‘When I moved from Skull Island to New York I was told of a land where all were equal and there were great opportunities regardless of colour, creed or enormous size,’ explained Mr. Kong. ‘The truth I’ve found is very different. People say ‘it’s a jungle out there’, but let me assure you it’s not. It’s just a load of high-tensile steel, low-friction glass and ridiculous corporate slogans lit up with lamps. How do they expect us to climb that? It’s ape-ist.’

Kong is now threatening legal action against the city of New York, citing severely restricted opportunities for members of the Megaprimatus Kong subspecies. ‘There’s plenty of parking for the disabled, but are there adequate foot and hand holds on the outside of the fascias?’ asked Mr Kong, beating his chest. ‘I expect the architect thought those bi-planes would smash themselves.’

Mr Kong is particularly critical of access arrangements, especially in some of the newer buildings. ‘There I was, my massive left eye staring into the apartment of a screaming woman, and could I get her window open? Could I balls! I picked at it for ages but it was really difficult, and in the end the woman gave up shrieking and went for a bath. That’s the last thing your self esteem needs when you’re trying to terrorise a city.’

In an open letter to New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, Kong has called for an immediate review of government policy on building regulations, demanding wheelchair ramps be accompanied by special giant ape access areas. He is also highly critical of current rooftop safety levels.

‘Many of the skyscrapers in New York are a real hazard for your average giant gorilla. The lack of adequate safety railings makes falling to your death in a hail of gunfire a real possibility. When I think about how I’ve been treated, it breaks my heart,’ admitted Mr Kong. ‘Or it could just be indigestion from eating that hot dog vendor too quickly.’

Clarkson and his co-presenters have been criticised for ‘blacking up’ once again, although some say the practice was acceptable when the show first aired in the ’50s.

“People are deliberately misunderstanding why we do this”, claimed Clarkson. “We’re not wearing make-up to mimic black people. We’re doing it so you can’t tell which one of us is being racist.”

Clarkson started the first episode by showing off his new Mercedes 900SL, before the small one with a bone through his nose pointed out that the dashboard was made in Romania.

“He wrenched it out with his bare hands and started kicking it”, explained the nerdy one with a fake afro. “I thought it was a bit of an over-reaction, but Hammond kept goading him on. Then they wrestled, while arguing about who had the best ancestors.”

Fans of programmes that have cars in were treated to a ‘race special’ in the first episode, the three attempting to track their way from Tenby to London bare-footed, while chased by a tiger.

“In hindsight, I may have offended a few people”, admitted the big lumpy one with no manners. “I shouldn’t have suggested they eat dogs in Swansea, and I’m sorry I told Hammond to carry my luggage. Without my glasses, he looked just like the real one we had at boarding school.”

Part-way through the episode, the three presenters were set the task of dressing up as other stereotypes, to offend as wide an audience as possible. Mexico, India and Birmingham have all made official complaints.

Producers of the show are adamant they can do what they like, but think next week’s show might have to be postponed anyway. “We received more complaints than normal, so we know the formula is working. But we’re not sure the lads will be back in time for filming.”

“It was a mistake to sneak them into the Olympic stadium, to see which race was the fastest. They’re still being detained by anti-terror police.”

Robbie Savage had been hiding a terrible secret. He was a thespian.

In his cliches’n'all autiobiography, Savage!, the Wales star bravely comes out as a ‘situation embellisher’ and faces the rumours that have been circulating around the game ever since he first clapped eyes on Tottenham’s Justin Edinburgh.

When his big moment on the biggest stage in football came, Savage gave the performance of his life. His theatrical tour de force blew the packed house at Wembley Stadium off their feet. Referee Mike Riley was so impressed by Savage’s dramatic ouevre that he awarded the highest possible accolade in the modern game, the coveted Red Card for the Opponent.

Now retired, Savage wants to stand up for all the thespians in the modern game, many of whom suffer terribly at the hands of small-minded football fans.

“They boo a thespian in the other team, but they’ll happily cheer their own man’s furtive shenanigans,” said Savage. “I’ve decided it’s time to defend my own, and others’ craft.”

Many more enlightened modern pundits are prepared to recognise the positive contribution that thespians make in the modern game. Post match analyses on Match of the Day between Gary Lineker, Mark Lawrenson and Alan hansen will frequently end with the words, “He’s entitled to go down there” or “that’s definitely up for an Oscar.”

Many thespians go to great lengths for their work. Savage spent time among the playing staff at Crewe, Leicester and Blackburn, learning how real footballers work rest and play. His Stanislavsky Method paid off and many people were astonished to see him perform in the Championship for Derby against QPR and not look out of place. Deeply superstitious, like many actors, Savage said he carried a Taarabt in his packet the whole night.

