UK teacher jailed over teddy row

A Tennessee court today found a UK primary school teacher guilty of insulting the presidency of the United States of America after she allowed her primary school class to name a stuffed toy bear Teddy.

The teacher had allowed her pupils to pick a name for the stuffed toy bear; one of the boys, suggested naming it "Teddy" after himself. This caused national uproar as Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt is the USA's most revered president; his memory is so sacred that his image has been carved into America's holy Mount Rushmore.

The teacher's actions were widely seen as a British imperialist plot against America's republican institutions.

Speaking of the incident, the Foreign Secretary David Milliband said,
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet".

Major Operational Problem

The story so far:

Dour Scot, General Gordon Brownadder, a professional soldier in the British Army, has recently taken over command of the Western Front from General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Blair. Aided by his batman, the babbling Private Ballsrick, and his pencil-pushing staff officer, Captain Darling, his plans to win the Great War have run into some difficulty.

Staff HQ (phone rings)

Brownadder: Hello? Ah, Alistair, darling, what is it?

Darling: I think we’ve got a major operational problem.

Brownadder: Major Operational Problem? Never heard of him! What does he want?

Brownadder: (hand covering phone) Ballsrick, you’d better bring some tea in for this fellow.

Ballsrick: Rightio, sir

Darling: No sir, I mean that I’ve got some bad news for you.

Brownadder: Oh no, what is it now? Haven’t we had our share of crises: carrier-pigeon flu; trench-foot; trench-mouth; Passchendaele; and the endless poetry?

Darling: Unfortunately this is a bit of a cock-up. We’ve misplaced files with the details of 2 million soldiers.

Brownadder: Misplaced?

Darling: Yes, we think that a junior officer loaded up a shoe-box with all the information on those little index cards and sent it off to the National Audit Office by regular army bicycle, but it never got there.

Brownadder: How secure was it?

Darling: Oh, the usual security: it had a ribbon tied around it.

Brownadder: You realise that if those details get into the hands of the enemy they could hopelessly compromise our security!

Darling: Indeed, there’s enough information there for a German soldier to impersonate anyone in the army. They could infiltrate anywhere, from the loftiest generals to the lowliest privates.

Brownadder: Well, I don’t want any Germans infiltrating my privates! Right, we need to find these missing files and get this all cleared up before anyone finds out.

Darling: I’m afraid that it’s already been found out, sir. General Cameron is on his way to see you right now.

Brownadder: (slams the phone down) Ballsrick! Where are you?

Ballsrick: Sorry, sir, I was just getting the tea for Major Problem and Miss Placed.

Brownadder: Never mind about that now! That toffee-nosed, old Etonian General Cameron is on his way here. He’s always wanted my job and this’ll play right into his hands.

(phone rings)

Brownadder: Hello!

Darling: General Cameron is here to see you, sir.

Brownadder: Hmm.. (thinks for a moment)

Darling: General Brownadder? Are you there?

Brownadder: Darling, how do you know that it’s General Cameron?

Darling: (muffled talking) He says that he’s General David William Donald Cameron and he’s come direct from General Headquarters.

Brownadder: Well that’s what he would say isn’t it - if he was a German spy! Have him arrested and sent back to GHQ immediately for questioning about those missing files.

(muffled sounds of shouting)

Brownadder: Right Ballsrick, what we need to do is find those files and show that they never left here in the first place.

Ballsrick: How will we do that, sir?

Brownadder: (reaches under his desk) Oh look, Ballsrick, here’s an old shoe box. All you need to do is requisition 2 million index cards …and start writing.

The End

Opposition Rallies to Government’s Defence

This week in Parliament, a man, claiming to be Alistair Darling, announced that computer discs with the bank details of 7 million families had gone missing. Gordon Brown, a man claiming to be the Prime Minister, said “obviously, the Government is very sorry.”

David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, said that he understood how difficult it is to run something as complicated as the HM Revenue & Customs and that the Government had his fullest sympathy. He added that if there was anything he could do to help locate the 15 million child benefit claims then they just had to ask.

Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat acting-Leader, asked if the Prime Minister had checked down the side of the sofa, as this was quite a common place to loose things - even the details of 25 million people.

