Managing a team of arrogant millionaires, with egos even bigger than their houses, you will be expected to deliver outstanding results against superior opposition, in order to meet the unrealistic expectations of millions of delusional fans. Day-to-day responsibilities include travelling around the country watching football matches (preferably with English players involved), refuting allegations from the tabloid press, and generally trying to give the impression that you are somehow earning your massive salary.

Less frequent aspects of the job will see you selecting a squad once every few months, overseeing training and reminding players how to play football. An ability to mediate in disputes between those under your management is a must, especially if you continue to select John Terry.

While not essential, a chequered past and questionable conduct in your private life would be seen as an advantage by the English media, who would happily write page after page about you any time the team does not perform as expected.

The successful candidate must be willing to travel, and the role will sometimes include trips abroad to countries such as Poland and Ukraine. These trips are not likely to last longer than one week.

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)

Holding a picture of the missing girl taken on a recent trip to Cornwall, her father, David, went into some detail about the weather during the trip and a rather nice seafood restaurant they had found quite by chance while looking for a shortcut back to the B&B, finishing the anecdote with a joke about winkles the owner had told him. He then added: ‘But of course, we’re here about my poor daughter.’

Returning briefly to the subject of their missing child, her mother, Alexis, when describing the clothing Lily was wearing on the day she disappeared, surprised reporters with her five-minute digression on the relative merits of Gap and Zara for children’s clothes. The couple broke down in tears as CCTV footage was shown of them wandering off to look at mobile phone covers while their daughter was reading books in Waterstone’s, but the Weavers somehow recovered their composure as the conversation turned to how Britain was turning into a surveillance society.

Mrs Weaver once again appealed to potential witnesses, saying, ‘She is such a sweet child, the light of our lives. All we want is to see her again. It’s her tenth birthday next week and we are planning to buy her a hamster as a pet – or was it a gerbil? Which was it Dave? She wanted the one with the longer tail.’ The consensus among the gathered reporters was that it was the gerbil that had the longer tail, and shortly afterwards Chief Constable Craig King of Surrey Police who was sitting alongside the Weavers was able to confirm this using his web-enabled phone.

The Chief Constable added that gerbils prefer to live with other gerbils, as opposed to hamsters who are solitary animals, and that gerbils should not be kept in housing designed for hamsters and mice as they require the ability to be able to dig tunnel systems and can gnaw through commercially available plastic hamster tanks.

Lily was later found at the back of the press conference having wandered in while looking for a policeman.

Defending the decision, a Government spokesman said, “We’re really just cutting out the middleman. What’s the point of paying for expensive research and hiring members of The Royal Society, when voters minds’ are made up on complex issues like global warming and drugs policy by reading a five hundred word opinion piece by Richard Littlejohn.

“Also, because of the current economic situation, public expenditure has to take priority. A study into climate change could take many years and cost millions of pounds. The public are much more likely to be convinced by Jeremy Clarkson disproving global warming by reporting that he had to put on a cardigan while he was sitting on his patio when it was still late August. I mean, how much more empirical evidence do you need? Plus, he can just phone that stuff in.”

The spokesman went on to announce that the whole of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs will be replaced by Mail on Sunday writer Peter Hitchens. “We’re going to scrap the costly pretence that drug categorisations are created using evidential findings on the damage caused to personal health and society. Instead, in line with our voters’ opinions, we will base criminal possession classifications on how likely it is that individual substances are used by people Mr Hitchens dislikes.”

Corrigan

Touching down at his private Gracelands airstrip, Presley, 76, greeted well-wishers from his specially-converted vintage World War II bomber. ‘Uh-thankyouverymuch,’ muttered The King, before launching into one of his trademark karate moves. ‘It’s great to be back. Perhaps now I can, uh, get on with my life in peace – yeah.’

Elvis fans, who have long blamed the Sunday Sport for causing his self-imposed exile to the moon after a journalist for the red-top alleged that the Blue Hawaii star had faked his own death in 1977, are said to be feeling ‘vindicated’.

‘From the moment Elvis embarked on a covert mission for the CIA he was hounded by journalists like those two-bit Sport hacks. But he can get back to leading a normal life as an international megastar-cum-intelligence agent of near-god status now that no good rag is gone,’ said one long-term Presley devotee, ‘Although I will miss their Cheryl Cole upskirt shots.’

The return of The King has sparked scenes of worldwide euphoria, yet the historic event has been tinged with sadness for Elvis, who recently learned of the death of fellow singer Kirsty McColl. ‘Aw man that’s a real drag. I met her when I was short on cash and workin’ in a chip shop and we become real good friends – rest in peace darlin’, rest in peace.’

