Sir Fred Goodwin furious his £16m piss-take has been made public

Friends and former colleagues of pin-stripe pirate Sir Fred "Frankly" Goodwin said today that the incompetent banker was furious that details of his £16m pension fund had been leaked into the public domain.

"Fred is livid, absolutely livid, that his enormous piss-take has been revealed to the public," said a friend. "He had hoped that it would be announced sometime around the new financial year. It is terrible to deprive a pensioner of the fun of this year’s April Fool’s day and taking the piss out of the British public."

Sir Fred complained that the details of his £650,000 a year pension, for life, from the bank in the worst shape of all due to the policies he was responsible for do not take into account how the pension fund has built up over the years.

"My pension has not really changed since the original piss-take I started in 1998 when I joined the group. That is a decade of taking the piss at RBS," said cash enthusiast Sir Fred. "Nor does it take into account my previous piss-taking employment before I pretended to know anything about banking.

"Who is really taking the piss? Me, or the people who failed to notice the impact that my taking early retirement would have on pre-existing pension arrangements, that already took the piss? Oh, me. Well they should have guessed when I nearly pissed myself laughing," joked the ruinous bank CEO with no banking experience or qualifications. "Ha, nearly pissed myself again! Well I am a pensioner now!"

Sir Fred was adamant that he should not forgo any of his pension after having already given up several piss-taking opportunities when conceding significant gestures towards the British taxpayer as they bailed him out with tens of billions of pounds to save RBS from his incompetence.

"All those piss-taking gestures I made seem to be overlooked," said Sir Fred as he gave a taxpayer shop assistant the finger. "For some reason they didn’t give me my 12 month notice period. Running RBS with the taxpayer as an underwriter would have been the biggest piss-take of all."

Sir Fred said that he would not let the utter humiliation of having masterminded the biggest collapse of a bank, the recording of the largest loss in British corporate history and having achieved a nationalisation programme that even Lenin would have been impressed with affect his attitude to business.

"You could call this rewarding failure. Staggeringly incompetent failure," laughed Sir Fred making obscenely large gestures to taxpayers out of his limousine window. "But I vow to keep living, to draw from my £16m piss-taking pension pot until no taxpayer has a pot to piss in."

Government to raise new bail-out funding from Somali Pirates

The government tonight announced a new plan to raise extra bail-out money without further burdening hard pressed taxpayers. The news came in response to requests from the financial services and car manufacturing industries for additional finance to shield them from the free-market capitalism that they no longer wish to take part in, once it transpired that they were rubbish at it.

"We have sunk billions of taxpayer’s gold into the banks, and now need help to break their blockade on lending, Hence we need an infusion of cash from people who have no trouble raising money, Somali Pirates," said the Chancellor of the Exchequer in a statement to the Commons. "This arrangement will reduce the burden on the taxpayer and improve the integrity and ethics of the financial system."

Mr Darling was quizzed by MPs whether it was prudent to do business with an untrustworthy group, driven by their own greed who had a disregard for the rule of law, and responded that he had realised it wasn’t and it was time to stop doing business with bankers.

"We have spent many years sailing in shark infested waters," said Alistair Darling MP. "Therefore it is time to leave the City and head for the safer seas of the Gulf of Aden. Unlike a banker, a Somali pirate may not wear a pin-stripe suit, but at least he has a good grasp of not only an AK-47 but how is own business model actually works."

A pirate leader, Shamun Billingsworthbur, said at a press conference that he was pleased to be doing business with the treasury and joked that his ancestors had a long relationship with Her Majesty’s Government.

"Many, many years ago, my forefather’s business was almost in ruin, due to the hard work and diligence of the Royal Navy on the Pirate Round," he said through his shoulder-based interpreter, Polly. "Generations later, how fitting it is that you should seek out the help of the cut-throats of the seas to rescue your economies now that the Pin-Striped Pirates have all your booty. However, I may be a murderous, condemned scourge, who has murdered the family members I have not sold, but I will not work with Andy Hornby. Even I have standards."

Bank maps out new bonus structure for bank project to review bank bonus structure

Bosses at Lloyds TSB responded to criticism of their intention to pay staff bonuses, following the announcement that the group has lost nearly £11bn, by announcing a comprehensive review focussing on staff remuneration.

"We have instigated a high priority project, Project Trough, which will outline a new pay scheme for our bank-staff, rewarding only those that have really screwed the maximum out of each customer," said Sir Leonard Billingsworth, CFO of Lloyds Banking Group. "I mean really screwed them. It is important we hold onto those people. When the project completes there will be big bonuses for all involved. Really huge ones if it should complete even remotely on-time!"

The wide ranging project will be structured to ensure that shareholders in the bank can clearly see exactly how salaries and bonuses are distributed.
"Right at the heart of Project Trough will be several 'Pay Investigation Groups' composed of staff from all levels," explained Billingsworth. "Our customers, who are also taxpayers that have been compelled to become shareholders in our incompetence, will see from the P.I.Gs sticking their noses right into the heart of the Trough exactly what they have got for their money."

