Author’s note: After 9/11 the internet was flooded with supposed Nostradamus predictions, which outraged people pointed out were false and thus somehow implied that the real predictions were anything other than nonsense. So, this was a bit of fun around that subject which Tom immediately declared far too frivolous and removed all reference to NostrilAnus.

Also note the sidebar comments at the end – these were additional points that occasionally appeared as a list in a box by the original article. It was a device that was rarely used.

It a startling discovery today it has been claimed that medieval philosopher and prophet Nostradamus has not only foreseen most of the events that have occurred in the world, including quite a few that haven’t happened yet but also the fact that his own predictions would be spoofed by internet hoaxers.

A large number of Nostradamus sayings have circulated the internet since the World Trade Center disaster. These sayings which refer to “two brothers of York in battle”, “the mighty crashing of towers into the sea” and, most scarily, “several well prepared Middle Eastern suicide bombers who will crash four planes into targets in the US” were all attributed to Nostradamus.

Many Nostradamus followers took these as final definite proof that the ancient seer was indeed possessed of great foresight and used the Internet to spread his gospel. One site records that “The mighty Nostradamus has once again shown his ability to foretell the future. Every time a great catastrophe happens, we are able to look back and find that Nostradamus had foreseen it and warned us of it, if only we were prepared to see.” Other went so far as to try and predict what events might be about to happen. “Although it is difficult to be precise, I believe that he has predicted that the end of the world will occur in the not too distant future and it seems to involve a lot of cheese” claimed another site.

However, it now appears that the recent sayings were created by Gary Pipe of Brentwood, Essex in an attempt to impress his friends and persuade Tanya Ellis of the same town to sleep with him. Clearly rattled by this revelation, Nostradamus watchers have scoured the texts again and have found several quatrains that they claim predict that someone called Pipe will write a load of spoof predictions. “These demonstrate that Nostradamus was aware that charlatans would try and mislead the true believers” claimed Martin Blackburn of Nostradamus interest group ‘Crystal Gazing Tree Huggers’. “Only those whose eyes have been opened to the deeper meanings of the spiritual world will be open to the message of Nostradamus. To us it is obvious that a quatrain referring to ‘Large blue oxen with pointed teeth that shall swarm from a boiling sea’ is actually warning of some cynical little shit in Essex who will try and make us look like fools.”

However, other modern prophets have been quick to dismiss Nostradamus as a fraud whose reputation has been greatly overstated by the modern world. “Unlike myself he has no relevance to modern living and provides no answers to modern problems.” claimed astrologer Russell Grant, “Just look at my recent counsel to Capricorns – you will discover that forward planning can avoid unforeseen events. You don’t get Nostradamus giving one twelfth of the World’s population useful advice like that.” Los Angeles seer NostrilAnus, who uses olfactory analysis of Hollywood starlet’s bottoms to predict the future, agreed. “He is a charlatan who makes us serious practitioners appear completely ludicrous” he said, placing his nose between Winona Ryder’s buttocks and chanting the lyrics of ‘Knights in White Satin’ to prepare for a reading.

President George Bush, however, is taking no chances and has asked the CIA to study the works of the philosopher and prophet. Apparently, they have already gleaned that Osama Bin Laden may be hiding out in Afghanistan, trouble could be ahead in Gaza and the West Bank, and ‘Goodbye Baby’ is a dead-cert for the 3:30 at Chepstow. “Why didn’t anyone tell me about this guy before?” asked the President, “Especially this bit about someone who’s name rhymes with ‘Bore’ winning an election?”

Sidebar – Things Nostradamus has predicted
The end of the world – 15 times so far
The death of Queen Victoria in a bizarre can-opening incident – the truth has long remained hidden
The fall of the Roman Empire – an early prediction when he was starting out
Kevin Keegan’s 80′ perm – Still dismissed as too ludicrous by observers
The second world war – Probably a lucky guess
Nothing in the future – He is only used to point out events that have happened in the past.

Author’s note: The post-9/11 issue was a very tricky one to get right, especially as Tom our rather strict Editor in Chief had chosen that moment to go on holiday, leaving clear instructions to Editor Robert “not to fuck it up”. The lead articles had to be about 9/11 but we still needed others. So where else did we turn, but to Ken Livingstone, source of continued joy for the writers of the Brains Trust

Ken Livingstone announced today that after repeated attempts to get anyone to pay attention to him, he was now launching a Greater London Authority “Day of Inaction”.

