With Europe threatening to take an early lead on the first day of the Ryder Cup, the America team called in airstrikes on key targets around their opponents’ stronghold at the eighteenth hole. ‘The President wants us to wage war on terror,’ said Jim Furyk, ‘and I can’t think of anything more terrible than losing this damn trophy again.’

Detonations were felt for nearly an hour as waves of B52s carpet-bombed the K Club here in Ireland. ‘This war will be fought in the bunkers,’ explained Tiger Woods, ‘and thanks to the US airforce, this course has approximately two and half thousand more bunkers than it had this morning.’ Woods then went off to call in close air support as the Europeans looked to rally under the leadership of their leader, General Colin Montgomerie.

‘Monty’, as he’s known to his men, promised this would be his El Alamein as he ordered his team’s loose phalanx of golf buggies to advance to cut off beef jerky supplies to Phil Mickelson. The attack was pushed back when the Americans countered by deploying M1 Abrams tanks. ‘They definitely have the better hardware,’ admitting Ian Woosnam, ‘but we hope to have them beat tomorrow. We’re going to use psychological warfare when I plan to come out wearing my star-spangled bikini and throw them all kisses whenever they try to putt.’

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She also revealed that since she’s started to wear the bag on her head, people have taken her more seriously as an actress. ‘Now they don’t just think I’m a pretty face,’ she explained, ‘though some people do try to stick groceries up my nose.’

There was unexpected excitement at the Liberal Democrat’s conference in Brighton on Tuesday evening, after pictures were made public of their Shadow Environment Secretary, Chris Huhne, wresting with a chicken for sport. A party spokesperson quickly released a press statement, explaining how the photographs had ‘been taken during a fact finding mission to Mexico, where — for the purpose of research — Chris tried his hand at the favourite local pastime’. This denial comes despite contacts in Mexico telling The Spine that ‘Mr. Huhne had a long career as one of the country’s top chicken wrestlers’ and that his ‘trademark was his wearing of the suit of an Englishman in the ring.’ Our source also tells us: ‘We used to call him “The Duke of Chickens” and he once went twelve rounds with the American champion, a particularly vicious Rhode Island Red.’

The news comes as a blow as the party tries to steal some ground from the Tories on environmental issues. Only yesterday, Simon Hughes launched a new manifesto for squirrels. Today, ex-leader Charles Kennedy was to argue for a review of attitudes towards moles, while later in the week, Lynne Featherstone was to announce a New Deal for Otters. ‘Chris has let us all down,’ said a source inside the party. ‘If we had known about his history of chicken wresting, we might have given it some spin but once you’ve seen him pin a chicken to the floor for a count of ten, you tend to lose all respect for the man.’

The Liberal Democrat conference continued today with the delegates unanimously voting celebrity Gary Wilmot the party’s first Panto spokesperson ahead of their first annual pantomime which closes the conference on Friday. Said Liberal Leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, ‘Gary has all the attributes we want in a panto spokesman’. To which the auditorium responded: ‘Oh no he hasn’t’. Sir Menzies was quick to quell the revolt. ‘Oh yes he has!’ he said in his most authoritative voice. Conference then passed a vote to confirm that ‘Oh no he hasn’t’ is the official party line.

Meanwhile, Sarah Teather appeared on stage with Mr. Wilmot and declared herself delighted to have been given the part of Cinders. ‘I’ll be the youngest Cinders every and can’t thank Gary enough for his support,’ she gushed before signing a petition to have Mr. Wilmot stripped of his post, citing that she ‘would no longer be prepared to serve under his leadership after this weekend’s panto’.

The Liberal Democrats today backed moves to make the party more representative of Britain’s squirrel population in the 21st century. The ‘Diversity and Equality’ policy motion aims to improve the representation of both red and grey squirrels and candidates from squirrel minorities. This will be given the same priority for the party as the introduction of proportional representation, compulsory clog dancing for young offenders, and turning East Kent over to the production of free range lentils.

