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Reluctant locals forced to participate in cheese rolling

UNWILLING Gloucestershire residents have been made to chase a wheel of cheese down a hill by Londoners wanting to see authentic rural life.

To the chagrin of the locals, they were forced to recreate their proud tradition of risking life and limb running down a near-vertical gradient in pursuit of cheese for the amusement of weekend visitors.

Tom Logan of Stroud said: “We don’t actually do stuff like this any more. I’m an IT consultant.

“If I need cheese I just go to Tesco. Even a really big cheese doesn’t excite me to the point where I’d be willing to break an ankle.

“But they said we had to, and they’re rich, and if they sold up property values round here would collapse, so we all chased a cheese down a hill and my solicitor’s fractured two vertebrae.”

Futures trader Julian Cook said: “It’s so wonderful that they keep these traditions alive so we can turn up and feel vastly superior to them.

“Come on, I hear in the next county over they do bog-snorkelling.”

Capitalists warn houses may become affordable to ordinary people

ECONOMISTS have warned Britain faces a doomsday scenario in which ordinary people on average wages would be able to buy their own homes.

Falling prices mean that unless urgent action is taken we could see a return to the dark days of the 1970s in which three-bedroom houses cost so little that even public sector employees could afford them.

Mary Fisher of Nationwide Building Society said, “I’m looking at the current projections and frankly, they frighten me. At this rate, even I’ll be able to get a mortgage and I’m only 37.

“If prices continue to tumble, we face seeing London towerblocks filled with actual residents who work no more than 15 minutes away. It will devastate the podcast industry.

“The only way to avert this crisis is a bail-out, pumping billions into property to keep prices high and guarantee that overseas investors get the return on their money they deserve.

“We did it for the bankers, we can do it for the property speculators. We just need to pull together and show a bit of that Dunkirk spirit.”

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