Cool kids 'were right' to mock future Olympic loser

It was the arbiters of teenage cool at Alderman Bagnall Comprehensive in Mansfield that drove 21-year-old Kevin Burgess on. As early as 2005, the skinny misfit decided to silence their cruel taunts by seeking glory at the London Olympics. Now that his dream has fizzled out anonymously, he has been forced to concede that they were quite right to label him a saddo.

'I was determined to prove them all wrong. I followed my dream, gave it 100% and travelled two hours each way to train in the freezing cold every day at Don Valley for three years, just to be nearly last in the qualifying heat, viewed by a few hundred people on the red button,' said Burgess. 'And to think I could have spent that time drinking cider down the rec. What a fool I've been.'

By a mixture of sheer hard work and the lack of anyone else in competing at such a lame event, Burgess rose to be Britain's number six 3,000 metre steeplechaser. Fate then smiled when two of those who finished ahead of him in qualifying were injured and another was disqualified for taking cough mixture. He lined up in the heats last Friday but limped home 18th of 20, far behind the Kenyans and Ethiopians.

Opinion is now divided among Burgess's local contemporaries. Some have reluctantly conceded that sixth best in Britain is not that bad, while others insist that he is still a gangly streak of piss who needs a good kicking. School social king Thomas 'Tommo' Godfrey, meanwhile, remarked that Burgess might be able to outrun him but not the BMW he has bought on the proceeds of dominating the local drug trade.

'I suppose it's as well I lost. I could hardly thank my supportive family, as they all think I'm a loser and missed my appearance to go shopping,' Burgess concluded. 'On the positive side, I did get a text off Hayley Brown, who I fancied something rotten at school. It said 'u did quite well. can u send me usan bolts number, id well shag him lol'. You never know, this could be the start of something.'

Gold medal-winning UK athlete forgets to cry during BBC interview

Gold medal-winning UK athlete, Gary Stephenson, has angered many TV spectators after forgetting to cry during his post-event interview.

Gary, 28, of Melton Mowbray, ranked world number one in the Omnomnomnom, broke the UK, Commonwealth, Olympic and World Records, scoring 38461.8 points from the judges and in the public telephone vote. He achieved this in only six hours and eight minutes without spilling any of it, beating his nearest rival by a full four furlongs.

Interviewed by chirpy cockney commentator Alec Welsh, he was goaded into talking about his hard life, the loss of his childhood budgie, his fungal nail infection, the perils of lockdown, his ginger hair, and how he funded his own trip to Tokyo by washing cars and acting as a hitman for a wealthy Russian oligarch in the King's Road.

"I was so excited and happy to have won. I just forgot to cry," he told our reporter. "I'd been practising, too, but when the moment came, I just dried up. I even had a tissue soaked in Olbas Oil in my pocket just in case."

"I remembered at the last minute, but it was too late, and they had already cut to the weather forecast," he continued, "I've really let the team down. I don't deserve to have won."

His trainer, Derek Buchanan, told Gary that it was not such a big deal, but he secretly knows that public opinion is much more important than ability and success where funding and the Olympics are concerned.

Can't-be-arsed UK government asks public to stick forks in their own eyeballs

Boris Johnson's governance by tossing off has reached a pinnacle of efficiency.

A half-hearted spokesmumbler sighed and murmured, "Rather than making bold claims like 'world-beating' and then doing the opposite, it makes much more sense to bring the do nothing bit forward."

"From this point onwards, the government isn't even going to bother saying anything at all about stuff it clearly isn't going to do anyway."

"But that does leave us with the difficult problem of how we continue causing as much pain and suffering to the UK public as possible."

"To that end, the public is encouraged to throw themselves down stairs, stick their faces in fans, and thrust forks into their own testicles. If you don't have testicles, then grow a pair."