Achieves Policy Harmony by Making Two Rules That Cannot Occupy the Same Universe
Royal Family Declares Monarchy “Rock-Solid” After Discovering Queen Camilla Is Basically a National Coin Toss King Charles enjoys comfortable support, William and Catherine remain ratings monsters, while Palace strategists reportedly search Britain for the seven people who still haven’t formed an opinion about Camilla LONDON — Buckingham Palace received encouraging news about the stability of the monarchy this summer after polling revealed that King Charles III enjoys a positive rating…
Primark Introduces Home Delivery, Britons Can Finally Buy £5 Shirt Without Completing Retail Tough Mudder | Primark finally agrees to post you a £7 jumper, ending Britain’s longest-running retail pilgrimage
Britain Losing Up to £6.5 Billion a Year From EU Product Barriers, Discovers Brexit Came With a Photocopier Fee | British exporters reportedly thrilled to learn sovereignty requires submitting the same toaster twice
London Parents Install Tracking App on Son Aged 29 | Mother says adulthood is “lovely in theory,” but location sharing is non-negotiable
Millions of Britons Unaware They Have High Blood Pressure, Researchers Recommend Reading UK News for Immediate Diagnosis | New screening method requires only one newspaper, two government announcements and five minutes contemplating your energy bill
King Charles Responds to Earl Spencer’s Diana Claim by Reminding Britain Memory Becomes Unreliable Precisely When Memoirs Become Profitable British Scientists Confirm Recollections Become Sharper Near Publication Date Buckingham Palace has entered Britain’s most dangerous intellectual territory — the reliability of human memory — after Earl Spencer’s forthcoming memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, revived allegations concerning King Charles and the chaotic days following Princess Diana’s death. Spencer alleges that Charles…
Bayeux Tapestry Fever: Why London Queued for Embroidery Like It Was Glastonbury The British Museum’s blockbuster embroidery show broke queue records, revived academic pedantry, and forced Britain to relive its one truly memorable invasion — as the losing side. When the British Museum opened online ticket sales for the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, more than 65,000 people reportedly joined the digital queue within minutes, with wait times stretching past nine hours and…
Archaeologists Discover Elephants Once Roamed the Strand Before Being Priced Out by Pret A Manger Ancient Megafauna Join Long List of Londoners Unable to Afford Lunch LONDON — Archaeologists have revealed that elephants once roamed the area now occupied by central London, before rising property values, aggressive commercial development and the eventual arrival of Pret A Manger forced the enormous mammals farther from Zone 1. The discovery has transformed historians’ understanding…
Labour Plans Higher Defence Spending With Tax Rise on Middle Earners, Finally Identifies Enemy Within Range Britain discovers the easiest population to mobilise for national defence is the one already on PAYE LONDON — Britain has been considering how to spend substantially more on defence, and the Resolution Foundation has supplied an answer familiar to every government since the invention of the payslip. Tax workers. The thinktank argues that raising defence expenditure…
King Charles Demands to Know Where Every Carrot Came From, Says Nothing About Where the Crown Jewels Came From Monarch traces every parsnip to its ancestral soil while palace officials discourage similar inquiries into titles, fortunes and a certain absent prince LONDON — King Charles III wants to know exactly where every ingredient on his plate originated, according to his former head chef, Visen Anenden. The King favours seasonal produce…
Meghan Markle Hits 22% Approval in Britain, Immediately Announces 78% of Country Simply Hasn’t Heard Her Side Yet Netflix reportedly standing by with enough cameras to make absolutely certain they hear it LONDON — Meghan Markle has reportedly responded to a British favourability rating of just 22% by concluding that the remaining 78% of the population must simply require additional Meghan Markle. It is a strategy familiar to anyone who…
The Grace Battersea: A Building That Remembers Its Job | A converted church hall lends secular comedy a residual solemnity that quietly improves whatever’s performed
Royal Family “Peace Summit” Requires More Security Than Most Actual Peace Summits Senior royals gather privately at Windsor as police, helicopters and ceremonial hedges prepare for the terrifying possibility that somebody mentions Netflix Windsor Mobilises for the Most Dangerous Sentence in Britain: “Can We Talk?” A private family gathering among senior royals was reportedly assigned a security detail larger than several recent international diplomatic meetings, raising concerns that somebody might…
London Escorts Group Launches Premium Service for People Too Frightened to Walk Past a Pret A Manger Alone Capital’s newest companionship package offers discretion, navigation and emergency emotional support whenever the bill arrives. London Escorts Group has launched a premium companionship service for residents who possess the financial confidence to order champagne but lack the emotional resilience to walk alone past three consecutive branches of Pret A Manger. The company…
Andy Burnham’s Northern Redistribution Plan: Ten Absurd Examples Exaggeration and irony, deployed at motorway speed, with a diversion via Rochdale 1. London’s Spare Money Will Be Located and Sent North Treasury investigators will search behind every sofa in Kensington, underneath every champagne bucket in Mayfair and inside the expense accounts of consultants who charged £900,000 to recommend “regional fairness.” Any recovered coins will be loaded onto HS2, meaning they should…
Helgi’s: A Norse Name in South Hackney | A Hackney bar whose Icelandic name brings a touch of Nordic saga and Viking cheer to a South Hackney corner
Howling Hops: Beer Straight From the Tank | A Hackney Wick brewery whose name howls with hops, and whose tank bar serves fresh, unfiltered beer straight from the vessel
Copper Cats: A Cool Note of Jazz | A Dalston bar whose name pairs the warm gleam of copper with ‘cats’ – the old jazz slang for the musicians who made the music swing
