‘In the past we received a steady supply of gap-year students and celebrities’ said a spokesman. ‘We began to tackle the core issues that are holding back out continent, namely mural-less walls, children who have never appeared on western television and a dangerous scarcity of backpackers.’

‘Now this vital support has declined in favour of more ‘trendy’ schemes such as food, building wells, malaria nets and education. Without charity bashes, celebrity visits and pop singles, soon even our own people are in danger of becoming unaware of our problems.’

Jonty Rutland, head of UK student charity ‘Banter’ added ‘two years ago we travelled to Capetown to help out in bars and play cricket. Now we’re doing ‘practical’ things, like raising £112.52 by dressing up as nurses, nearly some of which was used to help dig a well. Have you seen those mural-less walls though? It breaks my heart.’

Smaug

The News International representative revealed, “We have a strong code of good practice at NoW which ensures the accuracy of our articles, and since we came up with a means to hack into the voicemail accounts of celebrities we have made sure this formed an integral part of the rigorous research behind our stories. But we simply don’t have the resources to tap everyone, much as we’d love to. So now we’ve had to own up to a few spurious articles that slipped out without the corroboration of phone-tapping.”

The court case brought to light some entirely fictitious articles for which News International has now apologised and offered compensation. One was a front page splash about Wayne Rooney’s conversion to Islam after an encounter with a Liverpudlian prostitute of Iranian extraction. While another falsehood was the claim David Attenborough had smuggled home three of the gorillas he encountered while filming in Rwanda during the 70s and to this day kept them cramped together in a small cage watching Life On Earth on a loop.

A source at NoW clarified, “We have certainly learned our lesson after this embarrassing episode and accept we owe it to our readers, but more importantly the celebrities we hound, to make sure we do the job more thoroughly. Going forward journalists will need to provide all the relevant tapes to their editor before the story gets the green light. Otherwise we may be on the end of more litigation as a result of fabricated stories like Mohammed al Fayed installing a 7-foot statue of Michael Jackson at Fulham’s football ground that resembled Bubbles more than it did the damaged singer. What do you mean that actually happened? Don’t be so ridiculous!”

OllieP

The carnage started with the qualifier obstacle course which was spiced up by the addition of snipers positioned at the sides of the course. ‘Just look at the pig’s ear David Dickinson makes of the inflatable balls,’ laughed Richard Hammond in his commentary as the daytime TV host received a headshot to the temple. ‘All that blood is ruining his healthy orange colour. Still, I think the pathologist will find there’s now plenty of lead in his attic.’

The remaining contestants then moved on to face the Sweeper, a high-rise game of mechanical jump-rope played on platforms which, because it’s Christmas, were raised 50m above a concrete car park. ‘Oh dear, Gloria Hunniford is going to take a while to mop up,’ said Hammond, ‘and just listen to the sickening crunch after Bobby Davro fails to get his leg over and takes three and a quarter seconds to hit the deck. I haven’t groaned like that since his last TV series.’

Next was Dizzy Dummies, a challenge in which the celebs were spun round for 60 seconds before being set loose to trace a winding narrow path through a densely-packed minefield. ‘What a sad end to an illustrious career,’ lamented Hammond as Dappy from N-Dubz spent his final moments hopping around looking for his left leg. The poignant moment was given the slow motion treatment while U2′s ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ played in the background.

The competition ended with the Wipeout Zone being contested by Lembit Opik, Michaela Strachan and the guy who does the Cillit Bang adverts, with the players asked to undertake the water challenge in a piranha-infested lake, their task made no easier by wearing Lady Gaga’s infamous meat dress. ‘We didn’t even need to bother with the concrete slippers,’ joked Hammond as the water bubbled and turned red. There was then just time for some final high-jinks as the contestants’ coffins were flown back to RAF Northolt where they were ejected at 12,000 feet and parachuted back to earth.

‘We wanted to do something a bit different this year,’ said Controller of BBC1, Danny Cohen. ‘It seems that if there’s the prospect of some on-air deaths and suffering, the viewers just don’t change channel. It’s something we learned from EastEnders.’

Despite the programme’s success, it hasn’t entirely avoided controversy. Ofcom said it had received a number of complaints about the show, but that these had all been swiftly withdrawn after the BBC caved in to viewers’ demands and booked Katie Price for next year’s show.

‘Many people don’t want to go without a fuss,’ said Karl-Heinz Struther, director of Indignitas.  ‘Some want to make a point, while others simply want a genuine once-in-a-lifetime experience.  With a life-exit package for every taste, ambition and demographic, we’ve had no dissatisfied customers yet.’

Men from all over Europe are flocking to the clinic for the chance to take their mid-life crisis to its logical conclusion with the ‘Jim Morrison’ deal, a Paris-based weekend break that includes drugs, alcohol and sex followed by drowning in a bath.  An adventurous few have instead opted for the ‘Stranglewank’, the auto-erotic practice popularised by former INXS singer Michael Hutchence and film star David Carradine.

Oppressed women, meanwhile, are queuing up for the ‘Sylvia Plath’, a moving farewell involving a dingy room, a gas oven and the posthumous demonisation of a person of their choice.  And car enthusiasts have been honking their horns in delight at the ‘James Dean’, a splendid one-off opportunity to drive a classic Porsche head-on into a truck in a reconstruction of Hollywood’s notoriously dangerous Mulholland Drive.

Among failed bankers the ‘Wall Street Plunge’ has proved very popular.  The brochure describes it as ‘a full gravity descent down the outside of the Swiss Re tower in the heart of Geneva’s bustling financial district, followed by a champagne reception at the bottom’.  Wealthier clients have opted for deals from the à la carte Indignitas Premium range, including the ‘JFK’, in which half the fun is not knowing whether the fatal shot came from the lone gunman in the book depository or the CIA agent on the grassy knoll, and the ‘Princess Diana’, in which a beered-up chauffeur will quickly show you the sights of Paris before suddenly inviting you to join him up front.

But despite the booming business, it isn’t all proving to be plain sailing for Indignitas.  An investigation is under way into the passing of a man who had apparently planned to die spectacularly in front of thousands during a gruelling series of shows at the London O2.  ‘Unfortunately he didn’t make it that far,’ said Herr Struther.  ‘We think he may have been accidentally dispatched by the doctor sent to help Farrah Fawcett on her way.’

As controversy continues to rage around allegations that the tabloid paid spies to tap the mobile phones of the rich and famous for sleazy details, demand for low security voicemail accounts has soared.

Publicity guru Max Clifford has established Famous for Five Minutes, an agency that introduces nobodies to hackers for a small fee.

Long-forgotten Big Brother evictee Sauvignon Blank said: ‘It’s brilliant. Nobody ever followed me on Twitter but I got three new mobiles today and I gave the numbers to Famous for Five Minutes and I’ve been talking dirty on all of them. The lads mags are queueing up.’

For years vacuous people have been shunned by the British public, who presumed that their empty-headed cliché-riddled monologues were down to them simply being dim, uninteresting and self-obsessed individuals.

But since a number of sufferers were given the chance to compete in Big Brother, public awareness of their condition has greatly increased. ‘It’s been like, really amazing for me, like, personally…’ explained Trish McKinnon who suffers from acute inanity and self-obsession. ‘Like, before the recent series went out like, people would hear vacuous people like me, talking on the bus, yeah? And they’d just like, take an instant dislike to me, you know? But I think I’m a beautiful person, and I’m ready to find happiness, and for me, personally, where I am in my life right now, people just have to accept the real me…’

At this point the interviewer shouted ‘Oh Fuck Off!’ which Trish mistakenly put down to Tourette’s Syndrome.