Mr Livingstone, speaking at the end of an all day review of the GLA’s successes held in La Gavroche, declared to the assembled throng: “It is clear that the GLA has been an unparalleled success and that we enjoy the full support of all Londoners. However, the Government and its media lackeys have completely ignored us. So, in a last ditch attempt to make the media pay attention, we are launching our Day of Inaction. Throughout the Capital, the GLA executive and all of its officers will do precisely nothing. Let us then see what these running dog of capitalist propaganda will be able to achieve without our guiding hand to oil the wheels of the legislature”

Mr Livingstone, slurring his speech with emotion and tired and exhausted from his stirring rhetoric, had to sit down but continued with his explanation. “The most senior executives will follow a route of inactivity through London’s most important administrative centres – Langan’s Brasserie, The Ivy, La Pont de la Tour and many more. We will stop at each one to declare our manifesto of militant indolence. We have been inspired by the spirit of Jarrow and will be following the example of the hunger marchers – except we will be taking taxis between each location and stopping for light refreshments at each one.”

One of Ken Livingstone’s most trenchant political allies, Helen Mirren, the actress, went on to comment: “I can’t believe the media’s biased coverage of Ken’s achievements. Of course, I’m used to it, as the media have long been against my husband, Taylor Hackford’s, films and have frequently declared them unwatchable crap when everyone in the industry understands that he is the new Francois Truffaut. But Ken is only used to adoring sycophancy from people and is increasingly distressed at the ire hurled at him. His work on transport has been outstanding. I have direct experience of how important public transport is in London. My housekeeper frequently arrives 15 minutes late at my house in the morning because of tube delays. If this continues, I’ll have to let her go which would be devastating for her as she is a Bosnian single Mother and the minimum wage really makes a difference.

Mr Livingstone, who reawoke after brief refreshing nap, finished with a rousing appeal to all Londoners “I rousingly appeal to all Londoners to join myself and the GLA in doing absolutely nothing. After all, we’ve managed to get away with it for over a year.”

Author’s note: it seems hard to believe now, but the Tories were so useless at the time that it was actually quite hard to write satire about them. Anyway, I gave it my best shot and keen observers may note a wry reference to Tony Blair’s humiliation by the good ladies of the Women’s Institute.

Life was all rather steady and certain. And then the next article I wrote was about God declaring his perfection after the 11th September, 2001

In a terse communiqué from Conservative Central HQ today, the High Council of the Presidium of the Conservative Party explained that with immediate effect the running of the Party would be taken over by a committee of unelected members’ representatives. The move was declared as a response to the recent election in which both candidates showed a complete inability to ‘organise a piss-up in brewery’. The junta has immediately interned both Iain Duncan Smith and Ken Clark announcing that both men would be charged with ‘treasonable incompetence in getting themselves elected’

The spokesman for the junta, Generalissmo Miguel Portillo declared that he was fully behind the democratic process and confident in the member’s ability to select an adequate leader, however they had been denied a suitable choice of candidate. “The election of Iain Duncan Smith is clearly against the wishes of the majority of the party, or at least the ones that support me, and it is now time to give them a proper choice” he commented.

A new election will be organised, with independent observers sent from Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party. The ballot papers will allow a choice between ‘his most gracious Highness Michael Portillo’ and ‘Someone else’. Each voter will be required to insert their name and address on the ballot paper and voters not selecting Michael Portillo will be interviewed by a Zimbabwean War Veterans focus group to help explore the voter’s choice.

The junta has immediately declared a state of martial law within the Tory Party. A media curfew has also been imposed whereby any party member mentioning the Euro, Margaret Thatcher or ‘baldy slap-head election losers’ will immediately be interned and put through a re-education programme involving repeated exposure to the speeches of Keith Joseph and a cattle prod.

Tony Blair condemned the coup stating that it undermined the democratic process and took the Conservatives from a squabbling set of bitterly opposed factions into the realms of a one-party party. “Clearly this is a dangerous move that could make the Tories considerably more electable. This can only damage the harmony in which the country currently finds itself and therefore I am immediately declaring the Conservatives illegal and any voters expressing a preference for them will be arrested as dangerous anti-government insurrectionists’.

