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Fairly bright 11-year-old tipped to be next chancellor

AN 11-YEAR-OLD who is top of his primary school maths class is set to replace Rachel Reeves as chancellor, he claims. 

Josh Gardner of Kirkcaldy puts his pocket money in a piggy bank, consistently gets at least 18 out of 20 on tests and sometimes counts out change with his grandfather, making him eminently qualified for the position.

A Downing Street insider said: “Keir’s come to accept he needs someone better qualified than Rachel, and Tom comes home with a ‘Maths Superstar!’ sticker every other day.

“We’ve sent Reeves to China, where she’ll discover a class of eight-year-olds is better than her at calculating tax revenues and come home humbled and ready to learn at his feet. Especially algebra, which she’s never really got the hang of.

“He’s got a radical neo-Keynesian strategy to stimulate growth and increase fluidity in the money supply by allowing inflatables in swimming pools, which will boost municipal revenues by 6,000 per cent because all his mates would definitely pay a quid.”

Gardner said: “Everyone needs a job so they’ve got money to buy stuff unlike Jack Browne in year six who wears Asda trainers and we should all throw Wotsits at until he cries.

“What? I’m really right-wing, like anyone who can add up.”

Five ways to drive yourself up the f**king wall looking up a song

GOT a song in your head but can’t remember anything concrete about it? Here’s how to drive yourself insane while trying to find it.

Google its generic lyrics

You can’t recall anything about where or when you heard the song, but you do know that someone repeatedly sang the words ‘yeah’ and rhymed ‘girl’ with ‘world’. Chucking these details into a search bar yields hundreds of thousands of results which only a broken, pathetic loser would be desperate enough to trawl through. You’d better get started.

Try to Shazam it while it’s playing

Holy shit, an advert is playing the exact song you’ve been looking for in the background. Quick, whip out your phone, unlock it, download Shazam, and try to figure out how it works before it’s over. Oh, too late. And in your flustered panic you failed to remember anything about the advert so you can’t look that up on YouTube either. Back to square one.

Describe the melody to your friend

You’ll start by describing the song to them with fancy technical terms like ‘syncopated rhythms’ and ‘discordant harmonies’ in an effort to retain some dignity. But when that inevitably fails you’ll resort to humming and whistling the melody while realising that you might be tone deaf. ‘Nope, don’t recognise it,’ your friend will say, helpfully.

Ask complete strangers on the internet

In the grip of despair you’ll resort to frequenting the comments section underneath YouTube videos and the seedy underbelly of Reddit. Trolls will sense your desperation and point you towards Sandstorm by Darude, even when you’ve politely explained that it isn’t the song you’re looking for. Having had their fun with you, they’ll hack your bank account and doxx you on the Dark Web.

Rummage through your mind palace

Having exhausted all the other options, you’ve no choice but to delve into your memories like Sherlock in that shit BBC adaptation. You won’t find the lyricless clubbing banger you heard in 2008 that you’re after, but you will find repressed thoughts about your secondary school French teacher and recollections of every embarrassing blunder you’ve ever made. So at least you’re not completely empty-handed.

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