Author’s note: The Brains Trust was taken offline and we were off grid for a couple of weeks. Surely, a portent for the future. I wrote this mail out to encourage our readers back. It’s interesting that after this the Trust was never really the same and went into an existential decline, finally ceasing to exist a couple of months later.

Our regular readers will know that the Brains Trust stops at nothing in its endeavours to bring the truth to the greater public. They know that our aim, nay our very essence, is to tease, minister, undermine, corrupt and generally get up the noses of the rich and powerful. It is also true that we work in high-powered Government jobs, discreetly pulling the levers of influence and recharging the batteries of power. There are many who resent us and dark forces are constantly at work to foil our efforts.

Unfortunately, this week, we temporarily succumbed to that darkness.

We are unable, for legal reasons, to go into details. Suffice to say that shortly after the publication of our latest issue, the plug was pulled on us by a hosting organisation in Texas. Since that time we have worked night and day to bring you, our loyal readers, the issue you have been waiting for. Delano, our Editor in Chief, has adopted the character and clothing of Napoleon, exhorting his brave foot soldiers to assemble facsimiles of our web pages and post them to newspaper editors the world over. Beaumont, our Editor, has agreed to be personally crucified and placed on the top of Big Ben in protest. Our devoted contributors have worked tirelessly, manning phone lines, picketing Parliament and personally assembling a new global internet from baked bean tins and elastic bands to allow us, once again, to be a regular fixture in homes the world over.

Now, at last we have returned. You will have to decide which article(s) so offended the sensibilities of Texas and whether we were right to publish and be damned.

T H E B R A I N S T R U S T

TRUST US | WE’RE BACK

http://www.thebrainstrust.co.uk

BLAIR FINALLY ASCENDS TO “KINGDOM OF HEAVEN”
http://www.thebrainstrust.co.uk/article.57.2762.html
TIDAL WAVE OF SARS DEATH SWEEPS PLANET
http://www.thebrainstrust.co.uk/article.57.2763.html
US “GIVES” IRAQ TO PALESTINE
http://www.thebrainstrust.co.uk/article.57.2754.html
CADBURYS UNVEILS NEW “CHOCOLATE JESUS”
http://www.thebrainstrust.co.uk/article.57.2768.html
EMBEDDED JOURNALISTS “NEVER SLEEP”
http://www.thebrainstrust.co.uk/article.57.2764.html
“SADDAM LOOKALIKES” DEMAND AN END TO WESTERN AGGRESSION
http://www.thebrainstrust.co.uk/article.57.2759.html
OLYMPICS TO BE SPLIT INTO “LIKELY WINNERS” AND “LOSERS”
http://www.thebrainstrust.co.uk/article.57.2761.html
GREETING CARDS HELP ARABS EXPRESS “AMBIVALENT FEELINGS”
http://www.thebrainstrust.co.uk/article.57.2753.html

Or could the following possibly be true?

Brains Trust Survives Countdown Coup

There was jubilation in streets of Britain yesterday when Delano, Editor in Chief of The Brains Trust, announced that an attempt to silence his publication had failed.

For security reasons, the problem had been initially attributed to ‘technical difficulties’. However, at a press conference Delano confirmed the rumours that The Brains Trust had actually been the victim of an attempted coup by its notorious nemesis, Richard Whiteley.

The assembled media were shown CCTV footage of the initial assault, which took place early on Sunday morning. The grainy pictures showed a grinning, blazer-clad figure emerging from a helicopter, then abseiling down a long, garishly coloured tie onto the roof of Brains Trust Towers.

Whiteley is understood to have gained backing for his adventure from the Pentagon (by telling them that Delano had large reserves of oil) and from Downing Street (by telling them that Beaumont had been writing cheques for George Galloway).

People trying to log on to the website realised something was wrong when they were greeted with solemn music (understood to be a slow rendition of the Countdown theme). Regular Brains Trust reader Derek Gadd told us,”I knew it was Whiteley straight away. He’d renamed the website ‘The Wetwang Inquirer’ and covered it with pictures of him in his mayoral outfit.”

During the attack, Beaumont, the Brains Trust editor, was held hostage by Richard Stilgoe and Gyles Brandreth. After tying him up in a ‘chunky-knit woollen straight-jacket’, they submitted him to unimaginable torture. “Brandreth would read me extracts from his memoirs,” he sobbed, shuddering at the memory. “Then Stilgoe would start some rambling anecdote about Peter Skellern. It was awful. I kept myself sane by counting the number of celebrities Brandreth managed to name-drop. I reached fourteen thousand and twelve before I passed out.”

The siege lasted for several days before being resolved by Carol Vorderman. Her agent, Dr Hugo Z Hackenbush, told us, “Carol turned up at the Countdown studios, expecting to record an episode. When she found out that Richard had buggered off to London she leapt into to her car and sped off in hot pursuit”.

Standing outside Brains Trust Towers, Ms Vorderman spent several hours pleading through a megaphone for the pun-meister to see sense and return with her to Leeds. Eventually, Whiteley reluctantly abandoned his coup after Vorderman promised to ‘show him her conundrums’.

Delano, who had locked himself in the wine-cellar “for tactical reasons which I am prevented from disclosing by the official secrets act” later emerged triumphant and declared his relief that the ordeal was over. “The Brains Trust will not be silenced,” he bellowed, dressed as Napoleon and standing on a hastily assembled wall of contributors. “We will prevail. But I am deeply indebted to the wonderful woman who liberated us. On behalf of my staff and all of our readers, I would just like to say: Thank you Carol!”