In retirement Savage says he misses the changing room atmosphere most. “I miss it all, the fans, the lights, the nerves, the smell of the greasepaint…..”

‘I first saw Barry rooting about in a scrap yard’, explained adopter Jeremy Hawkes. ‘He was sawing holes in the skips and trying to sell the off-cuts back to the owner. He looked so helpless, desperately holding the scrap merchant in the air by the throat, pleading for just a couple of extra thousand quid, bless his little pixelated face.’

Hawkes scolded the scrap merchant for teasing the gypsy, and befriended Barry by offering to buy some pegs from him. ‘£50 for three pegs was a little unrealistic, but when I looked into his wild, bloodshot eyes I could see the big lug had some fight left in him. I wanted to give him a second chance, so I popped him in my Volvo and took him home with me.’

Hawkes’ wife wasn’t sure about Barry, and they left him in the garden while they discussed the pros and cons of gypsy ownership. ‘Julie raised a number of objections, which I dismissed as racist. But in the end her heart melted when she heard the patter of enormous feet, as Barry wrestled our new aerial off the roof.’

Hawkes isn’t surprised that the documentary about Barry is so popular. ‘He’s quite a character, he really does get up to some antics’, declared the proud owner, who’s watch is missing. ‘The number of times I’ve found him trapped in the airing cupboard! I had to use a broom to lever him out again this morning, but he dove straight back in. He said he ‘just wanted another quick look’ at the water tank and piping. He’s such a scamp, copper is like catnip to Barry.’

But Hawkes thinks owners need to think carefully before homing a traveller, as they prefer not to be on their own. ‘Barry wasn’t himself for the first week or so, then we realised he was pining for something. I offered to fight him but he lost interest almost as soon as I blacked out. But he’s much happier now we’ve got him some playmates. Just as well the agency was desperate to rehome some Scouse Wives.’

Police backup was called for, as distressed fans demanded their voluntary donations back from the musical-wing of the Vaishnav Hindu sect.

‘They are usually a storming live act’ explained longstanding Krishna’s fan Dave Devlin ‘but when you travel 80 miles to see them, you expect them to perform their big hit – it’s just not a Hare Krishna’s show without it.’

‘We thought it was time to ring the changes to the setlist.’ explained lead damaru player Krishna Rishi Dass (formerly Colin Baxter from Aberdeen). ‘I still love playing it, but there’s so much more to us than just that one chant. If fans listened to our new album they’d be really surprised; we’ve tried some new things this time and I think it’s really paid off.’

Word that the Krishna’s were reinventing themselves leaked out last summer; news spread that they were in Berlin’s Hansa Studios with producers Brian Eno and William Orbit. The full extent of their transformation became apparent at yesterday’s show though; the band appearing one by one from Carphone Warehouse, sporting mullets and playing portable synthesisers and alto saxophones.

The Krishnas were formed in 1966 in New York by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, formerly of cult psychedelic garage band ‘Liquorice Stripes.’ They have undergone several line-up changes since. However, apart from an ill-advised prog phase in 1974, the group has adhered to a tried-and-tested formula, adored by their legions of fans around the world – at least until now.

‘We actually had a reworked version of our hit ready for the final encore’ mused Baxter after the show, ‘but once you’ve been pelted into Superdrug with copies of your own cookbook … well, it’s ‘game over’ isn’t it?’

‘It’s such a shame really: our fans are clearly not digging this latest incarnation of the group. Which, considering that we’ve always been really hot on the impermanence of all things and the inevitability of an endless cycle of reincarnations, is pretty bloody ironic, don’t you think?’

‘It’s great to have her back with us,’ said Mrs Peacock’s husband Martin, a tax inspector. ‘We’d been holding out hope for years that she would come back to us. But I have to admit, it might take a while for me to get used to sleeping every night next to the star of such hit films as Predator 2 and the 2012.’

The Peacocks’ seven-year-old daughter Katie said: ‘Why is mummy a black man?’ Mrs Peacock said she is hoping to take a break of several months before returning to work. Stroking her new moustache and speaking in Mr Glover’s deep Californian voice, she commented ‘No-one is more surprised than me, believe me! I’d heard of people waking from comas with different accents, or speaking new languages, but this is something else.

‘I’d always wondered what it would be like to be a man, and now I know. It’s just I’d never have imagined it would be Danny Glover, the renowned film actor and immigrants’ rights activist.’

Mrs Peacock added that she felt less interested in continuing her previous spousal duties, and more in fighting crime and jumping of the roofs of buildings. ‘That is, until I feel too old for this shit,’ she said. Mr Peacock said: ‘I’ll be completely honest, I’m already getting tired of her always talking about her friend Mel Gibson – it’s ‘Mel this, Mel that’ at the moment, and it’s putting a bit of a strain on our marriage.

