CELEBRITY GOSSIP, Smile for the CAMRA, Sunday (NNN) — The number of women binge-drinking real ale has doubled in the past year to almost one in three, says the Campaign for Real Ale.

Z-list celebrities are regularly photographed in the London Lite supping a “pint,” little finger extended, a different beer each drink, discussing the shades of flavour in each beer, the state of network engineering at the BBC, their favourite computer programming languages and the latest gossip about Wikipedia editors, until their breasts accidentally fall out of their dresses and they start a drunken catfight over their favourite Terry Pratchett novel, at which point they start an extended discussion with the nearest paparazzo about his precise lens and camera settings.

Most of those trying real ale in the past year said it was brewed locally, and also thrown up again locally, if not directly recycled into Foster’s.

Almost 12,000 women were convicted for drink driving in 2007, with 2009 figures expected to mostly be on bicycles. Road safety experts blamed the so-called “spodette culture,” of women being loud, drunken, brawling, uncouth and foul-mouthed, usually concerning what one said about the other’s Perl code.

The newfound popularity of ale-drinking has extended to the City banking industry. “When you’re working and socialising with these people,” said one female trader, “it’s easy to slip into their lifestyle. I went with the guys to strip clubs and bars, spraying bottles of Tokyo* 18% stout around to celebrate a big deal. Being blonde and female I took my fair share of stick, but sometimes it’s in your favour to be underestimated. Think I can’t tell how long the Bodgett’s Wyrd Brew has been in the barrel? Fuck off!”

The government has started a new series of advertisements against binge ale drinking, warning of the dangers of drunk texting, drunk Facebooking, drunk Wikipedia editing and drunkenly falling pregnant to that cuddly middle-aged Star Trek enthusiast who lives with his parents. And is pathetically devoted to you ever since. And is paid a fortune as a system administrator. So probably not completely awful on balance, then.

MINILUV, Oswiecim, Friday (NNN) — The Ministry of Health has applauded the Law Lords’ verdict in the assisted suicide case, suggesting it opens the way to fixing the NHS budget.

“Where there’s a living will, there’s a way!” said health secretary Andy Burnham. “Of course, the death of a patient is a tragedy every time. I cry real tears, smearing my eyeliner as you can see. But I cry more tears when I look at my budget. Sorry, the mike wasn’t on for that, was it?”

Hospitals will be rebranded as members of the Indignitas chain, in a PFI scheme run by EDS Capita Goatse in conjunction with IBM and Bayer AG. Entering an NHS hospital will, under law, be considered expression of a sincere and deeply-held death wish. “Anyone going into an NHS hospital has given up caring if they live, die or are slowly digested by MRSA anyway. This just lets us formalise the process.”

The Department for Work and Pensions has put into place a new rule that those unemployed for two years will have to enter into a Death Experience Scheme for six months.

Lord Peter Mandelson also praised the decision for “giving clarity to those cases where a loved one, who has lost all ability and awareness and is sadly incapable of going on, really does need to be sent to the knackers’ yard. The moves to allow life peers to relinquish their peerage and, say, re-enter Parliament via a safe seat, are entirely coincidental, though we may sadly have to employ them, say, next year. Purely hypothetically.”

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