Ex-Pats Flood To UK For The Weather

As Britain continues to bask in its typical balmy autumnal weather, thousands of immigrants from Spain, the south of France and Portugal are heading to the UK for the lifestyle and the weather.

“After Geraldo sold his business we left came to Britain, mainly for the weather really,” said Maria Billingso through an interpreter. “Obviously Spain is finished as a country now anyway, so we came to Torbay where the quality of life is so much better. Although you can't get a decent paella and the locals are quite lazy.”

Maria Billingso is one of the increasing number of ex-pats from Spain and other countries who have come to Britain for retirement. Spanish communities in many tourist hotspots are rapidly growing, although there are complaints regarding a lack of integration between the newcomers and their adopted communities.

“They come over here, they don't learn the language, walking around in their ‘Bandera de Espana’ shorts and calling everyone Dave,” said Dave, a pub landlord. “They get fuelled up on San Miguel and insist we switch the TV to La Liga matches.”

Although the ex-pats have turned their backs on their homelands, the websites of right-wing Spanish and French newspapers are filled with comments from residents of the UK who simply won’t leave the country they don’t want to live in alone.

“I don’t speak English very well, and quite often there is nothing to do but sit in the sun in England, so I like to fill my time checking onto the events back-home that actually don’t affect me anymore,” said Billingso. “I like to highlight the articles that I feel are why I left Spain and why everything in Britain is great. Then I end by telling everyone how much I miss buying mantecados from Mercadona.”

In some parts of Britain the ex-pats now out number the natives and with new developments being tailored to the visitors leisure needs, many local Britons are finding it difficult get on the property ladder.

“You look at these new places springing up, they have heating, and even running water some of them,” said one Gravesend resident. “But there is no way my kids are going to be able to afford an apartment in the new bullfighting complex, not even in that tower they are building to push donkeys off.”

It isn’t just the accommodation that is starting to concern local residents, it is the gradual shift of political and economic power in favour of the ex-pats.

“It is important that we have our voices heard in the local council so that our planning needs are reflected and that is why I am running for Mayor,” continued Maria through her interpreter. “I will of course learn English, but until then I need planning permission for a satellite dish to receive TVE as British TV is mierda.”

Audi, BMW, Porsche Announce Immediate Recall Of Key Models

As Britain slowly recovered from a dump of snow the likes of which the country had not seen for at least the last 10 months of living memory, Germany’s leading car manufacturers announced an urgent recall of their 4x4 models.

“We don’t know what is wrong with the cars, but it must be fixed immediately,” said Helmut Billingzwerk of the Deutsch Verband fur Unsozial Automobile Idioten Besitzerinnen. “Despite all our testing in Norway and the Arctic, it seems our most expensive 4x4 models were unable to deal with a bit of ice on any road near a British school.”

The German manufacturers are responding to the continuing news footage of teachers unable to drive up the road to the local school when it is snowing and being forced to abandon their cars for hours on end in the multi-storey car parks of out of town shopping centres.

“It was such a nightmare for my little girls Cheryl, Colleen and Dannii, we just could not get into school as the ice and snow made it too dangerous. I expect,” explained Emma, a Porsche Ceyenne Turbo driver from Kent. “And walking that half a mile would have ruined their Ugg boots so instead we had to take refuge in the Bluewater.”

The German manufacturers are particularly concerned about the many thousands of their customers unable to get to work due to the poor performance of their expensive cars.

“We know for a fact that many people were unable to get X5s out of their drives and up gentle inclines,” said Billinzwerk. “The Daily Mail website comments section was full of stories of those unable to get to work and it was all because of being unable to drive on the snow, apparently.”

The Confederation of British Industry said that the inclement weather meant that teachers alone were currently underpinning the recovery in the British economy and urged the DVUAIB members to remedy the failure of their 4x4s as soon as possible.

“The British motorist has invested heavily in these huge, expensive, inefficient oil burning 4x4s that take up so much of the road,” said a spokesman. “It really would not be good news to find out that they are incapable of dealing with any adverse road conditions and would make their owners feel like the total twats that they resemble.”

