The World Tomorrow

Relegated from the Premiership to the Conference and fined £9m for failing to tick the right boxes on an FA survey of toilet cleanliness, The Wailing Cat FC have complained loudly to the media about one rule for them softies down south and one for t’poor northern folk. Contrasting the fortunes of his club with those of U Wasted Hitmen, fined £5 recently for fielding an entire eleven of Argentine ballmesmerisers in a critical relegation battle, The Wailing Cat FC chairman Jack Brisket was fuming. ‘’Appen t’were us as ‘ad bent t’rules in yon manner, we’da bin banished t’Scottish Three. Aye, I’d tek a £5 fine any day.’ Bert Fish of the FA was sympathetic: ‘It’s great news for grass roots football, to have The Wailing Cat FC back where they belong. Jack Brisket’s comments? We’ll be taking them up with an interpreter in an attempt to establish their meaning. Now if you’ll excuse me I have an urgent meeting of the match-fixing committee to attend.’
A spokesfan of U Wasted Hitmen was heard to mutter that if they’d known they’d get off so lightly they’d have played the Argentine ballmesmerisers in every game and qualified for the Champions’ League.

Local election results indicate a triumph for the Non-Lumpen Proles! So, at least, maintains the Prime Minister, Tommy Bloke, who is expected to stand down any day now and to anoint his successor, Kiltie McBride, with the poisoned chalice of the caucus leadership. But hang on a minute (in the immortal words of that bald bloke off the 10 o’clock news), that’s exactly what Big Dave of the Terminally Obnoxious Fogey Faction is saying too. Is it a triumph for everyone?
‘Not for us,’ admitted Sir Thingy Wotsit, alleged foreperson of the Awfully Decent Sorts, who did not maintain their March on Power, surprising absolutely nobody but themselves. ‘I have to say we have done better in the past. Why, I remember what Mr Gladstone was telling us youngsters way back in…oh…I forget now. Quite a long time ago. Funny how as the years go by you can recall some things but others are problematic - yes, Nurse? Afternoon nap? Oh yes, yes please…Look, you chaps, can we talk later? I’ve got soo much I’d like to tell you…’ With that Sir Thingy collapsed into his bath chair and was wheeled away to the polite applause of assembled hacks.

Breaking football news: The Gang of Four, irritated at dropping points against lesser opposition, have decided that as of next season they will only play each other. Phoeble Dork-Screeching, a spokesharridan for the clubs, explained : ‘On days when matches against the rest of the Premiership are scheduled we shall be holding exhibition games in our own stadia. Demand for tickets is so astronomical that we’ll fill every seat easily, and as we’ll be playing at home pretty much every week it will effectively double our revenue. Our supporters come to see us win, not to watch a contest between two fairly matched sides. That concept died twenty years ago when we refused to share our home gate receipts with the away teams. Meanwhile the rest of the Premiership will have it all to play for: fifth and sixth place, and relegation.’
Asked to comment, Bert Fish of the FA said: ‘Obviously this is great news for grass roots football. To further help the Gang of Four, the FA has also decided to remove from them the onerous necessity - and possible failure with corresponding loss of earnings - of battling through to the semi-finals of the FA Cup. All four as of next season will receive a bye to that stage of the competition.’ Asked what would happen to those teams who had battled through that far he went on: ‘Obviously this will be a real benefit to grass roots football. We’ll have some kind of plate thing they can play for. It’s good for everyone - except those who support minor teams or those who believe resources should be divided fairly in the interests of excitement and competition. But these days that’s just a few cranks, and we at the FA can’t be bothering with minorities like that.’

With the mounting excitement of the upcoming local elections whipping exuberant hordes of voters into a barely discernible frenzy of overwhelming disinterest, the following flyer was discovered blowing disconsolately along Great Yarmouth’s Golden Kilometerandabit. It carried the masthead of the Free the United Kingdom from Europe party (FUKEU).
‘Voters of England, do not allow yourselves to be deceived. The new-look Terminally Obnoxious Fogey Faction is brandishing green credentials and abandoning traditional values in the hope it can outsocialise the Socialists currently in power. This is nothing more than an electoral ploy! Poster-boy Big Dave is this year’s fashion fad, today’s patio for politics!
There exists today in our once-great land only one political faction which truely stands for the old-fashioned virtues which made Britain such a force in the world - and it is not UKIP!
Give your backing to FUKEU - we stand up for the Best of British.
PS Scots, Welsh or others of Celtic persuasion should pass this to their nearest English acquaintance.’