Last year’s series saw astrophysicist Brain Cox and space stooge Dara O’Briain inspire millions to buy specialist equipment to observe the wonders of the heavens, before losing interest and stashing them in lofts. But when series two was broadcast, owners craned once more towards the roof space and dusted off their telescopes, before realising why they’d put them up there in the first place.

“Standing around in the cold and looking up was less exciting than I’d remembered”, admitted Jeremy Winston of Cleethorpes, “particularly with it being all cloudy, and the neighbour’s security lights blazing away.”

The BBC is planning to re-rekindle the nation’s love of cosmology, for an hour and a half in the Spring.

Andrew

The new country is currently sorting out all the apparatus of a nation state and has elected Bob Wiggins as President of the Month. Bob spoke to our reporter about Elgar Country’s new independence.
‘Basically we have lived as a small place in a big country that for too long has taken our apples and crushed them into bland chemical soup like Woodpecker and Diamond White, we will stand for this no more. An Elgar apple deserves no less than to be made into the finest farmhouse scrumpy, a brew that is acid to the tonsils, sandpaper to the mouth and with a delicate rat piss aftertaste on the tongue.’

‘Those people in Whitehall have made our kids go to school, no more will we suffer this injustice. A clip round the head in the morning and tractor driving lessons in the afternoon is all that is required. Our health policy is that every village will have its own vet and that you should not be allowed to marry more than one of your own sisters. Basically we are a simple and happy folk and don’t see why we should be looked down on by people with double digit IQ’s, give the average Elgar man a cricket bat and a dozen angry badgers and he can entertain himself for hours, just like the original Elgar of old.’

Not all is going well in Elgar Country and a civil war has started between two factions over the new country’s national anthem, the Malvern Militia are fighting for Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ while the Rural Roughriders have declared for the Wurzel’s ‘I’ve got a brand new combine harvester’.

Immunis

‘Audiophiles are always banging on about how great tapes were and that,’ announced Jarvis Cocker from his allotment studio. ‘Luckily I’ve still got my old Sanyo tape deck in the loft. We just need to find a cleaning tape now, and a dozen or so of those big fat batteries.’

6music aren’t sure exactly what they’ll be playing as the labels are all curled up. ‘Listeners are in for a treat, we’ve found one that hasn’t stretched that much. Although you’ll have to bear with us in between songs, while we fast-forward Bruno Brookes.’

A BBC source said, ‘It’s as if they’ve caught some kind of illness where nothing whatsoever can be described as ordinary or mundane. They both also insist on bellowing every line to camera, and when you take into account the way they shovel down the grub then it’s hardly any surprise that something was going to give in the end. In fact during the final we feared that Gregg was going to spontaneously combust at one point.’

Flamboyant and feisty top chef, Gordon Ramsey, speaking from one of his many Michelin-starred eateries stunned onlookers with this foulmouthed tirade. ‘For fu*k’s it’s only a fu*king cooking show! Not fu*king life or death like the way those pair of fu*king to*sers kept banging on about it! And what’s more I wouldn’t hire the fu*king bloke who won it to scrub my fu*king pots. Fu*k me…Change his life for ever? Do me a fu*king favour will you…’

The hapless pair were last seen sharing a lads’ night out at trendy celebrity watering hole, The Ivy, during which it’s alleged that they ran the waiter who served them all three courses of a sumptuous Table D’Hote menu ragged with endless questions about the provenance of the produce. A fellow diner on the night, said to be a showbiz giant but wishing to remain anonymous, contends that the poor man, Bogdan Ilic, was completely knackered when the pair of presenters finished the meal, and that he was subsequently stretchered away by paramedics; suffering from nervous exhaustion shortly after Gregg and John left at around 11.30.

The news comes as the BBC plans to shoot a celebrity version of the show. The corporation is offering a reward reagarding information about Mr Torode and Mr Wallace’s whereabouts. Anyone who has any knowledge whatsoever is being offered £50,000 to keep it secret.

Duff

‘The Paxman is an aggressive beast, especially when it believes someone is trying to dodge a question,’ said a police spokesman. ‘He is identifiable by his look of mocking disbelief, and under no circumstances should be approached. The public are in danger of receiving cutting remarks about their understanding of macro-economics or level of classical education.’

