Various Artists - the world's biggest selling band - to split

Dave, Dee Dozy Beaky Mick Titch Stills Crosby, Hall, Oates, Emerson, Lake, Palmer, McGuiness Flint, Ernst, Young Gifted and Black and White Minstrels are to split, closely followed by the Isley Brothers, the Pointer Sisters, the Carter Family and Bachman Turner Overdrive.

Known in the music business simply as ‘The Various’, the supergroup boasts more album releases than any other band. Some members will fragment to form solicitors practices, while others will retire all together.

‘We just became too big’ said band leader Dave of Dave Dee Dozy etc. ‘It became increasingly hard to define our style. At one point we tried to decide on a single name, but the Jackson Five insisted it should be the Jackson Five, and as there were 327 of us at that time, we couldn’t agree.'

'We only toured once, in the seventies, and even back then we routinely outnumbered our audiences. At the end of each gig the bit where each artist got a namecheck and took a bow went on till the following day.’

Kensington statue wins 'not looking like Diana' contest

A newly installed and finally unveiled statue at Kensington Palace has won the Not Looking Like Diana award against strong competition which included a house brick and a pile of sand.

The sculptor expressed his delight at recognition of his achievement. He explained that the head of the statue was achieved by doing an electronic morph-merge of the heads of all of the members of Duran Duran, that the torso was based on that of Aretha Franklin as seen in the movie Blues Brothers, and the legs were based on those of Angela Rippon.

Tolerance 'getting out of hand' say angry men

Britain’s angry men are in distress, say psychologists. ‘Kindness towards strangers, tolerance of difference, a generally calmer society – this all sounds positive,’ said Professor Watson of the University of West Huddersfield.

'But angry men need an outlet. If they can’t abuse a neighbour for the colour of his skin or shout sexual threats at passing women, where’s all that energy supposed to go?’ Angry men aren’t really joiners so there are no ‘official’ societies for them, though any political movement connected with Nigel Farage seems to be a good place to look.

We spoke to Bill (not his real name), an angry man in Stafford. ‘I just want to know – when do we get a parade? The world has changed beyond all recognition. Even my local chippy now has a . . . bloke, do I call him that? . . . anyway, some days he’s in a dress, some days trousers. The chips are as good as ever and I always chat to him, her – fuck me, this is complicated.’

‘In the good old days I’d throw some good-natured banter about and if anybody didn’t like it we could get into a ruck. Nowadays, beat somebody to a pulp because they’ve got foreign skin or whatever and it’s a hate crime. Was it a friendship crime before? Cause we don’t mean nothing by it, it’s how we bond.’

Government policies have contributed to the problem. PE teaching vacancies are down and the police only take graduates. Nightclub door staff have to be registered. There’s always the French Foreign Legion, but it’s both French and Foreign, two words guaranteed to trigger an angry Brit.

Bill is pacing up and down Stafford High Street, twitching every time a schoolgirl with large breasts walks past. He punches himself in the face repeatedly, his tension almost palpable.

‘I don’t know what I’ll do next. Thank God for the Euros. Booing the Kraut anthem was great, and we all laughed at that silly girl crying because her team got thrashed. Get used to it love, there’s loads more where that came from. One world cup and two world wars, doo dah, doo dah.’