‘Our eldest two, Calvin and Cline, are both ugly by any definition’ said Rob yesterday. ‘After they were born we dug out the old family photo albums. One look was enough to convince us the ugliness was hereditary, so we were very hesitant about going for another child until we’d sorted out Jennie’s looks.’

The young family went without treats, foreign holidays and Christmas presents for five years in order to save up for wide ranging cosmetic work. ‘We just gritted our teeth and went for the full monty’ explained Jennie. ‘A complete facial with neck, nose job and both ears pinned back. Then, to future-proof our investment, I also got a gastric band and breast enhancements. The boobs were on ‘buy one get one free’ offer so we’d have been foolish not to.’

Having also invested in comprehensive dental work, a new more stylish wardrobe and regular ‘quality’ hairdressing, the Chapmans were optimistic about the prospects for a better looking baby. ‘We’d always wanted a large family,’ explained Rob ‘and were delighted when the obstetrician told us it was twins again.’

‘Jennie was looking quite good, even though I say so myself, so we just couldn’t understand it when we finally got to see the new babies. Courtney came out first and to be honest was pretty much as bad as her older sisters. Still, we’d got used to that so she was just about ‘liveable with’, if you get my meaning. When little Cox appeared though, even the experienced midwife retched.’

Their unhappy experience hasn’t made the Chapmans give up entirely on further children though. ‘I reckon I might have had some of those dodgy PIP breast implants – that might have had something to do with it. Or maybe they took after Rob, and we’ll just have to save up for some serious cosmetic work on him’ said Jennie. ‘And if that doesn’t work I could stop shagging the milkman I suppose.’

dvo4fun

The practitioner, who goes by the name Chi Wind-Chime, explained that the ‘remedy’ used has been through the emotional turmoil of death, which is then remembered, and injected into the patient. ‘We take our special ‘faucet hydrogen dioxide’ formula to a funeral, where it is surrounded by mourning people. This emotional experience of someone passing is remembered by the special solution. We take this back to my ‘living room laboratory’ where it is diluted with more of the original solution to create a remedy that is so weak its strength is lethal.’

‘When the time comes, a family member can inject the patient, then wait for the treatment to work,’ Ms Wind-Chime continued. ‘The ‘passing room’ is painted lilac and we play whale song to create an atmosphere that is relaxed and peaceful, which is just as well because the effects of treatments on the terminally ill can take up to two years.’

Brenda Roberts took her mother to the homeopath to assist her in ending her life, but was not happy with the results. ‘She had got to a point where her quality of life was not what we wanted, so we convinced her that life was not worth living. So for her 50th birthday we all chipped in and paid for her trip to Ms Wind-Chime and she went through the treatment. That was 4 years ago and we are still waiting for her to keel over.’

Scientists have studied the claims made by the homeopathic community that this treatment works. But as Professor Brown, from the Department of Real Life, Oxford University said, ‘more people died on the toilet last year than died from this treatment’. He went on to explain: ‘Although those who practise alternative medicine will stand by their claims, we found through extensive research, testing, and common sense, that death rates amongst the terminally ill are already quite high’.

But Ms Wind-Chime brushed the criticism off her velvet coat and explained: ‘Those in the business of scientific fact don’t understand the remedy or how it works. In fact, as proof of its effectiveness, last week a man came in having a heart attack. The remedy was so good that he died before we could administer it.’

Carol Poindexter from Cardiff was one of many who claimed the company should have been more forthcoming about the exclusions and conditions of use on the coupons. ‘It sounded like a great deal, but it’s only when you apply that you find out the offer is only valid on Mondays, which is really not very convenient for myself or my husband because he plays darts on a Monday afternoon. He said he wouldn’t mind if I wanted to go ahead and do it on my own, but it’s not really the same.’

Others were equally dissatisfied when they studied the small print and discovered that the offer was only valid with a pre-existing medical condition, and that instead of lethal injections the discounted Dignitas service relied on trained staff turning off the lights, creeping up beside you in the dark and shouting ‘Boo!’.

‘I managed to survive the whole experience – it was very disappointing,’ said Bertie Jones, 81, from Daventry. ‘Though to be fair, when they saw I hadn’t died they did offer to finish me off with a big stick, but by that point I had an awful headache and decided it wasn’t the best time to go.’

