Hypochondriac wins The Great British Ache Off

NEXT YEAR’S NEWS TODAY (2)

JULY: Halfway through the 3,745th round of Brexit talks, officials discover that both sides have fallen asleep around the table.

‘This is a cause for very real optimism,’ says leading Brexit campaigner, former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith on BBC Question Time. ‘The more we can force everyone into having a jolly good snooze, the better it must surely be for this country.’

Saying, ‘Let me recap, if I may’, Mr Duncan Smith went on to list the ‘ innumerable’ benefits that would come with Brexit.

When he had finished speaking, viewers noted that three other panellists were fast asleep, while the Chairman, David Dimbleby, ever the professional, could be seen pinching himself and splashing water from his glass straight onto his eyes.

In response to this almost universal narcolepsy, the UK withdrawal from the EU is to be renamed Brexzzzzzzzit.

Meanwhile, the IBO (Institute of the Bleeding Obvious) has discovered a direct link between eating food and weight-gain. ‘It’s something we’ve long suspected,’ says IBO spokesman Geoffrey Bland, ‘but we now have firm proof that stuffing yourself full of cream buns for months on end may, in certain cases, lead to an increase in weight.’

AUGUST: Apple unveil their new iPhonerazor. Billed as ‘the new all- in- one answer to all your phoningand-shaving problems’, its state-of-the-art digital technology allows you to phone and shave all at the same time, thus saving valuable minutes for extra shopping and networking.

This follows other innovations from Apple, including iPhonespray, which offers the owner the chance to hold the phone above his or her head and employ it as a shower.

The year’s greatest success so far has been iPhonebanter. Targeted primarily at the sulky teenage market, it provides parent-andfamily-based conversation in the user’s own voice, thus allowing adolescents the ability to continue browsing Facebook and texting free from interruption.

SEPTEMBER: A man has been arrested after admitting making a marriage proposal to a single woman. ‘We’d known each other for at least a year, and we clearly liked each other, so I asked her to marry me,’ the man says in court.

‘But I now realise that this was inappropriate behaviour, amounting to a terrible error of judgment.’ The woman is undergoing trauma counselling. Only two other proposals of marriage have been perpetrated this year: both offenders have been convicted and are presently awaiting sentence.

Elsewhere in the UK, a man is being held in custody after being caught watching an old Benny Hill show. It is believed that over 200 Donald McGill postcards were found in his home. ‘I feel bitterly ashamed,’ he told magistrates.

OCTOBER: Following the success of The Great British Bake Off, a host of copy- cat series are being broadcast. These include The Great British Ache Off, in which contestants compete for the title of Hypochondriac Of The Year; The Great British Take Off, in which teams of comedians attempt to impersonate President Trump; the Great British Rake Off, with agents and auctioneers competing for the biggest percentage; and The Great British Fake Cough, hosted by Major Charles Ingram.

NOVEMBER : According to the Office for National Statistics, there are now more cookery books in the UK than there are people who cook. ‘People like to read cookery books while eating their takeaways and ovenready dishes from the supermarket,’ says the Director of the Institute. ‘It’s a form of nostalgia for an age gone by.’

Meanwhile, motoring experts at the IBO (Institute of the Bleeding Obvious) have issued a warning to motorists of the ‘very real’ dangers involved in attempting to cross a river in the absence of a bridge.

‘Tests have shown that cars crossing wide stretches of deep water without a bridge in sight invariably end up under water. This can prove damaging to the car, and potentially fatal for the motorist.

‘A good way of telling if you are under water is to look out for telltale signs of water coming through the window.’

DECEMBER: There is unrest in the Australian jungle on I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!’ Sick of having to deal with creepy-crawlies, stick insects and preying reptiles, a group of jungle animals protests to the series producers about the invasion of minor celebrities of whom they’ve never heard.

‘It was bad enough having to listen to their incessant babble,’ says a disenchanted cockroach, ‘but then I found my back legs being chewed up by a semi-finalist from last year’s X Factor.’