Whilst the new project has met with appreciation from politicians of all persuasions who see it as focussing the spotlight of public scrutiny onto the pay of the banking community they are not sure it will work for everyone working in the public sector.

"Certainly bankers have squandered huge amounts of taxpayer's money and have a bonus system to fall back on," said a Labour peer. "There are hundreds of people that have wasted even more enormous sums who are not as fortunate. We in the Lords have to make do with creative use of the expenses scheme and the bulging envelopes we receive from lobbyists for helping to shape the nation's laws. So we welcome the bankers being the subject of this distraction of public scrutiny."

Arsene Wenger to watch live Arsenal matches on TV: “fed up not seeing incidents on pitch”

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is to stop attending football matches after yet again being unable to view the action on the pitch. Previously Mr Wenger had complained about the visibility at Arsenal's Emirates stadium but has now vowed to watch all matches, home and away, from the comfort of his own sofa.

"I have been unable to see any of the action for years," said Wenger after Arsenal's goalless draw with London rivals Tottenham Hotspur. "The only action in the Spurs game was Emmanuel Eboue's sending off, and I couldn't see it because someone stood up in front of me."

The diminutive Mr Wenger, 6ft 4in, said he has long struggled to see games, often missing the key moments involving his player's lack of discipline and has repeatedly asked for a booster cushion, or perhaps a step-ladder, to be installed in the Arsenal dugout.

Arsenal said that they believed the long-standing issues of Mr Wenger being able to see anything that happens on the pitch had been solved by the design of the home dugout at their new Emirates stadium where, unlike Highbury, the manager’s seat faces the pitch. Although they conceded there was still the issue of the pillar that drops directly into Wenger’s eye line at the moment an Arsenal player pulls out a knife.

"Every game is the same, it is getting embarrassing having to admit in interviews that I didn't see an incident involving one of my players trying to take an opponent's head off," said Mr Wenger. "However just at the crucial moment someone always stands in front of me, or the bloke with the big hat returns to his seat."

Mr Wenger said that it had happened so many times that people simply do not believe him any more when he says he didn’t see an incident and that the away match at Spurs was the last game he would be attending live.

"People were barely hiding their laughter when I said that I hadn't seen the Eboue incident but it is true," said the Frenchman. "I couldn't believe it when the blimp landed on the touchline and the bloke with the big-afro hairdo got out and sat down in front of me. Again."

Teenagers complain of anti-social pensioners reading aloud

Teenagers up and down the country are bemoaning a new fad of reading out loud that seems to be sweeping through the senior citizen population. With half-term approaching it is feared that this behaviour could drive more and more teenagers from the buses and force them to walk all the way to the nearest Gregg’s pasty shop.

"It’s, like, so, like, rude. Innit?" said Chardonnay, 14 from Plumstead in South London. "We is like on the 96, right? Few of us girls. Innit? And we are trying to listen to Shabney’s music. She got the volume right up on her phone but we don’t hear, like, nothin’ ‘cos of, like, some old dear at the, back, reading aloud some rubbish about a bitches’ Detective Agency in Africa."

The phenomena is seen to be the latest step in anti-social behaviour on public transport and something else that delay-weary passengers must contend with.

"It really is quite terrible now," said one middle-aged commuter who didn’t want to be named

"When I have sloped off work early I often have to share my train with old and young people alike. A couple of years ago we would be whizzing through the country listening to the tinny screeching of Chris Brown, or Rhianna, from a mobile phone. Now it’s all people reading sections from ‘Captain Correlli’s Mandolin’ and bits from discarded copies of the Metro at the tops of their voices."

Many commuters find that middle-aged people have taken to the habit of playing audio books through their speakerphones.

"It’s like sitting in Stephen Fry’s living room sometimes," said a commuter. "I have to bring a dictionary with me now just to know if something is rude."

However some of the teenagers said that the disruption caused by older members of society wasn’t all bad as it gave them a rare insight into literature, something that would otherwise be unattainable to them.

"No one at my home can read nothing. Apart from maybe text messages, right?" said Derrington, 15 from Kidbrooke. "Although if one is totally honest one would prefer less about ‘Come Dancing’ and more contemporary cultural references and insights into the human condition. Like."

British economy saved by teachers' mid-week shopping

Today the CBI commended members of the teaching profession for single-handedly turning around the ailing retail economy leading to one of the best start to February in recent years.

"The keenness with which thousands of Head Teachers up and down the land are able to seek out a snowflake and the speed with which they can close a school has brought a welcome boost to the Shopping Centres of the nation," said Sir Digby Billingsworth of the CBI. "Their dedication to leisure is a great boon to hard pressed retailers whose shops are now full of teachers."