Sue Quezacotl from Poole in Dorset also had a bad experience. ‘She’d been suicidal for many years after a leg waxing accident in 1997,’ said her friend, ‘but after buying the coupon she was so delighted about the considerable saving she’d made that she decided life wasn’t so bad after all, put the coupon aside and rebuilt her life.’

‘However, within a few days she began to be more and more upset about the money wasted on the Groupon voucher, and tried to call them to arrange a refund. Her body was found the next day. Police say she almost certainly strangled herself with her telephone cable while waiting on hold.’

But not everyone was complaining. Arnold Muffet from Lancaster was very excited about his Dignitas booking. ‘To be honest, I wasn’t really thinking about suicide at all, but at these prices – well, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.’

Originally designed to prolong the careers of celebrities as their original talent started to droop, or to add the illusion of depth where the talent was too thin to start with, the implants were initially hailed as a triumph with the likes of Boyzone and the Spice Girls in the 1990s.

They contain no harmful substances as such. In fact they work best when empty, although early examples contained a low-grade vacuum and were prone to implosion. For singers such as Robbie Williams, each collapse meant that in order to provide a sufficient ego boost, the next implant had to be even bigger than the one before.

Later models containing rarefied air were more stable and cheaper to manufacture. The implants were also reshaped so they could be inserted nasally without any specialist training, and soon the practice was no longer restricted to TV producers and talent show mentors seeking to provide a quick-fix boost to the fragile egos in their care.

Teachers and parents everywhere began giving implants to millions of children to provide instant self-esteem. ‘It was so much easier than the traditional methods of working to develop something of real substance, or accepting what nature had given you,’ rued one utterly despondent teacher, who is considering the procedure for himself.

But with the recent irrationally optimistic behaviour of Eurozone leaders – all thought to be carrying the implants – highlighting the inherent flaws in the procedure, a major review has been undertaken and the conclusions are worrying. ‘It appears that the hot air inside the implants causes them to expand as time goes on, gradually pushing out genuine brain tissue, leading to a frenzy of public apathy,’ said a scientist. ‘Unless urgent action is taken, we’ll have created a whole generation of complete airheads.’

‘It will be a difficult task for anyone to understand the nature of the problem and have the balls, and yes, a big enough ego to act decisively,’ he added. ‘We recommend an upgrade to Ego Implant version 2.343, manufactured by PIP.’

Previous awareness campaigns in the 1980s featured an actor alternating between the kiss of life and the Heimlich Manoeuvre with a male dummy inside a cupboard, accompanied by instructions read out in time to a disco soundtrack. The British Heart Foundation admits now, in hindsight, that the infomercial might have built up something of a negative stereotype which they’re keen to do away with.

One man who didn’t want to be named, described what happened after he saved the life of his former best friend who’d had a heart attack at a Sunday kick-about. ‘I was ostracised from the team, there would be hushed whispers and eventually I had to accept that the simple act of performing the kiss of life on a left winger made them all think I was a bit of a bumdar.’

To this the BHF said; ‘With our new campaign, we hope to make CPR look more like an act of Alpha Male dominance, even a bit like a fight. We suggest that it would even be fine to intersperse punches to the chest with the odd one to the face to make it look like a really savage beating.’

The new awareness films will star Jeremy Clarkson and Steve McFadden cruising the streets of Hull in a Monster Truck whilst drinking beer and stopping to give first aid to former Olympic shot-putter Geoff Capes in the middle of a construction site, before sending him on his way with a friendly punch on the shoulder and the new campaign slogan ‘now don’t let me catch you dying again, you big pussy.’

Newsquelch

‘For years now, people have endured the misery of the common cold, struggling to empty their sinuses with the conventional ‘lungs and tissue’ approach,’ declared James Dyson, the Noseblade’s inventor. ‘Unfortunately, the human nose has a major design flaw: the fuller it gets, the harder it is to blow.’

Dyson’s crack team of swirly wind engineers knew they had to step in, and take their air-powered inventiveness for another spin. ‘We’ve had a lot of success in the convoluted solutions market, particularly when we’ve tackled really boring challenges, such as drying your hands, or sucking bits of dead skin out of a carpet,’ said Dyson. ‘Our research told us that no-one was even thinking about an alternative to the handkerchief, so we knew that if we got it right, people would pay through the nose.’

