Armageddon special

WORLD TO CLOSE DOWN: breaking news with exclusive pictures!!!!!!!!! 
 

The universe yesterday (© Sky/ News Intergalactical)

The universe was rocked tonight by news that the once-popular planet, The World, is to be taken out of circulation after 4.5 billion years as a satellite of The Sun. In its heyday it was behind many sensational stories and set the agenda for other small deposits of utterly insignificant debris floating aimlessly near the asteroid belt. It was once famously recognised for the memorable and typically self-deprecating slogan, “all known life is there”.

It was perhaps most famous in recent centuries for shocking exposés such as the plagues of Egypt, brain-curdlingly awful daytime TV and for the prolonged periods in which it exercised total mind control over the planet's embarrassingly supine governments and alarmingly suggestible inhabitants, as well as its forensically detailed and grizzly experiment with brutalist realism, perhaps best exemplified in the infamous World War exclusives on which so many worked without fear or favour. 

Ian Hislop was too upset to speak (© Who cares?)

Long before all this, of course, there was that mind-boggling and arguably unrivalled stunt, the story that really made its name as the planet of choice for so many lower life-forms, the so-called natural selection scandal, involving absurdly large reptiles and massive, up-yours volcanoes, which some today still refuse to believe actually happened despite this being a story most other planets concur on and indeed covered extensively at the time. 

However, some World natives chose to rely for too long on undisprovable, intercepted messages from other dimensions, an activity endemic there and that was behind many of its most shocking misdemeanours and ultimately led to the catastrophic loss of direction that necessitated this final drastic solution. It is quite clear that this planet had been spinning unstoppably towards oblivion for considerably longer than the six and half thousand years, give or take, many of its inhabitants had claimed.

The news of the planet's impending doom came after years of attempts to correct its orientation and recent claims that engineers had fixed the fault, but it was clear to many astronomers that it was on a dangerous trajectory that could have caused large chunks of the cosmos to disappear into a black hole.  



A dirty digger disappearing into its own stinking bog later today

(© O. T. Shadenfraude/Daily Mail)



The sudden announcement was made by The World’s owners from their exclusive and pointlessly salubrious hideaway in Paradise, a vainglorious monument to the bad taste that is their stock in trade, after a series of shocking revelations proved too much for heralds and court messengers to deal with. In a controversial move that angered many lesser demons and other creatures of the pit, they stuck by the disgraced bile-spitting enforcer who, though now a high priestess was, at the height of the latest scandal, acting ruler of what we now know to be a tawdry little planet with no place in a civilised universe. 

The decision to summarily execute nearly all life before reaching a final decision on the planet itself was taken unilaterally by the all-powerful father, whose unspeakable name strikes terror and a welling sense of loathing into friend and foe alike, while the son he is grooming for supremacy wandered about in a designer hair shirt trying to perform unlikely miracles with no detectable success.

 He and his family also own a string of better quality, high-end solar systems and celestial bodies around the universe and are presently pursuing a deal with galactic authorities that would see them owning time itself and controlling the universe for all eternity.

Lone survivor of The World escapes (© N.A.S.A.)



The father still rules supreme and frequently has to intervene while his prodigy works on his intelligence quotient and basic co-ordination skills, unaccustomed as he is to the rancid, toxic air of The World after the rarefied atmosphere of his home planet. It is thought the haste with which he acted was a calculated gamble made in the hope that he could repopulate the planet at a later date.



Other planets were "shocked" (© Press Association)

 This battle has been waging for some time but, after a few set backs when a bumbling cyber-butler was caught telling a couple of giggling space cadets that Cybermen and Time Lords just didn't hit it off, causing a solar light display which knocked out communication satellites, fleet command regained the initiative and the project is now said to be at an advanced stage with the mother ship and landing craft at an enhanced state of readiness for an expected takeover of the entire universe. 



Despite its reputation as one of the most populous planets in the universe, The World routinely lost its bearings and started drifting out of orbit, intercepting interstellar messages, landing on other planets in breach of galactic law, causing conflict with neighbouring colonies and generally upsetting the forces of gravity, thereby risking collision with other planets its owners quite coincidentally are actively trying to appropriate simply because they want to and can and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. This in turn is upsetting the entire time-space continuum, warping perceptions and threatening the very fabric of existence itself.



The news has sent ripples throughout the universe and some civilisations are watching carefully to see if The World will actually be vaporised and condemned for all eternity as some sources have indicated or merely cleansed of life, disinfected and sterilised, ready to be inhabited by yet another batch of unconscionable, hypocritical reprobates.

The scene today when the news broke (©All other papers)

Speaking from an armoured space pod orbiting just beyond the range of the ray-guns of incredulous inhabitants who had just had the announcement dumped on them like a great big space turd, an interpretation drone for the owners said, "Despite its formidable reputation over millennia as the cutting edge of galactic development, it has become clear that we could not justify the threat it posed to the stability of the universe as a whole and that there was something rotten, possibly a huge molten blob, at its core and the only solution was total destruction, speeding up a process its inhabitants were clearly intent on anyway. Sunday will be the last revolution of the World. The Sun will continue to shine for six days only, but we'll chew the fat and get back to you on that one just as soon as mate, alright? A full statement will follow in due course. Thank you for listening, ladies and gentlemen, good night."


Owners are said to be "deeply concerned"

(©dunno - we just lifted it off the internet)

It is widely believed that the enforcer, who now claims to be an angel, had offered to resign but, despite widespread condemnation from the now hell-bound citizens of the World and many other planets, it is believed the lying, evil witch was told, “No you bloody well don’t, sport. If we go down, you’re coming with us. Anyway, no worries, Sheila. The Daleks are on their way.”