Author Archives: Max C-F

by | May 15, 2013 · 7:00 am

Gove announces all 13-18 year olds to attend Eton

Imagine a whole generation just like these two.

Imagine a whole generation just like these two.

At a press conference yesterday Michael Gove shared with reporters what he called ‘the pinnacle’ of his education reforms by announcing that from September all four-and-a-half million school pupils in Great Britain and Northern Ireland aged between thirteen and eighteen will attend Eton College.

“This government is totally committed to improving social mobility and giving all young people the chance to succeed and achieve their full potential on their own terms. Unfortunately that’s actually really, really difficult so we thought it would be easier to make everybody the same and an Eton education is the key to absolute conformity.” Continue reading →

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by | May 14, 2013 · 7:00 am

Village braced for tourist influx as Dan Brown’s Inferno hits shelves

Dante: Exile in Rome or Harold?

Dante: Exile in Rome or Harold?

Harold is braced for an influx of tourists following the publication of Dan Brown’s latest blockbuster Inferno. Featuring all the hallmarks of Brown’s previous novels: mystery; clumsy allusions to great works of art and prose that would make a dog weep with embarrassment, Inferno contains amongst its convoluted plot a puzzle that is set to place Harold firmly on the tourist trail.

“Inferno is about Dante,” explained Brown fan, Cassie Fine. “His real name was Durante degli Alighieri which is an anagram of ‘There, under Gillia, dig’ so the connection with Harold’s obvious seeing as we’ve got an ancient grave whose headstone simply says ‘Gillia’. It’s so exciting! I can’t wait to know what’s in the grave.” Continue reading →

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by | May 12, 2013 · 7:30 am

Fear as village buzzed by military drones

The new summer pest that’s harder to ignore than midges.

Harold was plunged into fear and confusion last night when it was repeatedly buzzed by military drones. “It was horrible,’ said villager, Carly Jeffery. ‘I was in the beer garden of the Squirrel Lickers and suddenly there were these massive planes swooping down on us. They were so low that some people got disorientated and fell over. Or that could have been due to the guest ale. I’m not sure Toss Goblin agreed with many people, it was pretty strong.”

After repeatedly circling and descending on the village the drones disappeared leaving a trail of disruption in their wake that saw llamas escaping from the animal sanctuary and going on the rampage across the recreation ground, soufflé’s collapsing in Veggie! Veggie! Veggie! and reports of serious unrest coming from the dogging community. Continue reading →

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by | May 10, 2013 · 7:00 am

Boris Johnson’s popularity plummets as his hair goes solo

It's like seeing Darth Vader out of the suit, isn't it?

Bald men are typically up to 35% more evil

Boris Johnson’s personal approval ratings went into free fall yesterday when his hair announced that it is going solo. Since becoming MP for Henley in 2001, Johnson’s electoral success had mainly been credited to the fact that he looked like a golden retriever that had been groomed and blow-dried by a stoned and embittered conceptual artist who’d never known success. Now his hair has left him to pursue other projects revealing Johnson to be a middle-aged Eton, Oxford, Bullingdon Club toff.

“I don’t know much about politics,” said Harold resident and former Boris fan, Jane Hough. “I haven’t watched it since they sacked Angus Deayton but I always thought that Boris was better than other politicians because he had that mad hair and couldn’t do his jacket up on important occasions. It made him seem like one of us. Now the hair’s gone I’ve realised that he’s just another self-serving Tory.” Continue reading →

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by | May 8, 2013 · 2:30 pm

BNP forced to admit website not hacked just stupid

Nothing to do with us

“Nothing to do with us.”

In order to counter the widespread belief that their website had been hacked the BNP were today forced to admit that it is intentionally full of stupidity and toss.

“The first thing you see on the BNP’s site is a headline saying ‘Rebuilding the ethnic British race‘,” said Evening Harold journalist S.F McCrossin. “So almost immediately I assumed they’d been hacked. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has only existed in its current form since 1921. That’s not wanting to rebuild an ethnic race that’s wanting to rebuild Prince Philip. Or maybe not seeing as he was born in Greece and his dad was Greek. I don’t think the BNP are keen on that sort of thing.” Continue reading →

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by | May 7, 2013 · 7:00 am

Local teen creates first 3D-printer artificial vagina

Why else would you want one?

Why else would you buy one of these?

A day after the world’s first gun made with 3D-printer technology was successfully fired in the Untied States one of Harold’s younger residents announced that he had become the first person to use a 3D-printer to create an artificial vagina.

‘When I got the printer I thought about what I really wanted,’ said seventeen year old Simon Delaney. ‘Guns are cool and that I suppose but I’d rather shag something than use it to fire at some cans. When I asked all my mates they said the same.’ Continue reading →

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by | May 4, 2013 · 11:30 am

New urban horror: you’re never more than three metres away from a UKIP supporter

Warning: one of these creatures can crawl up the u-bend and out of your toilet.

Warning: one of these creatures can crawl up the pipes and emerge from your toilet

A new horror to urban living has emerged following the local election results with scientists calculating that those in built-up areas are never more than three metres from a UKIP supporter.