In response, the Liberal Democrats have renamed themselves the Counter Revolutionary Forces of Socialism and Pot Smoking and reorganised as a people’s militia based at a secret jungle hideout. This is believed to be located somewhere in the tropical rainforests of the Eden Project in their West Country stronghold in Cornwall. Speaking from the hideout, Charles Kennedy, wearing combat trousers and a bandanna stated that the CRFSPS would launch skirmishes against both the Government and Tory Party by deploying members of the Women’s Institute to ‘ask difficult questions’ and training an elite squad of suicide jam makers.

Michael Portillo meanwhile has appealed for calm and promised a peaceful transition to the new regime. “After all” he commented “no one noticed us in the last election so who’s going to pay any attention now?”

Author’s note: Ken Livingstone was a regular source of fun for the Brains Trust. I can’t remember what prombted this News In Brief article, but it is fairly typical of its type

After several legal setbacks in recent weeks, Ken Livingstone has at last triumphed in the High Court by successfully suing himself. His Mayoral Highness, Mr. Livingstone bought the case against himself for ‘failing to do anything at all as Lord Mayor except ponce about with a load of actresses, models and It Girls’ he also asked for his ‘excessive lunchtime spending and profligate use of taxis’ to be taken into consideration. The Court immediately pronounced him guilty of all charges and sentenced him to a three month restraining order from The Ivy, La Gavroche and Langhams Brasserie. A smiling Mr. Livingstone announced that he was happy that at last the British Justice system had recognised his right to ‘sue whoever he damn well pleased’. Commenting on the sentence, he felt that although it was harsh he believed he would be able to overcome the hardship by putting in plans for a delivery service from the proscribed eateries. Mr Livingstone went on to deny that this was all a huge publicity stunt designed to make him look like he had actually achieved something and announced that he had also instituted proceedings against Jeffery Archer for failing to keep a dinner appointment last week.

Author’s note: It seems hard to remember now, but this was a time when the Conservatives looked like they might never win another election and worked very hard to ensure they wouldn’t by choosing a man whose initials sounded like an inflammation of the lower intestine as its leader.

A fun fact: the Editor at the time was Robert Khan, whose job required him to be at the Houses of Parliament a lot. So we both attended the night IDS was elected as leader. We can be seen in the background of a Sky News report pretending to fight. We also had our dinner table hijacked by Andrew Neil, who, it must be said, was very charming and completely unaware that we stiffed him with our bill.

The Conservative Party announced that after an extensive review period on the ethics of stem cell research and genetic manipulation that they were now ramping up for ‘electoral scale’ cloning.

A party spokesman explained that the original plan was conceived when it became obvious during the current leadership debacle that the only two seriously electable contenders – Michael Portillo and Kenneth Clarke – would not be acceptable to the party membership. It was felt that cloning could offer a mechanism for creating the perfect candidate. A process was then put in place to canvas opinion and create the perfect candidate. The result – Mr. Iain Duncan Smith – was a combination of all of the expressed preferences of the poll. The results showed a predilection for Margaret Thatcher’s piercing blue eyes, William Hague’s hairline and the raving right-wing policies of Enoch Powell. It is thought that the production of the clone explains why no-one had heard of Iain Duncan Smith until three weeks ago.

The party spokesman, Mr Iain Duncan Hague, went on to explain “Unfortunately, recent research has indicated that not only haven’t we got a chance of winning the next election but also no one who isn’t a Conservative actually likes Iain Duncan Smith. We therefore decided that the only solution is to start cloning Conservative Party members until we outnumber the electorate.”

The Tories spokesperson on ethics, Mr Enoch Thatcher, went on to explain that the decision had not been taken lightly. “We have carefully considered this delicate and contentious issue. We realise that this is an area that impacts vast areas of moral and ethical debate. But then we looked at how few votes we got last time and decided to say ‘Bugger it’, lets get the production line rolling.”

The party Chairperson, Ms Margaret Powell, denied that this would move the Conservatives away from being an inclusive party supporting a variety of different viewpoints. “We will have as many different viewpoints as we have always had within the Conservatives – ie one, which is to get us back in power where we belong as quickly as possible”

Alarmed supporters of Michael Portillo and Kenneth Clark have immediately set about their own research programmes, however the initial model – a swaggering, cigar smoking transvestite with a penchant for bullfighting – is said to be ‘disappointing’.

