At exactly 11 o’clock, there was a two minute silence which was broken only by the hum of traffic and the sound of traders purchasing futures in poppy derivatives at speculatively high rates in anticipation of continued European conflict. After the sounding of the ‘The Last Email’ played on a 1995 vintage Nokia 636, Her Majesty solemnly stepped forward under leaden skies and laid her wreath at the tomb of the unknown banker.

BBC commentator, Huw Jones, captured the thoughts of the assembled mourners, some visibly weeping, as they watched the traditional drive past by an Aston Martin and a Porsche. ‘This is a poignant moment to recall at the innocents who selflessly volunteered to make a killing in the City. Most of them survived the early skirmishes of Black Monday, the early nineties recession and the tragic loss of Barings Bank, only to be confronted by the horrors of the financial crisis of 2008 – 2011. A whole generation wiped out by the carnage of the banking crisis.’

Leading the ceremonial march past was former financier Jared Garforth, still proudly wearing his FSA campaign medal. He talked about his experiences. ‘I was one of the lucky ones,’ he said. ‘I was given my marching orders after being invalided out at Northern Rock. It doesn’t bear thinking about what happened to those poor souls at Lehman Brothers. They were like lambs to the slaughter.’

After prayers, the Bishop of London, Dr Richard Chartres, addressed the congregation saying. ‘This lost generation of money dealers will be forever young. They will not be forgotten. Their deeds will be remembered every time we do the most mundane act such as check our bank balance or finding the dustbins un-emptied for the sixth week in a row. They will be forever in our thoughts …. but never in our hearts.’

‘There’s no doubt it’s gone to his head,’ said BBC Director General, Mark Thompson. ‘Inflation of Robert’s ego is running at an all-time high and rising interest rates among viewers only seem to be making the problem worse. We’ve tried to get him doing some positive stories about economic growth, but he thinks he’s the poster boy of economic Armageddon. This morning he even reported from outside the Bank of England wearing a sandwich board saying ‘The end is nigh’.’

Those closest to Peston say the problem started when he received widespread plaudits for uncovering the near collapse and subsequent nationalisation of Northern Rock in 2008. ‘Overnight he became unbearable,’ said his wife. ‘He would sit at home watching the lines of people queuing outside banks with a look of fear in their eyes. All he could say was ‘I did that’, over and over again, a smirk spreading across his face.’

‘It didn’t seem to be a problem at first,’ said Helen Boaden, Director of News at the BBC. ‘Although we knew he was becoming a smug git, we didn’t receive many complaints. I think people were still mesmerized by his strange delivery style and probably didn’t understand a word he was saying. But when he was the first person to report on the Lloyds TSB-HBOS merger, the cameraman actually had to zoom out to keep his ever-increasing grin in the shot.’

Analysts are now claiming that the continual presence of Peston’s self-satisfied face on BBC news programming could itself be exacerbating slumps in the market and the ongoing Eurozone crisis. ‘We are urging the BBC to adopt a policy of quantitative easing and pump more business and economics correspondents into their news coverage in order to shore up viewers’ unhealthy exposure to Robert Peston.’

But Peston’s friends are becoming increasingly concerned about his mental health. ‘Robert’s continuous wallowing in bad news is a worry. He has developed an unhealthy phobia of green ‘up’ arrows. It’s not a problem in the studio, but he’s an emotional wreck at traffic lights.’

Perks (hat-tip to waylandsmithy)

‘I went into Burger King because my friend Brad works in there and normally manages to slip me some free fries. While I was queuing I noticed his vacant expression, the hollow look in his eyes and the emptiness in his voice every time he asked a customer if they wanted to ‘make that a meal’, or if they’d like to ‘go large’.’

‘It was like he died a little inside with every question, and you could almost hear him asking himself why he’d been such a dick all through school, so I snapped a photo, set up an FB group and posted it.’

Within hours the new group had thousands of members all trying to outdo each other by posting hilarious photos of themselves ‘Working’. The members and pictures range across many countries and occupations, from people staring blankly at computer screens in India to others cleaning toilets in France.

The two most popular ‘Working’ pictures so far are an Australian man called Mick emptying dog shit bins in a park in Sydney, after leaving school with no qualifications, and a funny looking little UK man named Ed, who posted an amazing photo of himself allegedly ‘leading the Labour party’.

Matt however is happy to just maintain the Facebook group, and has no interest in getting involved in ‘Working’ himself. ‘I’m kept more than busy enough trawling through all the pictures people send in, posting comments on them and updating my own status. I don’t really have time to go and find a job that would be required to produce my own photos. Besides, that might destroy the sense of entitlement that I’ve built up over 19 years, alongside the feeling that the world somehow owes me something.’

Senior members of the FSA are known to have held an emergency meeting, and brainstormed ideas for stunts that would win the public’s approval. A cleaner who saw the flip chart notes, says some of the early ideas mooted were ‘a competition giving away a free iPad’, ‘some kind of web site or Twitter thing’ and an ‘FSA trade magazine with a celebrity on the front’.

Another idea the committee liked involved some kind of commitment to diversity, or a statement about people needing to recycle more, or something. Though there was a lot of enthusiasm for this ‘strong, well thought out concept’ it was shelved because it was discovered that OFCOM is planning something similar.

In the end, the committee decided that it was time to ‘get tough’, very publicly, on people who steal pens from banks. ‘This is costing banks anything up to £50 billion a year, and could be the real reason why Britain has gone into an irreversible decline.’ said one insider.