Residents in Harold’s most populous area, which is lived in almost exclusively by Vikings and locally known as Little Copenhagen,  are terrified.

”I was always worried about being in close proximity to rats,’ said blacksmith Nigel Thorvald. ‘And of course spiders. Did you know in your lifetime you swallow between eight and twenty spiders while you’re sleeping plus at least three a year crawl across your face to drink from your eyeballs?” Continue reading →

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by | May 1, 2013 · 2:30 pm

Sadness as villagers receive benefits on prepaid cards

You want coins? You can’t handle the coins.

There was sadness and confusion in Harold as it became one of the first villages to trial the government’s new scheme of loading benefits onto a pre-paid card rather than paying them into bank or post office accounts. The cards are engineered to prohibit the buying of many items from alcohol to pet food to anything over a certain value.

“It’s horrible,” said Mark Keen, a full-time support worker at Piebald House. “The card makes me second-class. I work and pay taxes now there’s this Big Brothered thing that wont let me buy stuff. It’s humiliating plus The Squirrel Lickers is unbearable now. Can’t buy a pint and people with cash get to control the jukebox. Last time I was in Dominic Delaney kept putting James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful on and no one had a coin to break the flow.” Continue reading →

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by | April 28, 2013 · 2:30 pm

Lazy women demand men-free space

We'll overthrow the patriarchy tomorrow today is about cake

We’ll overthrow the patriarchy tomorrow today is about cake

As women-only gym sessions grow in popularity exercisephobic women in Harold are demanding their own man-free space.

‘At the fitness centre in Dunstable they have women-only classes and women-only swimming sessions plus times when the whole place is only open to girls,’ Jane Hough wistfully told The Evening Harold. ‘I bet it’s brilliant but I can’t participate because I’m completely lazy and haven’t exercised since school.’

Fellow Haroldite Melissa Barker was quick to agree. ‘Fit women and those on the way to being fit get loads of gender-specific events,’ she said. ‘Like gym sessions and the Blimp to Shrimp slimming club in the village hall. But because I refuse to take responsibility for my own health and well-being I have to put up with men all the time and it’s not fair.’ Continue reading →

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by | April 26, 2013 · 2:30 pm

Singing in playground banned as Minister says culture must be presented as a commodity

Shhhh!

Shhhh!

St Mary’s Church of England Primary School in Harold has banned its pupils from singing in the playground following a speech by Culture Secretary Maria Miller in which she said that culture must be presented as a commodity. The headteacher of St Mary’s, Alison Lee, said that she is confident other schools will make the same decision.

‘Maria Miller said that “when times are tough and money is tight, our focus must be on culture’s economic impact” and once we as a staff team team had considered the monetary value of pupils singing and putting on little dance shows shows in the playground just for fun then it became clear that this was something that we had to put a stop to.’ Continue reading →

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by | April 25, 2013 · 11:30 am

Man reaches the limit of cyberspace: says we’re gonna need a bigger Internet

The answer to life, the univ and everything

The answer to life, the Internet and everything

Dan Brooks, office manager at Harold estate agents Lacrymans & Co, has inadvertently discovered the answer to the Internet by becoming the first person to view every page and click every link.

‘When I first went online in the late nineties there wasn’t much to see and then as the Internet grew I suppose I was just like everyone else,’ Brooks said. ‘I’d surf between a couple of dozen sites during the day then get drunk on Saturday nights and email poems about mince to my mother-in-law or buy fifteen kilograms of midget gems off eBay. It was all perfectly normal.’

However that normality ended six months ago when a serious typing error didn’t lead to a To The Manor Born fansite but a gallery of gerontophile porn and Brooks found himself on a journey to the furthest outreaches of cyberspace. Continue reading →

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by | April 24, 2013 · 11:00 am

Village divided as breastfeeding in public banned

9e03a8a110ca6aa61488e5010a63184eAs the law banning breastfeeding in public anywhere in Harold today comes into force villagers remain divided over the issue.

‘We never had breastfeeding when I was a lad. Not with there being a war on,’ said lifelong Haroldite Tom Stalling. ‘My granddaughter just had her youngest christened; afterwards we had a bit of a do in the Squirrel Lickers and she breastfed little Alfie during it. It’s easy in pubs, you just avert your eyes and head to the bar as soon as woman with a baby in her arms undoes a button.’

A dissenting opinion was expressed by Professor Julia Hogsburn. ‘Yes, yes it’s all very natural and delightful I’m sure but my problem with it is that women who breastfeed in public usually turn into one of those women. The sort who can’t imagine that we’re not all entranced by this wonderful example of motherhood and would prefer to get through our day without someone waving their boobs around and babbling about latching on as if it is something other than meaningless.’
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by | April 22, 2013 · 11:30 am

Deputy PM named in apparition mystery

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Villagers this morning breathed a sigh of relief as the mystery of The Ghost of Harold was solved. For some months The Lodge, one of the most substantial properties in Harold, had been the suspected site of frequent supernatural occurences.

