'For years, we’d been trying to discover why brain cells die off in Alzheimer’s disease,' a leading scientist from the UK's Dementia Research Institute told reporters yesterday.
'But in a way, the answer had been staring us right in the face.
'Just think about what you've all done! You have made your poor brain cells sit through thousands of episodes of breakfast TV featuring Holly, Phil and Roland Rat.
'You have subjected them to Kylie Minogue and Rick Astley, and the speeches of every self-regarding, prating politician from Reginald Maudling and Edward Heath to Angela Rayner.
'Meanwhile, they have gone through years of witnessing the moronic antics of Coleen Rooney, Jeremy Beadle, Boris Johnson and Emu without rebelling and turning you loopy.
'And every morning, you have woken up and started force-feeding them a heart-breaking diet of news stories about killer floods, fires, famines, wars, earthquakes, and golden-haired children going missing.
'Is it any wonder that, after a nearly of lifetime of constant exposure to all this toxic bilge, they simply decided – one after another – to end their pitiful lives?
'What we're saying is: if you don't want your brain cells to desert you, stop showing them the dismal levels to which human existence has sunk in 21st century Britain.