The London Marathon has come to symbolise the spirit of humankind’s perseverance. Everyday folk, stripped down to their nines, running a ridiculous number of miles in aid of charity and collapsing in the final mile to the raucous laughter of the crowd who never grow tired of watching runners trying to walk whilst suffering severe cramp. Yet even more impressive are the number of people who do the run in fancy dress; the gasping lemons, the sweating ballerina policeman, and that perennial favourite of the children, the marathon running rhino. Next year, the London Marathon will be a particular special occasion, as, for the first time, a real African rhino will be taking part. In fitting with the great heritage of this race, the rhino will also adopt a costume. We spoke to the rhino, currently deep in the African bush.

‘When it came to choosing a costume, there was only one choice,’ confessed the rhino. ‘I’m dressed as probably the most famous marathon runner there is, Jade Goody. I’m already doing three hundred miles a week in training, though I’ll have to reduce the miles when it gets closer to the race. I have to gain a few pounds otherwise my costume won’t look right.’

We see that Reuters is today reporting that a “senior” member of an unidentified royal family is to become one of the first space tourists. While speculations run rife, only The Spine can confirm that the mysterious figure is none other than Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and soon to be the UK’s official ambassador.

We spoke to the Prince, who is currently undergoing rigorous training with NASA, and he explained how he has held a life-long fascination with the stars. ‘Can’t get enough of it,’ he admitted. ‘Not a single bloody reporter for miles up there.’ Yet, he also confessed that he sees this as a chance to indulge in another of his obsessions, xenophobia. ‘I might not get another chance to get away from all these bloody foreigners,’ he said before taking part in the last dry run before the launch which is scheduled for next Sunday. Asked if he was taking any significant lucky charms into space, Philip admitted to being a little superstitious. ‘I’m taking a shotgun,’ he said with a rueful smile. ‘I hope to bag some bloody pheasants. The little buggers won’t know whats hit them when pellets are raining down on them hot and angry from the wrong bloody direction.’

According to the latest police figures, street robberies jumped eight percent last month. This figure does not include the much publicised spate of street crimes, including the theft of ‘Primrose Gardens’, ‘Morticia Close’, and ‘Purley Lane’. Across the country, the disappearance of many of our most popular streets have been attributed to organised gangs who export them to China. Police insist they are addressing the issue.

Our office has been inundated with e-mails from readers troubled by the news we carried yesterday in which we reported on the unfortunate melting of the Deputy Prime Minister during a Labour Party meeting in London. Given the severity of Mr. Prescott’s condition and the continuing heatwave, we thought it only right to follow up the story by checking on the Deputy P.M’s condition. Today we have been contacted by a well-placed government source who informs us that the situation is much worse than anyone has yet reported. Rumours had been rife in the Palace of Westminster, but The Spine can now confirm that Mr. Prescott’s condition has worsened. The beloved MP of Hull East has shrunk in the night.

Mr. Prescott went to bed boasting his usual five magnificent feet and four equally noble inches, only to wake to find himself shortened to half that length. The Deputy Prime Minister is now officially a midget.

It’s not known what has caused this sudden decrease in the DPM’s size, but paradoxically, the condition seems to have boosted his previously ailing career. Opposition calls for his resignation are no longer as significant as they were only yesterday, when the Tories were still questioning if Mr. Prescott did enough to justify his huge salary. This morning, Downing Street hopes to silence Mr. Prescott’s critics by expanding his ministerial duties. He is to be made ‘Minister for Little People’ with additional responsibilities involving dwarves, pixies, imps, fairies, and any person less than four feet five inches in height, with the exception of Ronnie Corbett whose affairs are to be handled by the Scottish Parliament.

Although his new ‘mini’-sterial duties are yet to confirmed by Downing Street, Mr. Prescott has already appeared on the same stage as Gordon Brown, acting as the Chancellor’s podium. Similarly, the Prime Minister has declared his intention to stand by Mr. Prescott. In fact, he intends to stand by him in his next press conference where he hopes to use his diminutive deputy as a convenient place to rest his now ubiquitous man-of-the-people mug of tea.

Developing…

As Britain continues to suffer one of the hottest summers on record, the Met Office was forced to issue another warning about the effects of prolonged exposure to the heat. The warning comes only hours after Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, began to melt during a speech to Labour Party members in London.

As temperatures reached a record 36 degrees in the city, Prescott began to feel the strain. His difficulties became apparent with his claiming to have something in his eye. It turned out to be his right eyebrow that had sagged in the heat. It was only the quick thinking of a local party activist that saved the Deputy PM. An ice pack was put on his face and an aide was despatched to find a trowel. An hour later, his face restored by a local master plasterer, Prescott laughed off the incident, claiming that it was only a bit of make-up that had run. It was a story ridiculed by Terry Limstick, the plaster brought in to restore the DPM’s features. ‘Oh, he had gone, sure enough,’ said an amused Limstick. ‘It’s what we in the trade call thixotropy. To be honest, I was for doing him a nice bit of moulding around his throat but they told me to put it back as it was.’

Chancellor Gordon Brown has announced the name of new son. Some expected the boy to be named after one of the three hundred and twenty seven new taxes that Brown has introduced in the last decade, but against all odds, he has decided on calling the boy ‘James’.

The one day old James Brown was born on the 17 July and soon had his first hit, ‘Pappa’s Got A Brand New Treasury Bag’. This was followed up by the popular ‘Tax Machine’, though the subsequent single, ‘It’s a Taxman’s, Taxman’s, Taxman’s World’ failed to hit the same heights.