"You can’t move for teachers at the moment," said a Starbucks employee at one of their outlets in the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent. "They are sitting here with travel brochures out planning what to do with their ten weeks holiday."

The National Union of Teacher’s defended its members’ decisions to close schools saying that no one took them lightly, but that it was in the best interests to close the schools immediately after the weekend.

"The schools are closed for safety reasons, why risk children’s health on slippery playgrounds? By keeping them out of school they can throw ice at each other and toboggan down motorway sliproads instead," said a spokesman for the Union. "Of course this causes problems for childcare for which our members get grief, but it is a no-win situation. If we don’t close the schools the head teachers get it in the neck from their spouses unable to get to Ikea whilst it’s quiet."

Many teachers said that the closures had played havoc with their own plans for the week but they were confident that the disruption could be absorbed in the rest of the schedule.

"I am hopeful that my Sky Plus box will record the rest of ‘Loose Women’, because I hadn’t seen it before and it was quite good," said a teacher from Eltham, South London. "And that Jeremy Kyle programme is crazy!"

Staff at Watercliffe Meadow ‘Place for idiots to pretend to be teachers’ said that they were using the inclement weather as a teaching aid.

"Obviously we don’t call it snow, we tell the children it is ‘flakes of the sky’s inhospitableness’," said Linda Billingsworth, head teacher. "In science we are helping the children explore their feelings for winter,"

Geography teachers up and down the country, apart from Watercliffe Meadow where they are known as "Earth Mother Physiography Emotional Guides", now post regular snow reports to Twitter subject #cantBeArsedTodayIsItSnowingAnywhere.

Survey says “It’s, like, well harder being a kid now innit?”

The latest survey into childhood has concluded that it is a lot harder to be a child today than for previous generations, an experience echoed by a great number of children interviewed today, when they should have been at school.

"Like, in the olden days right, it was a lot easier. Space Invaders, yeah, how easy was that? It ain’t ‘Gears of War’, innit?" said Maria Billingsworth, Director of the Children’s society.

The report said that even though today’s children had better education, health and more possessions you really couldn’t tell from the way they behaved.

"Better education. What does that mean? Oh, I knew that. Well school is boring innit?" said, Calum, 12. "All the computers, right, they’re, like, well locked down so you can’t get to YouTube or nothing. No porn gets through either. We can’t learn nothing."

The Children’s Society said that the little darlings, whilst not having to work at an early age like many generations before, nor go hungry, want for clothes, or even a roof over their heads since the German bombing stopped nearly 70 years ago, have it harder now.

"If you is like a 15 year old girl now, you have to stay at home with your parents until you is given a council house at 18, right. Well that’s well bad if you have a baby. Innit," said the Director of the Children’s society.

The Children’s Society claimed that Britain’s children today live in squalor and deprivation that would make Charles Dickens blanch – some of Britain’s middle class children only have one games console and a year old mobile phone – and laid the blame squarely at the feet of working mothers.

"Many parents, right, they are working, yeah? Children need love and affection?" said Billingsworth. "If you is a working mum, who is going to be there to applaud when the kids want to show what they can do with their new knife?"

The outlook for today’s children is so bleak that a group of a dozen child soldiers in war torn Congo launched a deadly raid on a government stronghold with the aim to secure enough funds to ensure that every British child has a DVD player in their bedroom.

Nurse suspended after offering to get patient a witch-doctor

Nurse Caroline Billingsworth was suspended in December after a patient she was visiting objected to the offer of a prayer to aid in her recovery and having a local Shaman visit to boost her juju.

"She was very, very caring," said Belinda Worthing, 70, a patient from North Somerset. "But I really didn't fancy her offer of having a goat slaughtered and its entrails read on my kitchen table."

Nurse Billingsworth says she puts great faith in an otherworldly supreme presence that is doing amazing things in her life and she is keen to offer assistance to help patients with their recovery.

"Of course I normally start with a simple prayer," said Billingsworth. "However once you have opened Pandora's Mumbo-Jumbo box, then why stop at Christianity? Several of my patients welcome the attention of a West African witch-doctor and having their diagnosis confirmed by a throw of his Sheep Knuckles."

According to the complaint filed with the local NHS Trust, Billingsworth then asked if Mrs Worthing had been good during the year, because Father Christmas had been watching and may give her a present of being healthy again. However Billingsworth denied that this took place.

"Mrs Worthing is a lovely old dear, but you know she is 70," said the suspended nurse. "She was confused by which mystical overseer with a large beard who frightens people into good behaviour and deals in favours I was talking about. I was referring to the Maharishi."

North Somerset NHS Trust said that it suspended Nurse Billingsworth pending an investigation, but said that it was in not way trying to restrict the religious practices of any of its staff.

A spokesman for the NHS was sympathetic with the Nurse's predicament: "To be honest, what with MRSA, rat infestations and the like, a patient may as well start praying as coming to one of our hospitals."