Weighing school kids will tell us if they are carrying knives

Under the guise of monitoring student obesity, the Government are sneakily testing to see if children are smuggling in guns in their socks. Said a teacher: ‘It’s very humane. We get them to sit on an industrial scale and a klaxon goes off if they’re a fatty. A trap door then opens and a horde of Oompah Loompas carry them off to be strip searched’.

Explained one Headmistress: ‘We caught one lad claiming his suspicious bulges were the result of puberty, but his trousers revealed a cosh and two dangling grenades. We’ve had lunchboxes stuffed with submachine guns and one girl had nunchucks concealed in her alice band.

‘We can also weigh them to see if they are carrying drugs. We had one six year old who had put on two stone overnight, due to an enormous stash of cocaine in his rectum. Of course, not every fat kid is packing weapons, some are the weapons. Have you ever seen a Sumo wrestler sit on someone to death?’

Explained one Schools Minister: 'We're naturally suspicious of any child that puts on weight, God knows we're not feeding them'. Asked if was possible that extra weight was a text book, he replied: 'Don't make me laugh. We banned them before we banned knives’.

Mars Perseverance Rover decides 'Mars is shit'

After a couple of months wandering around Mars, Perseverance has concluded that 'Mars is over-rated and basically a pile of poo'. Even the promise of a helicopter ride fell through once the Rover realised it was 'just an over-hyped DGI drone'. 'It kept on taking photos of me sat in a massive featureless dust bowl and tried to con me out of cash. Like I need photographic reminders I'm stuck in the Martian equivalent of Sheerness on a good day.'

Perseverance has the task of mapping the local landscape - 'done day one, undulating mounds of boring, featureless shit, tick' and looking for signs of earlier life. 'I could keep looking, but really, what life form would want to stick around this hell-hole? If they couldn't leave they'd probably have topped themselves, which isn't a bad idea' said the Rover, tugging at its solar array and attempting to drill holes in its batteries.

The helicopter, Ingenuity, which has been accused of trolling Perseverance's TripAdvisor reviews, has asked to be distanced from Perseverance's views. 'I think it's great, would you like a selfie with me? Fancy a ride around the rim? - Not a euphemism, you understand,' it said today. 'I take PayPal.'

Play School Toys react stoically to news of Brian Cant's passing

The Play School toys have reacted with trademark reserve and passivity on hearing that their all time favourite presenter Brian Cant has passed away, it has been revealed.

After breaking the news to them at their comfortable retirement home in the media museum in Bradford, a BBC producer revealed that Hamble simply sat there, legs out in front of her, unable to talk, staring forward with a blank, almost existential expression. Big Ted and Little Ted were said to look 'particularly dishevelled' whilst Humpty fell forward and had to be propped up with the help of Derek Griffiths. Dapple the horse was said to have been 'rocked' by the news, the only consolation being that Floella Benjamin was doing the rocking with a familiar pat on the rump and a rendition of 'wind the bobbin up'.

The news ends the long standing hope of all the toys for one last programme with Brian, a look through one of the windows, and perhaps some footage of a visit to a random Paisley ice cream factory or maybe a West Midlands zoo. Producers are now trying to decide the best time to tell the toys that the choice of window on each episode was not random, and that rather it was related to the closest shape to the theme of the show - footballs meaning the round window, parcels the square window.

Jemima, said to be most distraught by the news, noted simply that whilst there was some debate amongst children about the best combination of presenters , for the toys it was always 'Brian with anyone'.