‘It was most disconcerting.’ near neighbour Marjorie Houndstooth told the Evening Harold. ‘Lights would go on and off and the recycling bins would be put out but no one was ever seen.’

‘I used to walk the dog past there every evening but in the end I changed route because it was getting too spooky,’ said local barber Geoff Taylor. ‘One night I swear I heard a voice whispering hello and Sweeney started wagging his tail like he does when someone’s making a fuss of him, the daft old thing, but there was no bugger there.’
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by | April 19, 2013 · 2:30 pm

Asylum seekers denied geek rights

Is geeking out a human right?

Is geeking out a human right?

Cassie Fine and Naomi Adams owners of Harold’s role-playing games shop Dungeons & More Dungeons are once again petitioning the Home Office to allow them to accept Azure cards for payment.

‘The Azure card is issued to refugees seeking asylum in the UK who don’t have the right to work. The Home Office chooses which shops can accept it and the only one in Harold is Tesco Express,’ said an angry but determined Naomi Adams. ‘We’re petitioning the Home Office to recognise that geekdom is international and allow us to serve Harold’s refugee community.’ Continue reading →

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by | · 7:00 am

Villagers upset as Gove calls for longer school hours and shorter holidays

Gove indicates how many days holiday a year he want school pupils to have

Gove indicates how many days holiday a year he wants state school pupils to have

In a speech yesterday Education Secretary, Michael Gove, called for significantly longer school days and much shorter holidays saying that ‘we can’t afford to have an education system that was essentially set in the 19th century’.

In Harold however the pattern of school holidays reflects a much older need based on the calender of the once dominant Viking community who took their children out of school at certain times of the year to provide extra labour for long boat maintenance, pillage, and squirrels respectively. Continue reading →

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by | April 17, 2013 · 9:30 am

Mark Thatcher gets lost on the way to his mother’s funeral

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Mark Thatcher was reported missing earlier today after getting lost on his way to his mother’s funeral. Amongst the initial confusion over how someone could get lost on a short drive to St Paul’s Cathedral, one of London’s most famous landmarks, a friend, who wished to remain anonymous, offered this insight into the fifty-nine year old hereditary Baron’s psyche.

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by | April 16, 2013 · 2:30 pm

Kitten blamed for village’s lack of productivity

Dire economic threat or impossibly cute?

Dire economic threat or impossibly cute?

Mister Super Paws, a seven week old kitten was today blamed for the lack of productivity in Harold’s commercial sector. Often referred to by his many admirers as ‘Supes’ or ‘MSP’ Mister Super Paws has been a daytime fixture in the window display at Lacrymans & Co. estate agents for the last two weeks causing detractors to claim he is endangering Harold’s economic well-being. Continue reading →

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by | · 11:30 am

Nick Clegg claims that Margaret Thatcher would have been a Clegger

cleggy2
Nick Clegg has caused wide-spread offence by leaving a message in the visitors book at the Margaret Thatcher museum that has left many people slack-jawed with disbelief.

Simply known as Margaret Thatcher’s House, the former prime minister’s childhood home above her father’s grocery shop in Grantham, Lincolnshire has been preserved as a museum since November 1990 with many visitors left hushed and awed by its unique atmosphere of ruthlessness and scorn. Nick Clegg and his entourage spent over an hour touring it before he wrote “Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Maggie was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a Clegger” in the visitors book. Continue reading →

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by | April 12, 2013 · 8:00 am

Man claims intolerance to celebrity culture is genuine illness

tinman

Crank or wise man?

Colonel Thomas Hallet, formerly of the Dunstable Light Infantry has served his country with distinction both in the UK and across the world seeing service in Stockholm, Geneva, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Now he faces another battle and that is to convince the medical establishment that an intolerance to celebrity culture is a genuine illness.

‘It started with Britney Spears,’ he told the Evening Harold. ‘Some years ago she broke up with her husband who was once her backing dancer and is known as K-Fed. And I know that. That is knowledge in my head that I’ll carry until my dying day. It is knowledge that I categorically did not seek out and it’s making me ill.’ Continue reading →

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by | April 11, 2013 · 8:00 am

Haroldbook’s decision to charge for messages causes upset

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Some villagers in Harold have been left distraught by Haroldbook’s decision to start charging users for sending messages to village celebrities outside of their circle of friends. Haroldbook has become a tremendous success since its launch last year by management prodigy Simon Kettle (14) with nearly everyone signing up to the website which allows them to post status updates, list their friends, anonymously harass their enemies and create a fabulous online persona entirely at odds with their real lives.

Haroldbook has been the alleged cause of rows, family break-ups and, last July, a riot when Eddie, landlord of The Squirrel Lickers’ Arms, posted that there would be no more lock ins or take homes. Peace was only restored when it was discovered that Eddie had meant to type that there would be no more Look Ins or Take Hearts as he was throwing out part of his extensive eighties children’s TV collection to make room for a job lot of Thundercats he’d got off eBay.
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