However not everyone gave up at the slightest appearance of snow, many people opted to make use of their always-on-broadband lifestyles to stay connected to their workplaces without leaving home.

“I took one look out of the window and saw the snowflake straightaway. I immediately phoned my boss – who was stuck on a motorway in his Audi Q7 – and told him I was going to work from home,” explained a Sussex train driver.

Fury As Icelandic Volcano Receives Payout

Following over a week of flight chaos caused by a huge cloud of ash from the erupting Eyjafjallajokull volcano there has been outrage at the settlement agreed with the enraged Icelandic resident, who many believe has held the European travelling public and airline industries to ransom.

“Forcing airlines to stop flying until your demands are reached? It's been extortion, pure and simple,” said Duncan Billingsworth of the Unite union. “That's our trick. Although hats off to that cloud of ash, we only managed to ground British Airways, not all airlines.”

The Volcano is believed to have been bought off by airlines that realised that unlike a normal weather system, a Volcano may be able to keep its disruption up for decades, forcing many airlines out of business. Some carriers have had to run disrupted flight plans on increasingly convoluted routes through Spain in a desperate attempt to get passengers to their destinations, and avoid paying expensive hotel bills.

“We have been forced to land a lot of our flights to Germany at airports in Madrid,” said a spokesman for Ryanair. “This has of course caused some disruption for Ryanair passengers trying to get to Germany as Spain is closer than we normally fly them.”

Airline manufacturers and operators across the globe have gained more information and understanding of the impact of volcanic ash on aero-engines. This has led to the re-opening of European airspace and the gradual re-uniting of thousands of whining passengers stranded overseas with their moaning families back in the UK.

“Meteorologists and volcanologists are undecided as to exactly when the skies of Britain will finally be free from the gloom of this overbearing cloud damaging the economy,” said one satirist. “Gordon Brown will be leaving office on May 6th, but the ash may linger for longer.”

Iceland has declined to comment on suspicions that following a year of economic turmoil, during which the entire country was effectively bankrupt, owing billions to international creditors, it raised some suspicions when the north Atlantic island was set on fire. Insurance experts will be scrutinising any insurance claims carefully.

Max Clifford has said that his new client, the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, will reveal the full details of its explosive blow-up in a forthcoming exclusive interview with Heat magazine.

Snow chaos – how the UK has coped with the snowflake

Expert research over the past week has revealed that the current snow chaos sweeping the land can be overcome with some ground breaking new approaches such as “wearing some boots and a scarf” and “walking a bit more slowly and carefully”.

“I remember when I was a child we sometimes used to, how did you say it? ‘Go out in the snow’ – mad! But in the last few years whenever the early morning view from my window doesn’t look normal I just phone in to say I will work from home,” said snowplough driver Herbert Billingsworth.

The media was quick to cast blame and analyse the implications for Britain and what the impact of the snow has had on local and national services across the country.

“Apparently this snow is coming across from Eastern Europe,” screamed an editorial in the Daily Express. “We want to know why it was allowed into the country and who is protecting the interests of pure white indigenous British snow?”

The government responded to the criticism by highlighting the efforts it is taking to ensure that roads, schools and public services are available during the cold snap.

“We are radically re-thinking ways to ensure that schools stay open when there is a snowflake nearby,” said a government statement. “From 2011 all new schools will be built adjacent to shopping centres, since teachers and children alike manage to get to them when the schools are closed.”

The Daily Express also noted that whilst you cannot use a finite window of several thousand years of weather data from ice-cores to prove that climate change is a real and present problem, you can use the fact it has snowed two consecutive days in January to prove that there is no such thing as “Global Warming”.

Meanwhile in other news the Association of 4x4 manufacturers have ordered an urgent investigation into the designs of the leading models.

“We have sold millions of four wheel drive vehicles and yet look at the roads,” said a spokesman. “We test them in the Arctic reaches of Norway and on the dunes of the Sahara, yet look at this flat bit of road near a school, not one has managed to get here.”

