Local Council Bans Cheesy Bait
Residents are up in arms following proposals by West Devon Borough Council banning the use of cheese in mousetraps to protect rodents that are lactose intolerant.
"It's political correctness gone mad," said local big mouth Tracy Sponge. "I've been using cheese in mousetraps for over thirty years and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it."
Tracy, whose house is filthy and a beacon for vermin, has considerable experience when it comes to despatching rats, mice, foxes and the occasional small horse unwise enough to cross her threshold. She prefers to throttle them with her bare hands, but struggles to cope with the sheer volume and so uses traps to keep on top of the problem. She believes that a ban on dairy products will hit her hard.
"It's the loony lefty euro-bollocks do-goody health and safety brigade sticking their oar in again," she said. "It makes me want to spit. They've no right to tell me how I can kill things in the comfort and privacy of my own home. Phooey!"
Meanwhile, the council takes the view that it has a responsibility for the welfare of all animals in the borough, as their Head of Ants, Colleen Scratchit explained. "When we banned flypaper as a way of preventing insects from getting all sticky, there was uproar," she told us. "But in the twenty-first century we do have a responsibility. As a result of our actions the council was awarded a certificate. Yes, you heard me, a certificate. This kind of recognition is not something that you can take lightly and I think it clearly demonstrates that we are on the right track.
"Now we are looking to continue that good work and we are proposing this measure in response to the latest scientific studies - oh yes, scientific studies - on the effects of dairy products on mice."
Mrs Scratchit was referring to the recent work of a group in Cambridge which spent six months force-feeding Dairylea to a selection of small animals. What resulted from this experiment were significant numbers of listless gerbils, bloated rabbits and fat mice.
"You can't argue with facts," Mrs Scratchit said. "Because facts are facts, and that's a fact. We want to be leading the way on this, and I think by and large the public will approve. I mean, do we really want to see lactose intolerant mice wandering around, all blotchy and giddy and grumpy? No, of course not. Only by making certain that we avoid using dairy products in traps can we ensure that mice in the West Devon area are alert, vigorous and healthy when they get their necks snapped. And, more importantly, we might just be in line for another certificate."
Removed from Office
In ugly scenes earlier today, Mr Ronald Hiccup, the mayor of Shepton Bassett, was removed from office. "We've known this was coming for a long time," said a member of the council. "We tried to warn the fat bastard to stop chucking pies down his neck and now it's finally reached the point where he couldn't get through the door."
Fire crew arrived shortly after 5pm and removed Mr Hiccup from his office using crowbars, sledgehammers and a considerable quantity of Vaseline. The process resulted in substantial damage to the fabric of the town hall, which is a Grade II listed building and a site of significant historic interest.
The rescue also resulted in some superficial damage to the fabric of Mr Hiccup, but he's not a site of significant historic anything.
Paper Failure
The Office of Circumlocution is facing the prospect of a devastating loss of data following a serious error in its paper filing systems. Although the Office has transferred many of its records to secure electronic systems, it still holds a great deal of information in old fashioned paper files. Last night, as a result of a massive stationery failure, those files went down.
"We want to reassure people that their personal information is safe and that we are doing everything possible to get our systems back online," said Rachel Spokes, a spokesperson. "We're looking at the possibility that some of our staples may be at fault, but we can't rule out the potential involvement of treasury tags."
The Office of Circumlocution has already tried rebooting its filing cabinets and now specialist stationers have been brought in, and are currently debugging the ring binders. However, despite the initial announcement, the word is that senior staff are extremely worried that most of the material will not be recoverable at all.
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