Dolphins reject human status

SCIENTISTS hoping to give dolphins the same rights as humans have been told to button it by the creatures themselves.

Human experts in philosophy, animal behaviour and understanding Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy met in Vancouver last night to decide which animals had earned equal status to the species that gave the world Robert Mugabe and Justin Lee Collins.

The group’s conclusion that dolphins should be considered equivalent to homo sapiens met with a fierce chorus of squeaks and clicks from the coastline near the conference centre, with several windows being broken by large multicoloured balls.

Tom Logan, a four-year-old bottlenose dolphin from the Atlantic Ocean, said: “While we’re very flattered you think we rank alongside the cast of Glee we’d much rather carry on being considered as those smiling fish terminally-ill people swim with.

“I caught an episode of Geordie Shore the other week, while my cousin recently swam past Magaluf on a Friday evening and based on that evidence I think I speak for us all in saying we’d rather take our chances with the three-mile drift nets, cheers.”

Logan also requested that the existing payment ratio of fish-to-somersaults should not be affected by the UK government’s Workfare scheme.

Logan’s fellow pod member Nikki Hollis said: “Just leave us alone to eat as much fatty mackerel as we like without a GP telling us off, and to swim fast and free in open waters without getting a £75 fine.”

The female added: “I was born a dolphin and I’ll die a dolphin, probably because some fisherman has shot a harpoon through my blowhole, but better that than I end up crammed into a Piccadilly Line train in rush hour, staring gloomily at a Kindle.”

 

 

Pickles told to come up with something not involving food

TUCK-LOVING Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has been severely reprimanded after unveiling yet another grub-based ‘cohesion strategy’.

The Big Lunch, an event in which everyone basically brings Eric Pickles sandwiches and cake, follows his recent announcement of a special school for makers of delicious curries, where he will be ‘taster of honour’.

The word ‘PICKLES!’ reverberated around the corridors of parliament yesterday as David Cameron angrily summoned the minister, whose less-cunning-than-he-thinks schemes often have unexpected comedy consequences.

Coalition advisor Nikki Hollis said: “When David Cameron saw the brief for The Big Lunch, which was pitched as ‘everyone comes to Eric’s garden with lots of scrummy cakes and pies’, steam practically came out of his ears.

“Eric had even absent-mindedly scribbled the word ‘yum’ in biro on the bottom of the document, probably without realising.”

In his nebulous role as Communities Secretary, Eric has yet to come up with anything that doesn’t in some way involve pastry, gravy or treacle.

Hollis said: “This is just the latest in a long line of food-based concepts from Eric, such as ‘Custard in the Community’, ‘Give Your Communities Secretary A Biscuit’ and a plan for a giant pie that symbolises diversity by incorporating every type of meat.”