Workers from the Raleigh Bike factory in Nottingham are celebrating tonight after one of their bikes took the lead in the Tour de France. The bike, from newly relaunched Chopper range, had been a much derided entry in the classic race, but as the Tour now enters the final stages in the Alps, its rider, Philippe Butacher, leads the field and wears the famous Yellow Jersey.

Race purists had dismissed the Raleigh as a novelty but have now turned their criticism towards the unique design of handlebars which, they say, prevents other riders from overtaking. ‘This is not how the race was meant to be run,’ argued an irate member of a French team; a criticism backed by many on the tour. A defiant Butacher remains unrepentant. ‘It’s really a cheap excuse when they start to blame their failure on the shape of my handlebars. Whatever next? Are they going to complain about my race tassels?’

The Ultimate Edition James Bond DVDs were released on Monday with some hidden surprises among the usual array of special features. Newly restored and including a second disc filled with bonus material, the new releases include a rare interview with the original, and some say best, James Bond, the now legendary Mr. John Prescott.

Reflecting on the role he made his own, Prescott explains how he came to give his unique perspective to Ian Fleming’s randy government official. ‘I just did what came natural, like… I thought: what would I do in a situation where, judging from the feminisation of my immediate surrounds, one would consider – given the full facts in the due course of time – that I was surrounded by, and I mean not to beat about the bush here, women of a singularly beautiful character. In other words: would I or would I not, shag them? Of course, it helped that I’m blessed with sheer animal magnetism and an arrogant level of self-confidence. I also know how to treat a woman.’

Prescott took particularly delight in responding to the criticism that his Bond was a misogynist. ‘If that means women no longer enjoy a pork pie and a night at the greyhounds, well I say that romance has gone from the world. Personally, I never liked the later James Bonds. Roger Moore was good in his way but I never believed in a Bond that didn’t have a little chip grease mixed in with all the beautiful girls, the fight scenes, and those wonderful toys such as the specially outfitted Jags with front and rear mounted machine guns, ejector seat, and leopard-print shag mini-bar.’

Sports Relief may as well kick off today with a warning from safety campaigners that ’stupidity is contagious’. You only have to look at the whooping crowds enjoying every moment of this third-rate entertainment to see what I mean. But you have to also ask yourself: is this real stupidity?

First of all, there has to be a distinction made between this fraudulent stupidity and that genuine stupidity which, on rare instances, reaches an almost existential realm. The difference is palpable. There are office parties where you’re encouraged to be crazy by the very people who don’t understand the meaning of true stupidity. They buy in the novelty party hats, drink some booze, and then organise a conga line around the open plan before they do a bad Elvis act with the hat stand. They all appear to be stupid, but these are people who have been shown how to act crazy in order to accomplish a ‘good time’. It’s far from the real thing and, somewhat like that character at the beginning of the Twlight Zone movie, I usually feel like turning to them to ask if they want to see something ‘really crazy’, before I rip my face away to show them my true Dionysian self.

And that’s how I feel about Sports Relief. This whole charade possesses as much genuine craziness as it contains deeply thought out politics. I mean: do I really want to run a half-a-mile for famine relief? Do I really want to wear a red nose, dress like a chicken, and ‘run for the cause’? Will I be a good sport if I do both? Will I? Will I? Oh, please let me be a good sport… Or not.

Spike Milligan always made for uncomfortable viewing whenever a researcher was foolish enough to invite him onto daytime TV. The medium wasn’t made for his genuine hold on insanity. It is unsuited to teaching anyone how to crazy in the same way that it can’t teach us how to think. Not that it comes close to doing either. Sport Relief takes the issue of judgement out of our hands. This is politics by proxy. Just as we are all supppsed to be having ’some crazy fun’, so too, we are all apparently ‘doing the right thing’. The decision about whether I should run half-a-mile for famine relief is no longer mine to make. That’s a judgement best left to Big Brother ‘winner’, Chantelle Houghton. As for my own slight understanding of the ‘world situation’, it is nothing compared with the certainty of the screaming crowds and that of Jade Goody, surely the ogre from the tale the Brother’s Grimm thought too dark to write down.

Jackie Mason was recently interviewed by Adam Boulton on Sky News. Talking about Hollywood celebrities and their political agenda, he asked: ‘How do they become experts on how we should be in Iraq or not. I just said to you that I don’t know because I’m not equipped to know and I study these things day and night. They haven’t even read a paper and they become an expert [...] Ask any one of these actors where’s Iraq [and] I guarantee they can’t find it on the map. They’d point to Pittsburgh.’

This is an expression of genuine enlightened stupidity, like the honest stupidity of the true great practitioners of the ‘idiotic’: Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel, Buster Keaton, Grouch Marx, and the great fool himself: W.C. Fields. They had such elegant stupidity, and, in expressing such stupidity, they touched real truths about our existence. Theirs is a stupidity raised to religion, while modern stupidity is like TV evangelism: a barely felt sensation, mundanely expressed, wrapped up in the fraudulent chicanery of the whipped-up crowd.

Perhaps great minds are inherently stupid, as in that famous picture of Einstein sticking out his tongue. Chantelle Houghton’s stupidity tells us nothing because she hasn’t travelled through knowledge to reach that ultimate dead end of basic human ignorance. Like a case of poison ivy, her stupidity – like her celebrity – is the unlucky conjunction of time and place. Which is why I need to turn Sports Relief off before it does me any more harm. If you associate with fools, don’t be surprised when people think you one of them. As for me: I want to retain a real sense of my own stupidity.