After the announcement a media furore immediately erupted with the Daily Mirror predicting a world overrun with “Toryautomotons” and a ‘Planet of the Apes’ style crushing of the human race which would be subjugated my the Evil Tory Overlords. “I bet we’ll even end up with Charlton Heston discovering the Millenium Dome at the end” commented Piers Morgan, the paper’s Editor, from the top of a smoking model of a destroyed London entitled “ToryWorld” which the paper had constructed for a photo shoot. New Scientist, however, believed that the cloning may actually be counter-productive with the clones being imperfect copies of the originals. Leading geneticist Professor Hugo Z Hackenbush mused “On the other hand most hereditary Tories are the result of years of inbreeding anyway, so you probably wouldn’t notice a couple of extra ear-lobes or a major mental disorder”

On being asked for his opinion, The Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, shimmered from on high outside Downing Street in a robe of whitest white and proclaimed, “Verily a plague of Tories shall be cast over the land and Babylon the Mother of all Harlots and Abominations of the Earth who shall be known as ‘Thatcher, Thatcher the Free Milk Snatcher’ shall return and and there shall be wailing and grinding of teeth” On being asked whether the Labour Party would ever resort to cloning Mr. Blair and his entire cabinet adopted the same beatific smile, shook there heads in unison and said simultaneously “No, how could you think such a thing?”

Author’s note: Northern Ireland still managed to occupy a large portion of politicians time, and this was a musing on how specific words become an essential part of the euphemistic lexicon in all conflict resolution. I think that another author, Al Napp, and I had an identical idea and this was a combination of my article and his.

Politicians from all sides of the political debate welcomed the last minute agreement on language use in Northern Ireland today. The agreement, which covers all areas of euphemism, cliché and cant, is a first of it’s kind and is being eagerly studied by other peace-keeping initiatives around the World.

In an historic move, the phrases “Historic Move”, “Extremely Sceptical”, “Significant Step” and “Demand Clarification” are to be put beyond reasonable use. Furthermore, euphemisms such as “Armed Struggle”, “Collateral Damage” and “Freedom Fighters” must immediately be replaced by “Murdering people”, “Murdering innocent people” and “Psychopathic Mass Murderers” respectively.

In a desperate attempt to get both sides actually debating, it is thought that General John de Chastelain, the decommissioning chief, will be issued a cardboard tube and will proceed to “Bop over the head” anyone caught mouthing platitudes and clichés rather than actually discussing the problem.

Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, said the announcement was “A hugely historic step on the road to ending the armed struggle of the Irish Freedom Fighters. Ow! What the Hell did you do that for?” as General de Chastelain walked away from him brandishing the centre of a roll of ‘Moppets’ kitchen tissue.

As interest in the approach around the world increased, it is believed that General Colin Powell is already working on a similar agreement for use in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Phrases such as “Active self defence” will become “Kill all Palestinians, including children”, “Political activists” will become “Wild-eyed gun wielding Muslim fundamentalists” and “Armed stone throwing insurrectionists” will become “Children lobbing rocks at us, whom we will shoot”.

Within Northern Ireland itself, although the pro-Good Friday agreement parties have all signed up to the treaty, the DUP has immediately rejected it. Ian Paisley is thought to be particularly unhappy with the clauses related to shouting and the decibel levels of delivery. “This is a typical papist trick to try and muffle the honest cries of the mighty numbers of true Unionist yeomen” he bawled from a megaphone outside Stormount to a crowd consisting of his son, daughter and a man who was trying to ask the way to the airport.

Journalists have expressed surprise at another part of the treaty which re-imposes voiceovers on spokespeople for political groups. Previously, the voices of well-known figures such as Gerry Adams could not be used on the British Media and their voices were mimicked by actors. It is now recognised that all politicians spend far too much time talking to the media and this is distracting them from talking to each other. To try and discourage this, all Northern Irish politicians will now be voiced over by well-known cartoon characters: David Trimble will be Mickey Mouse, Martin McGuinness will be Woody Woodpecker and Ian Paisley will be Road Runner and only ever permitted to utter the phrase “Beep-Beep”

Asked for his comments on the agreement, Gerry Adams would only say, “A-tha, a-tha, a-tha, a-tha, a-tha, a-tha, a-tha, a-that’s all folks!”