The roads were not the only problem with the railways, of course, being completely incapable of operating near the snowflake.

“Well to be honest we were caught out by the snowflake which was of the wrong kind,” said a spokesman for Eurostar. “We were expecting a type called 'White Dust' but apparently this stuff is a kind known by its scientific name of 'train-knobber'.”

British economy saved by teachers' mid-week shopping

Today the CBI commended members of the teaching profession for single-handedly turning around the ailing retail economy leading to one of the best start to February in recent years.

"The keenness with which thousands of Head Teachers up and down the land are able to seek out a snowflake and the speed with which they can close a school has brought a welcome boost to the Shopping Centres of the nation," said Sir Digby Billingsworth of the CBI. "Their dedication to leisure is a great boon to hard pressed retailers whose shops are now full of teachers."

"You can’t move for teachers at the moment," said a Starbucks employee at one of their outlets in the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent. "They are sitting here with travel brochures out planning what to do with their ten weeks holiday."

The National Union of Teacher’s defended its members’ decisions to close schools saying that no one took them lightly, but that it was in the best interests to close the schools immediately after the weekend.

"The schools are closed for safety reasons, why risk children’s health on slippery playgrounds? By keeping them out of school they can throw ice at each other and toboggan down motorway sliproads instead," said a spokesman for the Union. "Of course this causes problems for childcare for which our members get grief, but it is a no-win situation. If we don’t close the schools the head teachers get it in the neck from their spouses unable to get to Ikea whilst it’s quiet."

Many teachers said that the closures had played havoc with their own plans for the week but they were confident that the disruption could be absorbed in the rest of the schedule.

"I am hopeful that my Sky Plus box will record the rest of ‘Loose Women’, because I hadn’t seen it before and it was quite good," said a teacher from Eltham, South London. "And that Jeremy Kyle programme is crazy!"

Staff at Watercliffe Meadow ‘Place for idiots to pretend to be teachers’ said that they were using the inclement weather as a teaching aid.

"Obviously we don’t call it snow, we tell the children it is ‘flakes of the sky’s inhospitableness’," said Linda Billingsworth, head teacher. "In science we are helping the children explore their feelings for winter,"

Geography teachers up and down the country, apart from Watercliffe Meadow where they are known as "Earth Mother Physiography Emotional Guides", now post regular snow reports to Twitter subject #cantBeArsedTodayIsItSnowingAnywhere.

Desperation at UK airports

Most UK airports were filled with desperate news reporters tryng to turn the recent bout of fog into screaming and tearful human interest stories.

"I have tried everything," said Katrina Billingsworth, in between live reports from Heathrow for 24 hour news channels. "The truth is it looks like the airlines have handled it well and people are being quite sensible. Its a disgrace."

"The airports need to give each plane more space on the ground," explained Ms Billingsworth. "Cancelling domestic flights gives them the space for the international flights and only effects those people who could get a train or bus or something else".

"I tried in one report to make this sound like 'So those on their expensive luxury holidays are looked after, but people just trying to visit relatives for Christmas aren't being allowed to do that', but it just came across as ridiculous on air as it sounds here."

An emotional Ms Billingsworth fought back the tears "Damn Britain for being a bloody island and having various means of transport. I mean it all makes sense and is so unfair. The bloody fog has come a few days too early to really impact Christmas. And if it does carry on well no one will be interested. Does no one care about my Christmas?"

"One family had a connecting flight cancelled, and they were going on about their Christmas presents being in the luggage, that sounded promising - I was sure I could get the kids to cry, but it turned out that their suitcases were just waiting at a different terminal in the same airport. They just don't care about us ordinary reporters. They don't care about my news reports being delayed or lost, or my promotion being cancelled."

Ms Billingsworth's mood cheered when it became apparent that BA's website was struggling to cope with the load of enquiries and there were also delays in answering the emergency helpline.
"Shame it was only the website that crashed, but this could still be great. I just need to get someone to burst into tears at the Internet cafe, hopefully who has an ill grand mother, and it might be a good Christmas after all. "