Thames Water to acquire the Lake District

Thames Water have bought the Lake District to provide cleaner drinking water for London. The deal will involve constructing a huge pipeline to connect Cumbria with the capital.

Questions have been asked about how the indebted group can afford such an acquisition plus the cost of the pipeline. A spokesman for Thames explained 'We also get Sellafield as part of the deal. The nuclear waste clean-up there is expected to take another 100 years and cost the taxpayer around £120 billion. We've got a much better plan: We're really skilled at pumping human waste into the Thames so we're going to combine the nuclear waste with Cumbrian sewage and pump it all into the Irish Sea. We'll get the £120 billion which will pay for the entire scheme with loads left over for big bonuses for our directors and massive dividends for shareholders'.

A government spokesman went on to say 'With the prevailing currents, the sea will take the obnoxious mixture and dump most of it on the Isle of Man. The Manx have a weird three legged symbol which is a nod to their existing genetic mutations. The extra radiation could possibly get them back to two legs, on the other hand it could increase it to four or five.

Environmental groups have raised a number of concerns. A spokesman for the Environment Agency said 'I really don't know what the locals are making such a fuss about, with rising sea levels the sea will soon spill over and fill up all the lakes this scheme will have drained. By that time, most of London will be under water so won't need as much. I see that as a win/win. Plus this Government has already opened No 10 North in Manchester and the BBC pretty much operates from Salford. Do you seriously think that anyone is really bothered about anything further North than that?

The Scottish Conservative Party responded 'We do! We've got the largest lake in the UK by volume and a big old wrinkly monster', the Scottish Nationalist Party angrily retorted with 'That's no way to refer to John Swinney'.

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An important message from your water company – stop using water!

Dear Valued Customer,

The country is currently experiencing a prolonged period of hot, dry weather. As you may have noticed, there is currently less water falling from the sky than usual, and water supplies are getting low. This has come as a complete surprise to us, despite operating a water company.

While some cynics have suggested that we might have prepared for this by investing over the last few decades in repairing our ageing network of leaking pipes, we believe it would be unfair to burden our shareholders with such unnecessary hardship.

Instead, we are asking you to make a few small sacrifices.

To help us through this difficult time, we are asking you to use less water. Please refrain from drinking water, watering your garden, washing your car, filling paddling pools (or allowing children to experience happiness in any liquid form), taking baths, enjoying showers that last long enough to question your life choices, or generally behaving as though water belongs to the people paying for it.

Every little helps. Every litre you save is a litre that can leak gently into the ground through our ancient Victorian pipework, preserving a tradition we hold dear. Likewise, reducing your water usage helps ensure we have sufficient capacity to continue our occasional programme of releasing untreated sewage into rivers and coastal waters whenever our infrastructure becomes overwhelmed by such unexpected events as... rain.

Please remember, by taking a two-minute shower instead of a ten-minute one, you will be helping us preserve enough water to continue losing approximately a quarter of it before it reaches your home, and bring us one step closer to another reassuringly strong annual financial performance.

Some customers have asked why, after reporting billions in profits, we did not invest more heavily in modernising the network. Unfortunately, those funds had already been earmarked for important infrastructure projects, such as executive bonuses and shareholder dividends. However, we welcome your comments, and we have carefully filed them in the same place as our long-term infrastructure investment plans.

You may also have concerns about our occasional release of untreated sewage into rivers and coastal waters. We'd like to stress that these are not sewage spills - they are surprise biodiversity initiatives. Please don't think of them as pollution - think of them as bringing the countryside to the seaside.

Together, we can weather this crisis - provided you do all the work.

Finally, we'd like to thank you for paying some of the highest water bills in Europe. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue to operate exactly as we have been.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Yours faithfully,

Your Local Water Company

P.S. We are delighted to announce that, thanks to your continued restraint, we remain committed to delivering excellent value to those who matter most to us. No, not you.

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