Author’s note: the poor old Queen Mum was rushed into hospital for a blood transfusion and I ended up writing this. Deary me.

In a brief statement today, Buckingham Palace confirmed that the recent blood transfusion for the Queen Mother was not because she had anaemia but because she was one of the undead. The statement explained “Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother has been exhibiting vampirical tendencies for some time and her recent excessive exposure to the sun had necessitated the emergency infusion of fresh blood to ensure that she remains her usual fragrant self”

Commenting on the announcement, royal watcher and vampire expert Count Vladimir Z Hackenbush explained: “Up until now, it was felt that descriptions of the Royal Family as a bunch of blood-sucking leeches were a metaphorical excess but this shows that this isn’t the case. Her Majesty has a close association with the East European royal bloodlines related to vampirism and has recently exhibited all the classic symptoms of a vampire – great age, bad teeth and a propensity for living in ostentatious castles and wearing ludicrous fancy dress”

Sources close to the Royal Family were reported to be less sanguine. A royal equerry, who declined to be named, claimed “It’s been a complete pain. She just spends her evenings flapping around the Palace biting the corgis and abusing the footmen”

The transformation of the Queen Mother from harmless old crone to Horror Empress is thought to be part of a re-branding exercise currently being carried out by the Royal Family. Work with focus groups has suggested that the public tends to associate royal titles with characters from the horror genre. The Royal Family has been encouraged to move into this space. It is widely anticipated that the next announcement will be that Prince Philip has been re-branded as ‘Prince Lupus – the reverse Werewolf’ – who spends his entire life snarling at people and assaulting women except when there’s a full moon and he becomes a charming sophisticate.

Some other attempts in the re-branding exercise have been less successful, however. The move to resurrect the Princess of Wales as ‘Diana – Queen of the Night’ met with disastrous consequences. A mysterious figure known only as Prince Charles commented “Prince Andrew tried to launch an SAS style raid on Diana Island in the Althorp Estate to get her back but unfortunately he only ended up bagging a brace of duck. We eventually persuaded Earl Spencer to exhume her by offering him a job at Prince Edward’s media company. We then employed a little known doctor from a private Swiss clinic – Herr Doctor Baron Frankenstein – to reanimate her. He managed to get her going again but she looked a right state. And she was never that bright when she was alive but this time she could barely string a sentence together. Her re-launch at a ‘Child Victims of HIV’ Royal Garden party was a catastrophe – she kept popping out of the hedges, groaning and chucking the AIDS victims in the duck pond.”

An official spokesman for the Royal Family denied the re-branding effort and simply commented as the sun set, “Ah, the Children of the Night. What music they make” before biting a passing tourist and flitting off into the dark.

Author’s note: Yes, well, hmmm. This was obviously a response to the Brass Eye Paedogeddon episode and an attempt to point out the massive hypocrisy of a number of its critics. It is somewhat unbalanced between humour and anger, however.

Paedophile groups from across Britain joined together today to condemn Chris Morris’ Brass Eye investigation. “It was a disgusting attack on us” claimed Eric Grope of the paedophile rights group ‘Deflower’ “It made us look like a bunch of perverts”

‘Deflower’ issued a strongly worded attack on the Channel 4 programme. “It purported to be an investigative documentary and was little more than a thinly veiled attack on the rights of a minority group. We were particularly concerned with one of the images that showed an infant injecting itself using a hypodermic syringe. We abhor the use of recreational drugs and only ever use mild sedatives to calm our victims – I mean willing participants. For many years, we have been seeking to inform and convert the public to our beliefs through the use of the popular media such as pop videos and the tabloid press. We believe that this has set back our public education campaign by years.”

The News of the World came out strongly against the show “This programme is one of the vilest examples of victimisation of a minority group that we have ever seen. Our own lovely 16 year old Carmen Bambooza has formed a one-woman protest group to demand an apology from Channel 4. See her stripped and ready for action on pages 3 to 12. Show your own support by phoning in for a one-to-one chat with Carmen and her ‘barely legal’ pals and enjoy a protest group grope.

The Daily Mail also condemned the brutality of the Channel 4 documentary and issued an editorial calling for understanding and tolerance of paedophiles: “In a God fearing society is it too much to ask that we live and let live? Should we not let people be treated with dignity and compassion. The savagery of this programme was terrible – it suggested the torturing and execution of paedophiles. Chris Morris is the lowest form of scum. He is the spawn of the Devil. He should be kicked to death and then burnt in front of his wife and children.”