‘I’ve tried telling her she is the victim of a rare medical occurrence in which she has morphed into a popular American actor, but she doesn’t really listen, and instead points a fake gun at my head.’

Dr Henrik Wirths, professor of celebrity transmogrification at the Freie Universität of Berlin, said: ‘Incidences of comatose patients transforming into movie stars are incredibly unusual, this being the first recorded case, and I feel the last 30 years of my research and teaching have finally been vindicated.

‘What I find most interesting in this case is that a young white British woman has shape-shifted into the middle-aged black American star of so-so western Silverado, a film which would have been shot before she was even born. I would urge governments to increase funding post-haste into further research of celebrity transmogrification.

‘There is much work to be done, much of it involving adding confusing entries to IMDB.’

hughesroland

with help from Thisisalloneword

”Happy Feet 3:The Heroin Years’ promises a perfect marriage of mainstream popular appeal and Loach’s unique style of depressing social realism,’ said film critic Mark Kermode. ‘The opening scene features a down-on-his-luck Mumble injecting heroin into a flipper after a heated argument with his tap-dancing coach and love interest, played by bisexual actor Colin Firth. The kids are just going to lap up the combination of singing, dancing and intravenous injection of hard drugs.’

The film follows Mumble as his habit escalates, the quality of his tap-dancing suffers and he is dropped by Firth and shunned by the penguin community of inner-city Glasgow. His problems only worsen when his run-down tenement is invaded by his sexually mature sister, Lucy, who is desperately trying to hatch an egg she conceived to vicious Rockhopper penguin ‘Darren’. But the pair’s fortunes turn when Mumble discovers an unexpected talent for cutting smack with a mixture of Vim and demerara sugar, which vastly increases its street value.

‘The film contains a strong social conscience,’ continued Kermode. ‘When Mumble’s drug empire takes off we see him sending parcels full of Waitrose fishfingers back to his hungry pals in Antarctica – an unambiguous socialist message about not forgetting your antarctic roots, and our collective responsibility to ensure that even the disadvantaged get their weekly quota of omega-3 fatty acids.’

The film is not without a Loachian twist as we learn that Mumble’s dancing career is over after he injects dirty scag into his femoral artery, resulting in the forced amputation of his lower right flipper. ‘Mumble delivers a typically nuanced performance despite temperatures hovering around minus 30 degrees Celsius,’ added Kermode. ‘It’s looking good for a BAFTA.’

In anticipation of the success of ‘Happy Feet 3′, other forthcoming British films include Mike Leigh directing ‘Gnomeo and Juliet 2′, a kitchen-sink drama depicting the painful unravelling of a marriage, and ‘Kung Fu Panda 3′, in which the hero becomes imprisoned in a Scottish zoo and drinks himself to death.

‘The advert said ‘If you have a problem, if no one else can help, if you need some shelves putting up, a little bit of painting doing or your windows cleaning, maybe you can hire… the A-Team’,’ said Jack Robinson. ‘I called to enquire about having my kitchen ceiling painted and a couple of doors hung, but later agreed to have my car armour-plated too. They gave me a great knock-down price when they discovered I had all the materials they’d need in my garage – two paint tins and a ball of string.’

2011 was a tough year for small businesses everywhere, and the soldier-of-fortune business was hit especially hard, with the number of women whose husbands were kidnapped in a land dispute with Mexican drug barons falling for the twelfth consecutive year, forcing the A-Team to look for alternative employment.

‘I thought the ad was just a joke at first,’ continued Jack. ‘In fact I still had my doubts when I saw B.A. trying to shave a bit off the top of the door with a chisel, but I asked him if it was the right tool for the job and he told me, ‘I ain’t getting no plane, fool!’.

Since Jack’s experience others have also come forward to confirm that the four former members of a crack commando unit, once imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit and still wanted by the US government, had indeed swapped the Los Angeles underground for the small ads section of a local newspaper in Reading.

‘Mind you, they’re a very different sight to their heyday,’ explained another satisfied customer. ‘B.A’s trademark bling is gone after he sold it to cash4gold, Hannibal’s expensive Cuban cigars have been replaced with roll-ups, and the four of them turned up crammed into a VW Caddy instead of their famous van. They’d painted a red stripe down the side, but it just wasn’t the same. Still, they did a great job building me a shed, even though it was actually supposed to be a bookcase. Hannibal just stood there supervising saying, ‘I love it when the planks come together.’

Surprisingly this is not the first time that Berkshire residents have unexpectedly come across an 80s TV character who has fallen on hard times. ‘I took my car in for a service a few years back and the bloke that did it was that Michael Knight,’ said Jack. ‘Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to have a car that could drive itself back from the pub, but it kept criticising my fashion sense and telling me I should get a light perm and a medallion.’

Vertically Challenged Giant (with hat-tips to waylandsmithy and JonnyJP)