That Sinking Feeling

With reports claiming that the desperate inhabitants of Cornwall - cut off from the rest of the UK since the severe storms battering Britain destroyed rail links into the county and flooded road links - have been forced to turn to cannibalism in order to survive, Britain's media has been accused of over-dramatizing the current weather crisis.  "Nobody has eaten anyone else," Truro councillor Adrian Pockles claimed in a call to BBC Radio Five Live.  "If you were to believe the press, we've all reverted to a state of savagery here, just because of some gales and torrential rain!  It's all nonsense!"  Despite the councillor's protestations, the press has continued to allege that civilisation has broken down completely in Britain's most westerly county.   "Not only do we stand by our earlier reports, but we've now learned that the natives are engaging in wild pagan rites down there," declares Eddie Rippass, West of England correspondent of popular tabloid the Daily Norks.  "Apparently, they are all running around stark naked down there in the pouring rain, their bodies smeared with woad, worshipping idols of King Neptune in the belief that these storms are the result of mankind having angered this mythical sea god!  It seems that they are preparing a mass human sacrifice of virgins in order to appease him!  Believe me - this is a foretaste of the chaos which will engulf the entire country if the government doesn't get a grip on these floods!"

Haunted by the prospect of cannibalism in the Home Counties and obscene pagan rites in a flooded Thames Valley, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has moved quickly to try and assuage public concerns that the government has failed to take the situation seriously, apologising for his administration's failures and promising to take decisive action - starting with using his gargantuan arse to breach the break in Dawlish's sea wall in order to allow the mainline from London to reopen.  Pickles has announced further initiatives to alleviate the threat of flooding in Berkshire and Surrey, where hundreds of homes in traditionally Tory-voting areas are currently under threat from rising waters.  "Even as we speak, I've authorised teams of engineers to set up powerful pumps and a new network of drainage channels, designed to divert the encroaching waters from the houses of these hard-working, middle class, people, and divert them to the inadequate drainage systems of inner city housing estates in Reading, Staines and West London," he told a press conference.  "After all, we're all in this weather together and it is only fair that the flooding should be shared by those not living anywhere near a flood plain or river.  This move will also minimise damage and cut insurance claims - the sort of people living on these estates won't have anything like the sort of valuable possessions middle class people have and most of them probably can't afford home insurance.  Besides, they're never likely to vote for us, anyway, so if a few of them drown or die of water-borne diseases, all the better."