The Noseblade looks fairly compact at first, at least until it’s offered up to a regular-sized face. The circular body features two nostril probes on the reverse, and a clear vortex generator on the front, to allow family and friends to marvel at the volume of phlegm swirling inside. Dyson claims the device has enough suction to ‘turn a dog inside out, should the need arise’.

‘We’ve made it from our trademark glittery purple plastic,’ explained Dyson, ‘it goes well with green. The base model is held in place with a bit of string and two paperclips, but you can upgrade to nostril barbs on our top models. There’s an optional drainage tube too, which loops conveniently over your shoulder, and effortlessly hoses excess mucus all down your back.’ Dyson is so proud of his ‘ragless technology’, he’s vocally promoting its advantages in a string of criminal negligence cases.

‘And we’re in the early stages of developing a high-powered, cyclone-based alternative to toilet paper, we’ve codenamed it ‘Shitstorm’ for now. We’re always looking for new designs that complement our family of overblown products, but with these latest lines, it’s not just the prices that make your eyes water.’

Tabloid columnists were up in arms today after battalions of overzealous health and safety officials – dubbed ‘Health and Safety Nazis’ - were seen marching across the Polish border wearing hard hats and high-visibility jackets, and armed to the teeth with clipboards and pens.

‘Just don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ said Richard Littlejohn today. ‘Those Health and Safety Nazis had been getting too big for their steel toe-capped, ankle-supporting boots for too long now. In fact I’m surprised an invasion took them so long, but then I suppose they had all those risk assessments to complete. Who do they think are going round imposing their twisted world view on people? If I didn’t detest the very concept, I’d say this was a flagrant abuse of human rights.’

According to the Daily Mail, Poles had watched anxiously for days as ranks of Health and Safety Nazis had massed along the border. Vehicles reversed into position beeping to warn bystanders of the approaching hazard, while troops manoeuvred heavy equipment by keeping their backs straight, bending their knees and letting their thighs take the strain. At intervals lookouts were stationed on ladders, a fellow officer standing on the lowest rung to provide a safe and secure base at all times.

‘God knows what those killjoys will do,’ continued Littlejohn. ‘They won’t be happy until there are cones around every trip hazard and ‘Slippery when wet’ signs beside all the lakes. I wouldn’t rule out an aerial bombardment of the country with educational leaflets, but not before advance forces have laid out ‘Caution – Men working ahead’ signs. This can’t be allowed to go on – we must find a final solution.’

However, by late afternoon jubilant Daily Mail reporters on the scene were claiming the invasion had failed. ‘Countless captured Poles sustained paper cuts from being forced to read the Nazis’ ‘Staying Safe in the Concentration Camps’ propaganda – it was a bloodbath. Soon after the Führer of the invading force, Adolf Jobsworth, retreated to his bunker, put on protective ear muffs and shot himself in the head with a cap gun. It was a victory for common sense.’

‘Clinical trials have shown that continual ingestion of health scare stories can lead to ill health,’ Dr Maggie Penfold told the Daily Mail yesterday. ‘We are recommending that the government sets guidelines for the safe level of health warnings that a person can safely consume as part of a balanced media diet.’

In tests, previously fit and healthy people were exposed to a series of medical stories ranging from the routine ‘Red wine is good/bad for you’ to the extreme ‘Going to the toilet in Yorkshire causes cancer’. After a twenty day period scientists found that the cumulative effect of exposure to health hysteria caused extreme stress and in some cases physical pain, although they have not ruled out the rather hard chairs in the medical centre as being a contributing factor.

The test results cause a fresh dilemma for Heath Secretary Andrew Lansley who will be forced to decide if he should suppress news of any future ‘flu epidemic in the interests of the nation’s health.

Government officials at Whitehall are known to have already commissioned a study to look in to the possibility of a vaccine against the ravages of excessive health alerts, but, whilst trying to appear upbeat, scientists have gently warned that an effective vaccine may be some way off.

‘The problem with developing a vaccine,’ commented top researcher, Dr Chris Barkway, ‘is that we are unable to test its effectiveness on animals as they cannot understand the health warning. OK, there are more intelligent creatures than laboratory rats to experiment on, dogs for instance, but generally they are better comprehending single words like ‘walkies’ or ‘bath’ rather than phrases such as ‘impending World Health Organisation level six bird flu pandemic.’

Meantime, Mr Lansley has been advised not to read the contents of his ministerial red box more than once a week ‘in the interests of health & safety’.