Thousands flee Mother Nature's wrath
Human suffering on a roughly Biblical scale
by the Rockall disaster management bureau and Chris Wildman
Thousands of demoralised and wretched people are today streaming from centres of civilisation worldwide amid fears that Planet Earth has another Biblical-scale disaster up its sleeve with which to further castigate humanity.
One family's tale is typical: their belongings packed into the back of a Renault Megane, the Hardings have decided to quit their Basingstoke home in favour of a small holiday cottage in Cornwall. Speaking at a service station on the westbound M3, Frank Harding explained: "I can't take any more, to be honest. First New Orleans, then Central America, then Pakistan. There's a limit to how much on-the-spot disaster coverage the average human can bear."
Harding's wife Tania, an attractive 43-year-old brunette, sobbed: "We got to get away from here before a typhoon hits Malaysia and thirty thousand schoolchildren are buried in a catastrophic mudslide...." At this point she broke down completely as a news crew arrived with a satellite uplink to catch her suffering for a live TV audience of millions.
"Human suffering on an unimaginable scale..." began the news correspondent as the Hardings attempted to make good their escape.
On distant Rockall, meanwhile, the Fighting Dog and Pikey was packed to the gunwales last night with locals attempting to grab five minutes' respite from the relentless media onslaught of tragedy and despair.
"Don't mention the word 'Guatemala' for God's sake," whispered landlord Vince as he poured us a couple of pints of Olde Wifebeater. "Some bloke got his head kicked in in the bogs yesterday just because his name was Stan. People are at breaking point."
When quizzed as to a suitable subject of conversation, Vince offered: "The local paper ran a nice piece last Tuesday about a cat stuck up a tree. The fire brigade rescued it and delivered the poor thing safe and sound to its octogenarian war hero owner. It fair brings a tear to your eye, it really does."
In related news, the US was stung last week by accusations that their initial pledge of $100k to earthquake-ravaged Pakistan was somewhat less than generous given that country's $1m pledge to Katrina disaster relief, Chris Wildman reports. Accordingly, the US administration has rethought its offer and has upped its charitable donation to $10bn.
Vice-President Lon Cheney explained how the new figure had been reached: "It's really quite simple. We worked on the principle that since Pakistan is our next target in the War On Terror™ we will be saving about $20bn by not having to flatten the sh*it out of the place in an impressive Shock'n'Awe® depleted uranium display. Let's face it — there's fuc*k all left to bomb."
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