'Give me a reverse Michael Jackson, and quick!'

A Burnley tanning salon run by a retired farmer has been forced to close after a third woman drowned in its fast-tan trough in less than a week.  Sharon Thwaites failed to emerge from Tan-tastic’s sheep dip-style immersion treatment on Monday.  Police divers later recovered the 21-year-old’s body from the bottom of the tank.

Bob Bright, proprietor of Tan-tastic, told police he hit on the idea of the tanning trough after a cock-up on his farm saw 200 sheep blacked-up rather than disinfected.

Sharon’s mother Irene said that her daughter will be missed, but they were sure it is ‘how she would have wanted to go’.  Sharon is lying in state at her mother’s home so friends and family can visit one last time and comment admiringly on her tan.  ‘She looks lovely,’ sobbed Irene.  ‘No streaks at all.’

Attempts to draw him on such seasoned complaints as the price the supermarkets give him for his milk or the poor subsidies he received from the EU drew a complete blank as Farmer Jones commended the government for the way it handled the Foot and Mouth outbreak and Blue Tongue. Once it had been established that he didn’t want to complain about the weather, hikers trampling over his crops, foxes raiding his chickens, badgers causing bovine TB, the ban on fox hunting, DEFRA, the price of beef, locusts, crop circles, or the relentless decline of rural England, the exasperated reporter brought the interview to a close.

The National Farmers’ Union has now expelled Mr Jones on the grounds that he has brought the industry into disrepute; ‘We work hard to maintain our reputation of being consummate complainers and whingers, at all hours in all sorts of weather, with little reward or help from this government, the EU or supermarkets, and in the teeth of ferocious opposition from the Badger Protection Society. One has to ask if someone with such an optimistic upbeat disposition as Mr Jones is qualified to be a farmer at all.’

Mr Jones was said to be philosophical about his rejection by his fellow farmers and apologized if he did not fit the normal stereotype expected of him. ‘I think it’s high time we moved on from some of these ridiculous old-fashioned clichés about farming folk. And my wife, who’s also my sister, agrees with me.’

Jack Cullen, a fourth generation farmer in his fifties, said ‘People might think it pointless and vengeful, but holding up traffic is the only thing I use the tractor for these days. It’s the one bit of the job I really enjoy. I could get the subsidies sent straight to the bank but I like to go in person with the cheque, so I can complain about their charges. I do have a normal car, but why should I waste good subsidized diesel in that, for the leisurely 5-mile drive to town?’

Farmer Cullen admits that most tractors on British roads are actually ‘just driving around for a laugh’ and that routes are coordinated in advance to combine heavy holiday traffic with single lane carriageways where there’s no overtaking. ‘There’s no better feeling than flying through the countryside at five or sometimes six miles per hour with a few hundred cars backed-up behind me, then I indicate right at least two miles before my turn off,’ laughed Jack; ‘the ironic thing is that I do it on bank holidays too, the bank isn’t even open then.’

A spokesman for the National Union of Farmers confirmed that boredom and loneliness is a real problem for their members and when this is combined with a hatred and contempt for the general public it can be ‘a bit of an issue.’ However they were keen to point out that there is far more to farming than just driving tractors very slowly on busy highways. On tiny single track roads far longer delays can be achieved by pointlessly walking cows up and down the lane; ‘I always give the motorist a friendly wave as the last cow finally goes through the gate’ said Farmer Cullen, ‘but I’m only smiling ‘cos their expensive car is now covered in cowshit.’