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Orphaned baby llama befriends orphaned baby walrus: five uplifting news stories we just made up

NEED a boost? These touching stories of human heroism, animal friendship and insect ingenuity invented on the spot should do the trick: 

Orphaned baby llama befriends orphaned baby walrus

When Lima the baby llama lost his mother in a landslide, a couple on a trekking holiday adopted him and took him back to their native Canada where he struck up an friendship with a fellow adorable orphan, Winnipeg the walrus. The inseparable pair enjoy sunbathing on rocks together and spitting on humans. So darn cute!

American child sets up lemonade stand for her mum’s surgery

Inspirational teen Sophie Rodriguez wasn’t allowed to go out to work due to restrictive child labour laws, so instead she set up a popular lemonade stand to raise money for her mother’s urgent care. Her whole community rallied round and she’d soon made $2.2 million, enough to cover the surgery and pay her college education upfront. Nice going, Sophie.

Hero cat saves baby from a burning building

Snuffles the tabby will be getting extra Whiskas tonight after he selflessly dived into a burning building to rescue a two-year-old. The baby’s mother then adopted the stray and rebuilt their home after selling the film rights. Now Snuffles and the family live in the lap of luxury and maintain their own private fire service.

Wasp does thousand laps of living room for charity

A local wasp has emulated Captain Tom’s fundraising heroism by circling a living room a thousand times. Ignoring open windows and flapping arms, Norman Steele the wasp has inspired Britain and raised £310,000 to be split between the NHS, Great Ormond Street Hospital and wasp charities. Godspeed Norman, you stripy legend.

Couple who’ve been together for seventy years learn TikTok dance

A couple in their 90s – he’s a WWII veteran, she worked with NASA – have warmed millions of cockles by participating in a viral TikTok dance and sharing the results online. Joseph Turner and his wife Mary learned the choreography for ‘The Bitch Slap’ from their great-great-granddaughter, Lauren Hewitt, a vet who makes prosthetic limbs for injured puppies. Tissues, anyone?

Gary Neville's post-match analysis of armed insurrections and military coups

AS football punditry’s Che Guevara, it’s not just revolutions at Old Trafford that get my backing. Check out my post-game analysis of these world events: 

The Cuban Revolution, 1958

You have to hand it to the Castros there, they’ve played an absolute blinder. For a while I’ve been warning that the Batista government was there for the taking because it’s become complacent that US backing made it unbeatable. There’ll be some red faces on the CIA bus home tonight.

The fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989

You can’t just set up defensively and unimaginatively and expect to take something away no matter how good you are, and that’s what these East German lads are discovering now. Park the bus for 38 years, but all it takes is one opening and the whole thing crumbles. Sympathy to the boy Erich Honecker but once you’ve lost the dressing room.

The storming of the US Capitol, 2021

Disgraceful organisation. Where are the tactics? You get behind their press and you’re milling about looking for someone to take the lead like Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle. If it needed proving that far-right politics simply don’t have the conviction to secure a win, then it’s right here. Communism all the way for me.

The failed Jeremy Corbyn leadership coup, 2016

You can’t launch a coup attempt and then have Owen Smith playing up front. The lad would struggle in the Championship. Corbyn may be old, but he’s got that extra half-a-yard in his head. Useless in attack though.

Jose Mourinho, Real Madrid 2013, Chelsea 2015, Man United 2018, Spurs 2021

It’s been coup after coup for this autocrat, proving that erratic ego-led dictatorship has had its day. Time after time we see the people come together and rise up as one demanding the toppling of the old regime. Should be tried for his crimes in The Hague.

The Russian Revolution, 1917

Now this is absolute class from Lenin and his squad. Sweeping in, overthrowing the corrupt Tsarist regime, just mercilessly extinguishing that whole Royal line, abolishing private property, giving the workers full control of the means of production. Textbook. That’s what we want to see, except at Salford FC which I own with my millionare mates.

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