“We have nuclear meltdown in Japan, war, like, everywhere and an economic crisis,” said a spokesman. “Articles on pinch-punch-first-of-the-month ASBOs, compulsory polenta in school dinners or the collapse of the coalition are banned until we’ve had at least two months’ successive economic recovery.”

The Government stopped short of censoring all humorous articles, however. Limited speculation on Kate Middleton’s bridal underwear and the outcome on the referendum on voting reform will be allowed, as will photographs of houses, wives and cats that look like Hitler.

“It’s for your own good, Britain”, continued the spokesman. “You may not be laughing now, but by the time we’ve cleared the deficit you’ll be hysterical for evermore.”

NewSuburbanDad

Speaking to the joke writer’s periodical Knock Knock, O’Shaughnessy told of his discomfort about being the butt of the Irishman genre. ‘I’m getting tired of being an archetypal blundering imbecile,’ he revealed. ‘People would ask me if I knew the one about the Irishman who went to the Chiropodist – yes, I was there; I’m not proud of what I did and thank you very much for rekindling some painful and embarrassing memories.’

O’Shaughnessy’s former colleagues, ‘Englishman’ Miles Farquhar and ‘Scotsman’ Jimmy Macdonald, have expressed regret at their friend’s decision but have pledged to carry on without him. ‘Paddy will be a hard act to follow,’ admitted Farquhar, ‘but we have a new member of the team in the form of Dai Llewellyn and are confident that we can continue making derogatory material – albeit with a greater emphasis on sheep and singing.’

O’Shaughnessy now intends to study law at Cambridge University, but hasn’t turned his back on the traditional Irishman joke completely: ‘did you hear the one about the Irishman who sued Jim Davidson for defamation of character? He settled for a written apology and a five-figure out-of-court settlement. You might not find that particularly funny but I think its feckin’ hilarious.’

The flow of email jokes into Europe has been reduced to a trickle following the ongoing dispute between Russia, the world’s biggest producer of online humour, and the Ukraine, a major transit hub in the email joke network.

The row between the two states has left most of Eastern Europe without email comedy for the last few days, with Bosnia-Herzegovina suffering particularly badly. ‘The situation is intolerable,’ said Miroslav Lajcak, Bosnia’s Minister of You-Tube Comedy Clips. ‘Our office workers have been reduced to passing knock-knock jokes to each other on pieces of paper.’ There have also been reports of Albanian shepherds attempting to act out the clip of Adolf Hitler from Downfall with subtitles referring to a disappointing sports result.

In an attempt to break out of Russia’s comedic stranglehold, Ukrainian distributors are frantically uploading stupid clips of sock puppets miming to Abba hits, compilations of George Bush malapropisms and footage of animals doing amusing things that are normally done by humans. ‘Wait until you see the one with the guys slippers glued to the floor – priceless!’ chuckled Ukraine’s Cyber-comedy Czar.

Meanwhile the ripple effect has seen Western countries struggling with dwindling supplies. Ireland has doubled its humour imports from secondary producer Norway while Spain has opened up its electronic borders to one-liners from North Africa. Both France and Italy have announced emergency measures, introducing a joke-by-telex system using an emergency network developed during the cold war, whilst Britain has opened up the archives and declassified thousands of pre-war knob gags for general circulation. Germany remains unaffected.

jp1885 and ilovefinance