Johnny Morris, the BBC’s head presenter keeper, explained: ‘In the wild a Paxman is a peace-loving herbivore, but having been fed a diet of second-rate politicians and hapless students he has become a raging carnivore.’

This escape is part of an ongoing security problem at the BBC following a breakout from the Fiona Bruce enclosure last year. Luckily no one was hurt, and viewing figures for Antiques Roadshow increased significantly.

Immunis

Director-General of the BBC Mark Thompson today hailed the new channel, then apologised immediately for raising his voice. ‘BBC Sorry won’t compliment our other channels, but it will grovel for them,’ confirmed Thompson. ‘While the rest of the media tells our viewers what they should be offended by, as a public service broadcaster we feel it is our duty to cater for popular demand and provide a dedicated service that nods sagely and agrees with their righteous indignation.’

The launch of the channel comes as some of the BBC’s most recent apologies have proven more popular than the programmes that caused offence in the first place. Comments made by Jeremy Clarkson have caused such outrage that they have actually driven some viewers to consider watching The One Show. ‘But the beauty of BBC Sorry,’ continued Thompson, ‘is that instead of sitting through the whole show to watch the bits that have been edited to cause offence, we’ll just show you the highlights.’

Viewers have welcomed the new service. ‘After seeing the reaction to Clarkson’s outburst, I was really aggrieved that I didn’t take offence when I watched it live with my wife,’ said teacher Derek Compton. ‘It wasn’t until I read about it later in The Guardian that I realised just how offended I should have been. When you take his comments completely out of context they are absolutely unforgiveable, so I definitely think he should be sacked. BBC Sorry will stop me missing future opportunities to be morally outraged.’

Thompson admitted that BBC Sorry had met some resistance in the planning stages. ‘Some of our presenters think it’s our job to defend them when something they say is used as the basis for a lazy personal attack by journalists with an agenda,’ he said. ‘But that’s a very confrontational attitude. It’s much easier to look sad, stare down at your shoes and assure everyone that it won’t happen again.’

Since last week’s incident the BBC has fitted Clarkson and other presenters with their own ‘red button’ service. Viewers are urged to seek out programmes that might offend them and then press the red button to watch Mark Thompson wringing his hands and crying like a baby. ‘Some people seem to get off on being offended, so we have high hopes for BBC Sorry,’ said Thompson. ‘It’s amazing how open-minded people are these days to full-affrontal crudity.’

waylandsmithy (hat-tip to Username)

‘We would like to make it clear that our ritual slaughter of Mr Clarkson was ironic and we are sorry if any viewers found it upsetting,’ said an NHS nurse fully trained to perform such a procedure. ‘The removal of his intestines was clearly intended as a joke evisceration and should not be taken as representative of the views of public sector workers towards the Top Gear presenter. Actual disembowelling would be too good for him.’

The BBC is understood to have received a number of angry calls from viewers following the incident, including from Mr Clarkson’s family who had been hoping he would be taken outside and shot in their presence.

Based on an idea by Zadok

The programme was commissioned in 1985 as a twelve-episode crime drama focusing on the murder of Reg Cox. That was doubled after the first six episodes had been broadcast, when it became apparent that only 5% of the clumsily-introduced storylines could possibly be resolved in the remaining time frame.

New scriptwriters were brought in by corporation bigwigs once the programme had overrun by twelve months, but no progress was made in resolving 300 dangling storylines, unconnected plot points and purposeless interactions between characters.

‘We had uncontrollable mission creep,’ admitted director-general Mark Thompson. ‘This has been going on far too long and isn’t fun for anybody any more.’ A number of solutions are touted, including a parallel existence in which Reg Cox did not die after all, the discovery that it had all been one of Wellard the dog’s dreams, or moving the whole thing to BBC4 and then shutting down that channel.

Thompson did highlight a number of successes during his tenure. “We finally killed off miserable old Pauline Fowler – that was a good one,’ he reminisced, fondly. ‘Everyone got a pay rise that year.’

grumblechops