Advisers acting on behalf of HMRS say the team could be just days away from going out of business altogether.  A recent run of poor results, claims of mismanagement and dressing room unrest has left the troubled team languishing at the foot of the EU table and struggling to fulfil its fixture list.

Now with manager Gordon Brown facing a vote of no confidence from supporters, and despite reassurances from the chairman there are signs he may be losing the backing of the board too. ‘He was never our choice in the first place’ said one disgruntled supporter outside the ground ‘he was given the job over our heads without anyone even getting a chance to vote. The job was always too big for him and now we are in real danger of losing premiership status. His teams lack creativity and vision, there’s no-one on the left wing and too much money wasted on defence. We would like to see that Berlusconi given a chance, he can’t be any worse’.

The club has received widespread criticism in the tabloids recently following rumours of inflated wage demands, indulgent expense claims and win-win bonuses for some players who City insiders insist ‘are only in it for the money’.

Although there was a brief spell of success with victory in the Credit Cup and a chance to rub shoulders with Europe’s elite, it was achieved on the back of high borrowing and risk taking by the board.

Brown has also been criticised lately by people within the regime of aggressive behaviour towards junior members of staff and poor levels of man management skills, resulting in some players asking for a move away from the club.

‘We are looking for new investors, but who will want to take on all the debts?’ said Andy Gillespie editor of fanzine HitSquadUK. ‘But whatever happens we don’t want the Americans involved, this is a club – not a franchise. I can see us ending up in the old Third World division before too long. I heard on TalkSport that some toff from Eton Academicals might come in for the club at the end of the season but what will he know about grass roots supporters. The only terrace he’s ever stood on is the one overlooking the lake at Versailles.’

Edward Hack

The whole board has been revamped in line with the economic downturn, with Free Parking now incurring a hefty congestion charge, the four railway stations randomly substituted with rail replacement bus services that will detain players for several rounds and the utility companies offering million-pound dividends to shareholders, but charging homeowners hundreds of pounds per quarter. ‘We considered the introduction of assorted wheelie bins outside each property, but no-one could remember what was supposed to be disposed of each round and all players were bankrupted by fines after the first three rounds,’ said the chairman of Hasbro, who has been forced to radically devalue Bow Street after an affordable housing initiative was built nearby.

But many of the new format’s additions have proved immensely popular with regular players, not least the Get Out of Jail Free card issued to every player regardless of the severity of their criminal activity. ‘I love that I can trade in my old metal terrier for a thousand quid and a new labradoodle,’ said Gavin Morris, who was unfortunate to lose all his money when he was mugged by gang of hoodies on Old Kent Road. ‘But it was a little disconcerting to have to play with real money once we discovered that Monopoly money now has a higher market value than pounds sterling.’

(With hefty cap-doffs to riesler, malgor, Ramblesid and Zadok)

‘My wife Belinda, who was recently made redundant, has always loved a good snoop around a stately home,’ explained Brian Watkins, ‘and now, just as many earls and barons have found that maintaining their traditional lifestyle has meant charging tourists to view their countryside manors and acres of manicured gardens, so are we offering unrivalled access to never before seen areas of our 1960s semi, to make sure the bailiffs don’t come around for the plasma.’

The whole Watkins house is to open to the public, with just a few delicate areas — such as Brian’s mother’s favourite chair that no-one else is allowed to sit on — cordoned off behind a velvet rope. The comprehensive guided tour will cover sights including the laundry-strewn home multi-gym, known as The Watkins Folly, and feature commentary on significant historical events linked to each room. A highlight is the legendary local story of the two weeks Brian spent sleeping on the fold-out bed on display in the spare room, following The Battle of ‘Do I still fit these trousers OK?’.

The family are also generating additional revenue through retail sales, and are selling souvenir pens and shopping bags from the collection in the kitchen drawer, while an early big-selling item has been the Watkins Heritage Artisan Jam at GBP4.95 a jar. ‘It’s just the stuff we get from Aldi, but we’ve stuck a coat of arms I downloaded off the internet on it’ admitted Brian, ‘oh, and if anyone asks, yes, it’s organic’.

The Watkins are confident that with many people holidaying at home in the UK this year, business will be brisk. Early bookings have been promising, with many of their neighbours pre-ordering their tickets online for the first opportunity to get a good look around the Watkins residence.

‘My wife is particularly interested in historic interiors, and she’s heard they’ve still got the same mouldy old bedroom carpet that the previous owner old Mr Smith had when he died in there,’ said neighbour Jim Bascombe, ‘Whereas I’m more interested in the tours of the gardens. Mainly to see if I can spot the hover mower I lent Brian six years ago.’

‘In recent weeks, we may have given the impression that the House of Commons is stuffed to the rafters with filthy, rapacious grubbers sponging off the taxpayer to feed their indolent lives of immoral luxury,’ the newspaper’s editorial declares. ‘In fact, it turns out that the whole story was written up by a spotty 17-year-old intern who couldn’t read the figures properly and left out the middle column of numbers. Our MPs are in fact the same fine group of distinguished gentlemen and ladies that they have always been. We hope the mistake hasn’t caused any inconvenience.’

scrutiny to end

Like all the M.P.s in Westminster Gordon Brown was said to be very understanding about the mistake. ‘Not to worry…’ he said ‘These little adding up mistakes happen all the time. ‘Alistair and I were just looking at the accounts book again and wondering if we hadn’t made a silly little adding up mistake. It turns out there might not have been a credit crunch after all!’