Chess not sexy again

The governing body of chess has announced, with great relief, that it has shrugged-off all traces of sexiness attained from association with The Queen’s Gambit TV series.

“It’s been hell!”, commented world number 2, Martin Hampton, “The pressure of competing at a high-level in chess is bad enough without the added stress of being regarded as a solid gold f**kmaster!”

The Queen’s Gambit was a Netflix mini-series based around the life of a female chess prodigy and featured scenes of a sexual nature. By televisual osmosis It imbued previously sexually inert chess players with a degree of sultry sexual prowess never before seen in the long history of the strategy game.

Grandmaster Sergei Romanov explained, “Quite frankly, it was affecting my game. Every time I gripped the bishop’s head to make a move it would end up on the front cover of PlayChess magazine. I only had to punch the time clock a spectator would moan, ‘Oh yeah!’.

“There would be crowds of young female groupies outside tournaments, tossing aside nerds like spotty pawns to take a piece of us. My 2020 advent calendar ‘The 64 squares of Christmas’ was pure filth. There are images of me in full armour on a horse holding my lance that I’m not proud of.

“But all that’s gone now. I can walk down the street and not be dragged down a dark alley for a meaningless ‘en passant’. I no longer receive nude photos with messages, like: ‘Castle me, hard!’ and ‘Come and breech my Sicilian defence’.

Martin adds: “It was a wild ride while it lasted. But thankfully, the girls have moved on to footballers and life is so much simpler. My hedonism is under control, my marriage is back on track and I feel my game has improved.” He thinks Netflix should compensate him for demeaning his craft with lurid images and bad puns, though. 'I asked for compensation but they just asked if I wanted a cheque, mate. Bastards.'

Election rules 'prevent BBC from describing Boris as c*nt'

‘We won’t be allowed to refer to Boris as a lying philandering racist c*nt with a poor grasp of political detail and an absence of integrity or statesmanship,’ explained BBC Head of Policy Mike Smythe. ‘In the run up to elections for Tory Leadership we have special rules about what happens on air – just as we had for the European Elections. We must not try and sway opinion by telling the truth.’ Mr Smythe defended the BBC’s decision to pull a recent edition of 'Have We Got Paul Merton looking Bored for You’ because it featured the leader of a pop-up party whose name nobody can remember.

Mr Smythe went on: ‘If we were to describe on air Boris’s track record of dishonesty as a journalist and remind people of his tactlessness as Foreign Secretary or even remind people he once allegedly conspired to commit an act of violence or if we truthfully quoted his casual racist language, Ofsted would do to the BBC what Mr Johnson allegedly did to various ladies who were not his wife across a snooker table. So we will continue to describe Boris as ‘coulourful’ and leave it at that.

Mr Smythe added ‘On no account must we sacrifice impartiality for truthfulness. We must tell each side of the story, including that of Mr Farage. So no details about the funding of his new and deserving -of-exactly-equal-airtime Brexit Party. I mean if it ever got into any sort of power, that’s the end of the BBC. Which is something we would never say on air. Or let anyone else, say. And I apologise for any offence caused to Mr Farage, even though he is clearly even more of a c*nt than Boris. So basically we’re watching a battle between a c*nt and a bigger c*nt. But as a BBC Editor, I would never say that on the air, and neither would anybody else who values their job.’

Jacob Rees Mogg – Mr Johnson’s chief supporter, whose recent learned work on the Victorians was described as a ‘turkey’ by fellow right winger Simon Heffer was quick to remind people that Boris’s predecessors in politics also had ‘blemishes of character’ that didn’t impede their political effectiveness.

‘It’s well known that William Gladstone killed, cooked and ate a number of prostitutes at Number Ten Downing Street,’ explained Rees Mogg. ‘This didn’t inhibit his effectiveness as a great conservative reformer. And Lord Palmerston was probably responsible for the Great Fire of London and was almost certainly Jack, the Yorkshire Ripper. Yet he became the greatest political thinker since Margaret Thatcher’.

People who love Christmas attempting to convince everyone Junemas is a thing

Frivolous individuals who love Christmas have spotted a chance to have another bite at the mince pie this June and are engaged in a subtle campaign to make Junemas a thing, despite only Aldi and Sainsbury’s actually thinking it’s a thing (and then only because it’ll help them flog some extra groceries).

Annoying cheerful woman Carol Bell has already invited guests for Junemas dinner on the 25th and bought Twiglets. She’s been browsing eBay and Amazon for a Junemas advent calendar and wondering how far out of date chocolate can be while still tasting okay.

Carol’s slightly curmudgeonly husband Dave Bell told us, “Junemas is just not a thing, even if Carol has mentioned it on Twitter, but it does no harm and I might get a nice dinner out of it so I’m saying “Yes Dear” to any mentions of it. It can’t be as expensive and time consuming as the December version.”

Asked for a comment, Father Christmas said he could see nothing wrong with having a Junemas celebration after Christmas 2020 being a bit of a toughie to celebrate what with a rampaging coronavirus cramping the festive style of many. He pointed out that some people in the southern hemisphere like to have a Christmas in July celebration so they have a go at a roast dinner during their winter, and it might be nice for the northern hemisphere to have a jolly barbecue.