It wasn’t intentional that this post would be published in the wake of 2016, undoubtedly the most mad year any of us have ever experienced. In actual fact I’d been working on it for nearly eight months, never at any point anticipating a specific release date. That’s because, dear readers (Mike, James, Alex, Dan, Myself and HandJob Magazine), this new one ain’t like the others! On May 4th of last year I decided that, as opposed to my usual half-baked ramblings that are actually much less entertaining when I go back and read them again a year later, I would write a satire article. That’s write(eyy ive started already), a painstakingly honed “piece”, taking, and forgive me if you aren’t familiar with this phrase, a sideways glance at the year’s events. That’s not something you can bash out in one writing session without prooffreading it. So I’d like to end my first paragraph with a hats-off to all the hard working satirists out there- but a funny hat! With a spring and a fish on it

So without further ado, let’s kick off the satire article, exploring with our critical but also able-to-see-the-funny-side-of-things eye every nook and crannie of the biggest events since Brexit (the satire for the most part starts here) so this last year has seen loads of deaths; pretty sure that’s down to God punishing the electorate for all their bad decisions this year!

Just to let you know how this “sarticle” will work– there will be a number of hilarious headlines (“headlines”) that will be followed by a FAKE news story. These stories are FAKE, people. They’re a work of fiction, and satire. BEWARE: I will occasionally be saying things that I don’t agree with in order to make a humorous comment. I may also try to get across a political point but with humour. It’s been scientifically proven that laughing isn’t useful unless there’s some kind of serious point to it. For these reasons, some absolute jokes that could be construed as real things will be highlighted in bold, (that just there wasn’t a joke) and if anything offends or confuses please let me know in the comments and I’ll get rid of it next time I’m on a computer.

So here is the first of my humorous headlines:

Non-Voters Decide To Stop Breathing As A Protest Against Polluted Air

During and since the EU referendum there has been a trend of people who, instead of trying to take small steps towards a better future, decide to opt out entirely. One spokeswoman for the movement, Imma Twatt, proclaimed “We thought that the best way to change the world was to not do anything. That’s worked well good in the past. I think that our next attempt at making things better will be by standing by and not saying anything when Trump and Farage round up all the immigrants and muslims into camps. Please give us some attention when we do this. Daddy never loved me”.*

That’s worked well good in the past.

SERIOUS: Considering the outcome of the referendum, it’s kinda obvious that some people shouldn’t be allowed to fucking vote. (But not those previously discussed who don’t want to vote. get out there and bloody vote people). It seems that some Briton’s stubby neanderthal fingers managed to tick the wrong bloody box and now we’re going from being governed by a bunch of unelected “madmen” to- oh, guess what? Being governed by an unelected madWOman!**

Trump To Build Wall In Between America And Its Civil Rights Movements

It has come to light that Donald J Trump has issued the construction of a wall to cut America off from its many positive civil rights movements of the 20th century. This particular Hilarious Headline has little further traction; it’s moderately funny in and of itself but the article that follows would probably end up being really short and not really add anything laughable or of any thoughtful substance to the initial concept. Sorry about this. I know this isn’t something that you would have been at all familiar with on satire news websites, so I thought the best thing to do would be just to confess my shortfalls to you straight up instead of trying too hard and having the idea flaccidly peter out without any kind of guilty conscience or feelings of melting artistic integrity, or at least an admission to myself that my writing had become lazy and passionless, especially if I was getting paid for this by Newsthump or The Onion or such, sites that have rejected me in the past.

Post-Truth: Privatising The Royal Mail***

I’m surprised that the tories haven’t privatised their own legs, considering they’re meant to be free and are somewhat useful! Boris Johnson has spent his entire career trying to rise to a sort of pop-star status to hide the dusty, evil bastard that he truly is– but unlike Jack Johnson, Boris’ instrument of choice would be the lyre. (rhymes with liar, also archaic and outdated). Meanwhile Farage gives a classic politician’s answer at every opportunity; he couldn’t even explain how to pronounce his own surname without being vague and purposefully misleading. I myself say garage when I’m talking about where to get your car serviced, garage when referring to the bit on the side of your house, and I never even use the pronunciation garage, even though that’s closest to how I say Farage! Like the £350 million a week that we would apparently save by leaving the European Union, the correct pronunciation of Farage continues to hide in the shadows.

However you pronounce garage

So there you have it, people. My first, and I’m sure not only, satire article. Share, subscribe, and be sure to comment below with your opinions and suggestions for perhaps another subject for me to satirise. Bear in mind, though, that they take a while to write. Comedy’s an art. It’s not the kind of mundane drudgery that people just shit out once a week for a bit of cash. That just isn’t how satirists treat their own trade. It just doesn’t happen.

In order to stop the inevitable backlash of haters, considering some of the close-to-the-bone comedy that I’ve employed here this week, I’ve included an I-think-much-needed REALITY CHECK section below to quell any confusion, upset or conflict :). If any of the contents here has disturbed you please feel free to contact me on my personal number.

REALITY CHECK

*Imma Twatt is a fictional character created by me for this comic device. Note the humorous but unlikely christian name and surname.

**Theresa May’s party was elected legally by the British populous

***Post/Mail play on words