Britain’s fish pun stocks ‘critically endangered’

Following many decades of indiscriminate overuse, the Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs has warned that Britain might run out of fish puns within the next ten years. Some experts now believe that a complete ban may need to be put in plaice to stop unoriginal forced banter depleting the seas forever.

‘It may sound like something out of a bad bream but the industry is sardine-ly perched between a rock and a hard plaice,’ said a DEFRA spokesman. ‘From what we’re herring, there isn’t a single seafood-related piece of wordplay that hasn’t been done to death, unfor-tuna-tely.

‘We’ll mullet over in committee but the scale of the problem should net be underestimated. If you can think of a better solution, you’ll have to let minnow. Don’t be koi about it.’

Recently, representatives of the Grimsby fishing industry petitioned the Government for the seafood industry to be given special free trade status after Brexit, despite Grimsby itself voting strongly to leave the EU after a strong campaign by U-kippers. DEFRA believes that this is completely impractical, however badly the industry is floundering.

‘I’ve haddock enough of this. The s-tench of hypocrisy is appalling,’ said the spokesperson. ‘You can’t spend years complaining about the Common Fish Pun Policy then demand an exemption. It’s quite troutlandish behaviour: they think they can have their hake and eat it. Hey, did you see what I did there?’

Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmon were unavailable for comment.

Image: Maklay62 | Pixabay

Story taken from '15 Years of Typos'

Johnson to ring Sturgeon’s doorbell then run away

Boris Johnson is visiting Scotland for as little time as he can possibly get away with before too many Scottish people notice he is there and run him out of the country.

A Tory spokesman looked appalled at the prospect of travelling so far from Surrey:

‘How frightful! We are compelled to visit the wild, uncivilised, frozen north, Jocksville or Scotchland or whatever it’s called, in order to pretend we care about countries other than England. I want to assure the Tory base that we do not. I had assumed Scotchland was in Game of Thrones, not the UK. We’re gone as soon as the Prime Minister achieves his principle strategic objective of not meeting Nicola Sturgeon, but in a super-secret, super-clever, super-sophisticated way that she will not see coming.’

An SNP spokesman responded:

‘He’s going to ring the door bell and then run away. The only question is, will he be giggling? Ding dong, then leg it? Isn’t that how Boris treats most women? We know he’s a hyper-privileged man-child, prone to stunts and sulks, so we’ve covered the First Minister’s doorbell in raspberry jam and we’ve a bucket of gunge ready to go from an upstairs window.’

On being informed that Keir Starmer would also be visiting Scotland, the SNP spokesman looked pensive.

‘I know that name, wait, don’t tell me. No, it’s gone, sorry. I hope he has a nice time though, whoever he is.’