Nurses to be patronised to degree level

A radical new shake up of Britain’s nursing system means that any doctor wishing to patronise a nurse with either “Sweetheart”, “Honeycheeks” or “Saucy thighs” will have to add the suffix “BA (Hons)” at the end. The new regulations also mean that nurses can no longer be chased around hospital wards to the sounds of the Benny Hill theme tune.

Chief of nursing Deborah Barnhart praised the new levels of professionalism. “I’m delighted about the advances that are being made. I gather that in the new Carry on film, Carry On Administering Care Whilst Appreciating the Financial Constraints Under Which the NHS is Operating, the Kenneth Williams stand-in will exclaim such things as ‘Oh Matron, I say, that's a bit of a big one. By one I mean the funding for your MPhil.’”

The heightened stringency of the new regulations has filtered down to the wards with patients getting used to the new levels of professionalism. Nurse Beth Cartwright told her story about her experiences. “I had one chap, an elderly gentleman, who I was tending to. I turned around and felt him slap me on the bum. I turned back and he said, ‘Nice thesis darling. I thought your examination of the effect of improved food production in post-industrial Britain on infant mortality rates was smashing.’ I smiled, turned away and then withdrew his sodium drip when he wasn’t looking. He completely missed the point of my paper.”

Police to investigate The Daily Mail for being The Daily Mail

Police are set to investigate Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir after ten of thousands of people complained about her article on Stephen Gately's death being filled with some of the worst kind of Daily Mail imaginable. Constable Alec Peters confirmed that he would be looking into the offending article. "If there's been a complaint made about vitriolic abuse, incitement of hatred and clear instances of Daily Mail, then we have to investigate."

The uproar over Moir's article is a result of her insinuation that Gately's death due to natural causes was linked to him being a homosexual. "Sure, there might be a perfectly reasonable explanation for this tragedy which might be established by some scientific method," wrote Moir, "But that's exactly what gays want you to believe. That way it won't seem strange when they crawl into our ears at night and lay their eggs."

Editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, defended the article. "Yes the article did contain clear elements of prejudice," said Dacre, "there was also quite a bit of ignorance and factual inaccurarcy too. But the again, if you're going to establish editorial guidelines, they need to be maintained."

The publication of the article caused an outbreak of outrage, ironically the same type that is normally fermented by the Daily Mail in response to programmes it hasn't seen. One of the plaintives was Greg Halford who posted: "As a gay man, I have taken some abuse over my sexuality. I've been shouted at, beaten up and called all kinds of horrendous names. But I have never had to put up with this sort of Daily Mail. It beggars belief"

Trafalgar Square plinth breaks barrier of a million shouts of "Prick!"

It happened at 3:29 this morning. Derek Combes, a video clerk from Hounslow who had been on the lash in celebration of his friend's eleventh divorce in six years, was walking through Trafalgar Square. Up on the plinth was Eric Potter, an amateur magician from Rickmansworth as part of the 'Aren't Common People Interesting Too?' installation by Anthony Gormley. Eric's allotted hour had not been going well. The doves he had intended to release had already been eaten by the pigeons and his card trick had been a failure due someone taking fifteen minutes to overcome the twenty foot drop between the plinth and the ground to "take a card, any card."

It was at this point that Combes made his own inadvertent piece of history. Casually walking by he happened to look up and see Potter's attempts to make a hat disappear. The botched job meant that the only missing item was Potter's dignity. Expressing his contempt for the entire operation, Combes emitted the millionth "Prick!" delivered at the performers on the plinth. To mark this piece of history, a firework display was unleashed and a thousand doves took to the sky to spell out PRICK in synchronised formation.

Chief curator of the installation, Michael Billingham, was delighted to have reached the million prick mark. "We've had a phenomenal response from the general public. They've been really imaginative with their choice of insults. We had four thousand 'arseholes' on the first day alone, we're about to cross the one hundred thousand 'twat' line and it's been another bumper day for 'turdlicker'."