Since returning from his luxury lunar penthouse, Presley has vowed to lead a quiet life. ‘I think it’s time I settled down – maybe I’ll cut back on the cheeseburgers and ease up on the pills a little. And I can’t wait to look up my baby girl Lisa Marie. I read somethin’ about her and some guy with a monkey and an oxygen tent, but you can’t believe everythin’ you see in the papers. Yeah – from now on y’all get no more surprises from lil’ ol’ me…’ said a calmer, more reflective pop icon, ‘Oh, Marilyn and Adolf say hi by the way.’

‘My staff are working heroically to find an angle that will make this story interesting to the British public,’ said editor Paul Dacre. ‘We understand our responsibility to bring people the news, and that’s what we’ll do just as soon as we can express it in terms they’ll understand.’

While the Mail’s team of in-house estate agents are said to be ‘drawing a blank on a house price angle,’ its medical researchers are ‘close’ to identifying how the quake could cause an increase in leukaemia among brave British schoolchildren.

‘In just a few more days we should have enough spurious pseudo-science to be able to finally tell the British people all about this tragedy,’ Dacre said. ‘It’s a race against time, not least because there’s a chance a nuclear reactor could explode – in which case we’ll just go with ‘EU Health & Safety Bureaucrats to Blame for Nuclear Apocalypse’.’

‘The fact that she brought up the subject of dating says a lot about where she’s at,’ noted Daily Express columnist Julia Hartley-Brewer. ‘Her release was a great day for freedom, but more importantly it marked the beginning of the next phase in the democracy campaigner’s quest for love and romantic fulfilment. The question on everyone’s lips now is how quickly she slips back into the Rangoon singles social scene.’

Marianna Holt, writing in The Daily Mail, said: ‘Suu Kyi is bound to feel awkward about getting back on the circuit, especially if she’s the type who doesn’t get out much. However, this doesn’t mean she should sacrifice meeting a nice fella just because she wants a career. What’s the point in having a Nobel Peace Prize if you can’t turn up at the awards dinner with a dishy looking man on your arm?’

Polly Neame, Ladies News Correspondent at the Daily Express, agreed. ‘I guess she’s been meeting a lot of military types, and while it’s true women love a man in uniform, I think in her case she’ll have found them a bit uptight and overly-protective. I’m betting she’s a sophisticated lady with an interest in the arts, interior design and prolonged confinement. She needs to find a man who likes the same things, like that lovely Nelson Mandela. He might even broaden her horizons and get her interested in other stuff, like politics.’

But in a Femail article on what not to wear when resisting political oppression, Suu Kyi was warned to be careful. ‘If she’s planning to wow the guys with flowers in her hair and lots of talk about free and fair elections, she’s quickly going to find that things have moved on since she was last on the market.’

Although now planning her next move against the Burmese military junta, Suu Kyi has nevertheless found time to ask that The Daily Star stop phoning on a regular basis to inform her that rugby player and Strictly Come Dancing star Gavin Henson is ready to love again. ‘Aung San and Gavin may well be dynamite together,’ said her lawyer, ‘but her priority now is to bring democracy to our troubled nation – and definitely before she thinks about meeting and marrying Jean Claude Van Damme and becoming Aung San Van Damme, all-action democracy defender.’

Bale, 21, has now reached mainstream public awareness after two brilliant performances for his club against European champions Inter Milan in the Champions League over the past month. This has enabled journalists to position him as a shy, likeable young man of immense talent who still goes home to his mother’s home in Wales when he is given time off. A second phase of operations is to commence shortly.

‘Under our historic power-sharing agreement, we get first dibs on any adjectives beginning with ‘B’,’ said Sun football correspondent Rob Beasley. ‘We did ‘Brilliant Bale’ yesterday and we’re just starting to think of some more. Tottenham are playing Bolton and Blackburn next, so it shouldn’t be too hard. The Daily Star has got the rest of the alphabet if he loses form.’

The Daily Mirror will start any rumours of a bigger club offering £50 million for Bale in the transfer window and has first refusal on talk of over £70 million, once Tottenham have insisted that Bale is ‘going nowhere’. The Daily Express, meanwhile, has the exclusive rights to rake over his love life.

‘People might say we’ve drawn the short straw, seeing as he’s still going out with his girlfriend from school,’ said Express football writer John Richardson, ‘but I’m sure we could dig up some orange-skinned Welsh skank he boffed once. Failing that, we could turn her into the hot new WAG to wind up Posh and Cheryl. She’s got a vagina, hasn’t she?’

Melanie Phillips has confirmed that her 22 March 2011 column will focus on the appalling example set to young people by Manchester City’s record £80 million, £300,000 a week signing Gareth Bale, who has just been arrested after punching a photographer while stumbling out of a nightclub high on cocaine in the company of two mini-skirted Ukrainian girls who apparently do everything.

‘And as for Daniel Laverty of Liverpool Schoolboys Under 15 team, don’t even get me started,’ added Phillips. ‘Scum, absolute scum.’