The Prime Minister thanked both opposition parties for their goodwill and understanding. He said that the Government would launch a full inquiry into the matter when it had a bit of spare time.

Further support came from the Sun newspaper, which declared that this “could have happened to anyone”. The Daily Mail’s main headline read: “Unfortunate Mishap”; whilst the Times advised its readers to “check their bank accounts, if they happened to be popping into the bank or were on-line, but not to worry as it’s just one of those things.”

Youthanasia

There was controversy this week, when officers from Northamptonshire Police were filmed handing out cigarettes to teenagers. A spokesman for the force explained that, after extensive consultations with the Brazilian Police, they had launched a new initiative called “Youthanasia”, whereby teen hoodlums would be targeted for extra-judicial killing by use of the cancerous sticks of death.

UK teens 'hepped up on goofball'!

In today's news, we heard the results of the UK's Tellus2 on-line survey of 10-15 year old children.

15% of children aged between 12 and 15 said they had experimented with illegal drugs
Nearly half (48%) of 10 to 15-year-olds said they had consumed alcoholic drinks
One in six 14 and 15-year-olds admitted to getting drunk at least three times in the previous four weeks
Some 73% of respondents said they took part in sports or other activities such as cycling and running for at least 30 minutes on more than three days a week

This fascinating survey, conducted using the methodolgy of asking a bunch of kids to make up any answer they please, has caused a storm of debate in the UK.

The Shadow Children's Minister said:

"This one-off survey of dubious accuracy clearly proves that everything has got worse after 10 years of Labour Government. The British people are crying out for the return of the Tory party to power; and the good-old days of the 1980s when we had lager louts and dubious surveys into how many kids had watched video nasties."

At the Inquest into the death of Princess Diana today, there were calls for the inquiry to hear testimony from those children who had indicated in the Tellus2 survey that they had been witnesses to the crash.

UK 'doesn't care' about soldiers

In today's news, Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Strap has condemned the treatment of UK soldiers returning from active duty.

"Troops are returning to Blighty to be met by relative indifference from the general public; they are having small periods of rest and recuperation with their families, as well as short stints of army training and no victory parades or medals," he said.

"This is simply not how the civil-military covenant in Britain works!" he declared, "The UK traditionally doesn't care about soldiers."

"When I joined up [Waterloo, 1815] veterans of the Napoleonic Wars were expected to doss in the Royal parks and beg for alms like any other vagabond. Far from enjoying public indifference, they passed the Vagrancy Act to move them on."

"After the Great War, it was seen as an ex-soldier's duty to King and Country to drag their trench-footed legs along in endless victory parades, before shuffling into line at the back of the dole queue."

"Second World War veterans came back to enjoy rationing along with everyone else - without any namby-pamby bleeding-hearts writing sympathetic stories in the Press."

Soap!

This is the story of two parties. The Labour Party and the Tory Party. This is the Labour leader, Gordon Brown, and this is the Tory leader, David Cameron, and this is Soap:

David and Gordon have been eyeing each other up in the House with barely concealed excitement. David still wants to know if Gordon stole his clothes, but Gordon says he can prove he didn't. David says that a piece of paper with "1st Oct - Stole David's clothes" crossed out and "1st Jan - Think about getting some new clothes" written over it in crayon, wasn't that convincing.

Then a load of bills turn up from some old Queen.

Bemused, you will be after that episode of "Soap"!

Queen's Speech

After much debate in the media and around the country, it was concluded that the Queen's speech was still a bit lah-di-dah although not quite as excruciatingly posh as it was in the 1950s.

It was also generally agreed that it was a good thing that she was really rather rich as she did seem to have rather a lot of bills:

Climate Change Bill
This bill create's a legal framework to allow the Government to take the Climate to court to recover damages caused by floods, droughts and tornadoes. The bill at the moment stands at 257 million pounds.

Counter-Terrorism Bill
This bill will increase the powers of both police and courts to pursue those who make explosive tiddlywinks.

Crossrail Bill
This bill will tackle the growing problem of rail rage by creating a new form of ASBO aimed at irate rail passengers.

Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill
Ratification of the Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property, providing a series of protections for cultural artefacts that aren't actually blown up during wars.