EU agrees rescue package for Nick Clegg's feelings

THE European Union last night agreed a multi-billion pound bailout of Nick Clegg’s storm-tossed emotions.

European finance ministers said the rescue package would prevent the deputy prime minister from staring out the window for hours or turning up to Parliament in his underpants with ‘help me’ scrawled across his chest in blackcurrant jam.

Under the plan each student in Britain will be paid £9000 a year to be Mr Clegg’s best friend, with bonus payments for singing him to sleep or entertaining him with a puppet show.

Britain’s newspapers will receive multi-million pound EU grants for training their journalists not to ask Mr Clegg unfriendly questions about the prime minister’s affair with News International.

And more than £300m will be spent filling the Lib Dem leader’s iPod with remastered versions of the entire Funkadelic back catalogue as a direct replacement for whatever is making him cry.

An EU spokesman said: “It’s not an exact science and we won’t know if the fiscal medicine is working until he talks to his nine year-old son.

“If the child tells him about a painting he did at school it means the situation is stabilising. But if he says ‘papa, why is a dreadlocked, middle class white man squeezing dog jobbies through the letter box?’ then it may need a second tranche of emergency funding.”

Meanwhile critics have stressed that Mr Clegg’s £135,000 salary, chauffeur-driven Jaguar and rent free 115-room mansion in Kent should be more than enough to help him cope with being called a dick by some fucking students.

 

 

Your problems solved, with Holly Harper

Dear Holly,
My job requires me to work away a lot
of the time, which means my wife often has to spend evenings and
weekends alone, and this makes me feel terribly guilty. Thankfully,
she has struck up a friendship with the gentleman next door. Ted is a
kindly soul, being selfless enough to allow my wife to cook his
dinner of an evening and keep her company with a glass of wine. He’s
even been good enough to share our marital bed at night, because she
says would have terrible nightmares otherwise. I thought everything
was going just fine, but having just arrived home I’ve discovered
Ted’s car in the drive and my key won’t work in the lock. When I
looked in the window, I could see Ted’s slippers by the fire, and he
appears to feature quite heavily in a set of family portraits on the
wall. Obviously there’s an innocent explanation to all this, but as
they won’t answer the door to me I remain slightly perplexed. Can you
offer any advice?
Larry,
Chiswick

Dear Larry,
Sometimes it is possible to trust a
person too much. You’re a bit like Mrs Jolly, a supply teacher we
once had. Mrs Jolly was fat and wore a poncho and wacky spectacles.
She was one of that rare breed of teachers who still have faith in
humanity. Or at least she did. For some reason, Mrs Jolly liked to
communicate with us via a hand puppet duck called Huggles, and be all
radical about stuff. Instead of the usual curriculum, Mrs Jolly made
us do stupid activities like sing the calypso version of the Lord’s
Prayer while she played guitar and rocked back and forth like a
moron. Instead of maths, we had to do an interpretive dance about the
rainforest, and rather than teach us about the Water Cycle, she
decided to let Huggles read us a poem about multiculturalism.
Unfortunately, Mrs Jolly thought it wise to leave us alone for ten
minutes with Huggles while she went to get a coffee. I don’t think
she minded so much about the poster paint in her handbag, but
Huggles’ mutilation hit her very hard and we all felt a little bit
guilty after she’d been taken away by Mrs Murphy. What this should
teach you is don’t be a hippy freak, and don’t trust people who don’t
deserve your trust. Sadly, it’s too late for you and Huggles, but
perhaps you’ll remember next time.
Hope that helps!
Holly