MP’s also lined up to complain. “Although I don’t own a television and have never heard of Chris Morris I abhor this programme. However, I’m particularly grateful to him for giving me the opportunity to spout off a load of hypocrisy and cant at a slack time of year for us politicians.” explained Nicholas Winterton, Conservative spokesman for decency, sodomy and flogging

The BBC denied opportunism in sponsoring its ‘Lower It!’ campaign to lower the age of consent. The ‘Lower It!’ TV special will feature 8 hours of top comedy stars, pop groups and television personalities promoting sex with a younger audience. “Lets face it” declared Seb T of Boy Band C’rap “Most people in this industry are shagging underage girls so we might as well admit it and make it legal”. The programme will also feature a 24 hour Fuckathon from Spain where the age of consent is 14. In this celebrity challenge a number of well known pop-stars will attempt to have sex with as many 14 year olds as possible. “I can’t wait” oozed an enthusiastic Greg Dyke “Many of my friends have teenage daughters and it’s about time it was acceptable in polite society to be able to goose them and not be thought of as some sort of pervert.”

Chris Morris stubbornly refused to comment from the lamppost from which he has been hanging for the last three days. His children were also unavailable from within the large pyre outside their house to which they were last seen being escorted by local members of the Neighbourhood Watch scheme.

Author’s note: Another from the News in Brief section of the Brains Trust. I loved writing NIBS- you could get your point across quickly and bugger off. This, I think, is a particularly fine example.

Railtrack CEO Steve Marshall today announced massive new investment by Railtrack in the pay packages of their senior executives. “This is an exciting and forward looking proposal that we believe will deliver real benefits to a tiny number of criminally under rewarded people” he enthused. “We have commissioned a review of FTSE 100 executive pay by a top research analyst – Bobo the Monkey from Billy Smart’s Circus – and then ignored his suggestion that we were hugely overpaid and that he could do a better job for a couple of bananas and a tin drum. Instead, we’ve gone for a radical plan that involves doubling our salaries on a six-monthly basis until we are sacked or killed in a train crash – the latter being very unlikely as we never travel on the train. I admit that this is a long-term plan and the results of it will take a couple of years to become evident. However, over that period, the public can expect to see several new swimming pools, a much larger number of offshore bank accounts and a selection of new or extensively refurbished wives on the arms of our executive team.” Asked about investment in track, Mr. Marshall replied “In what? Oh, right, yes. We have identified a new lower cost supplier of track – Hornby – who have assured us that they can provide a complete new infrastructure for around 300 quid. At those prices we might even be able to afford to chuck in a couple of new signals.”

Author’s note: Another article from the News in Brief section of the Brains Trust. A silly piece of whimsy, that is obviously massively insulting to Belgium, but given that they forgot to have a government for several years, it’s probably fair enough. This contains one of my favourite things: the Belgian Eurovision song entry “Boom-bang-a-bang, buy-me-a-beer”. Also Belgian Premier Guy Thingamebob

Furious Belgians demanded an immediate apology from the EU today as it emerged that they had been overlooked in the EU Presidency round and the role had gone straight from Sweden to Spain. “We completely forgot about them,” admitted an embarrassed Romano Prodi. “What’s so terrible is that I had written their name on a whole load of Post-It notes and stuck them all round my office specifically to avoid this sort of thing. The problem is, they’re just too boring. I simply assumed they’d done the job for 6 months and I’d slept through it.” Belgian Premier Guy Thingamebob fumed “It’s an outrage. We had prepared an EU extravaganza to celebrate the role. We had booked a couple of fireworks, some kiddie-porn videos and fifteen billion litres of beer. And I’ve no idea what we’re going to do with all that mayonnaise”

Professor of European Studies at Oxford University, Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush, commented. “This sort of thing was bound to happen eventually. My suggestion is that they change the election rules and use the results of the Eurovision song contest to decide the premiership, although Belgium’s last entry ‘Boom-bang-a-bang, buy-me-a-beer’ scored zero points so it wouldn’t have helped them much in this case.”

Belgium is expected to launch formal complaint to the EU as soon as they can wake someone up.