President of the Liberal Democrats Simon Hughes MP said:

‘Squirrel diversity and squirrel equality are absolutely not about political correctness. This is about political engagement and political involvement with squirrels.’ He went on: ‘The road to achieving maximum equality and diversity for the squirrels of Britain depends as much on hearts and minds, attitudes and actions, nuts and berries, as it does on our admiring a well bushy tail. From now on, Liberal Democrats will make squirrel equality and diversity a political priority.’ He closed his conference speech to rousing applause as he promised: ‘At the next election, every Liberal Democrat candidate will carry a pocket of nuts on the hustings, and when people think of the Liberal Democrats in the future, they’ll think of us as a party built around promoting nuts. And for this reason alone, I nominate myself for promotion to Party Leader and I would like to make my little friend, Squeak, my deputy.’

The scenes may be more reminiscent of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, but the setting is Brighton in mid-September, as old-time romantics gather this week to rekindle their affair with the Liberal Democrats and their creed of free love for the over 65s. Their leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, is perhaps the most notable suitor for affection in a town awash with the nation’s unloved. He arrived at Brighton over the weekend with a look in his eye that speaks volumes about his intentions for the conference. ‘I’m slightly young, somewhat free, but unquestionable handsome,’ he declared to an adoring group of senior citizens in town to petition for the compulsory fitting of corks on all knitting needles. Sir Menzies listened attentively as they explained the dangers inherent in knitting-one and then pearling-one, but all the time, watching as he sucked away at the waxy arm of a pair of Ray-Bans, one could sense the man’s desperate longing. ‘If only these people would love me,’ he confessed as we later walked the length of Brighton Pier looking for Lib Dems willing to believe in his vision, or, at the very least, look after his dentures, truss, and paste-on chest hair while he took a dip in the sea.

At moments such as these, Sir Menzies’s appeal is undeniable. Decked out in an old well-worn dinner jacket and a pair of orange underpants, he looks younger and fitter than any leader since Lloyd George posed for the 1917 Liberal Party’s swimwear calendar. ‘I knew his father,’ Sir Menzies reminds us in a momentary lapse that hints towards his real age. But then he’s back to declaring his passion for ‘the great game’, as he calls conference politics. ‘I do love Brighton in mid-September,’ he told us. ‘I can smell the desperation for all those who want to find a little love before the end of the season.’ He smiled a slightly lecherous smile. ‘They might think I’m passed it, but these young ones have yet to learn how an old dog can teach them a few new tricks.’

The makers of Top Gear have always prided themselves on taking new cars to exotic locations for test drives but for the next series, the production team have traveled even further afield as Jeremy Clarkson visited Middle Earth to test drive the new Alfa Romeo through the tight bends and narrow lanes of The Shire. Said Clarkson: ‘They may have rebuilt The Shire but they really needed some British Engineers to teach them how to use tarmac. As all those rustic lanes played hell with the Alfa’s suspension, but when I accidentally clipped a couple of hobbits, a nice turn of pace out of the Alfa’s V6 helped me escape the angry mob high to their hairy gills on Old Toby’s.’

Meanwhile, James May was less complimentary about the Alfa. ‘Any car that makes the locals think you’re one of Sauron’s Black Riders can’t be all good,’ he said. Richard Hammond was unavailable for comment as he’s still driving a Nissan Micra towards Mount Doom where he hopes to deposit a Ring of Power. ‘We’ve equipped him with teeth specially whitened by the Grey Elves to help him get through Shelob’s Lair,’ quipped Clarkson.

After a career as one of the literary world’s most gifted but unrecognised short story writers, Victoria Beckham had promised that there’s ‘at least one novel inside her’. To mark the publication of her Collected Stories by Penguin World Classics, the wife of the Real Madrid mid-fielder expressed her surprise that she has yet to finish a novel. ‘It’s not like I don’t like books,’ she said. ‘The problem we’ve got with our houses is that they’ve got lots of shelves. Books are good. They take up space.’

While critics have been quick to compare Victoria’s talents to those of Katherine Mansfield, the one-time pop star is quick to argue that she believes she can surpass Mansfield’s achievements by carrying her own gifts across into the longer form of the novel. ‘Her books are so thin,’ she says, ‘and they take up no room on my shelf. David said he’d have to buy hundreds of copies of her book just to fill the space where we’d planned to put his replica of the World Cup he should have won if it wasn’t for that horrible Portugal. We’ve put a goldfish bowl there instead.’

With the days of having her own health and spiritual gurus behind her, Cherie Blair is preparing for a new life beyond Downing Street by embarking on a series of TV interviews where she will be displaying her own unique psychic gifts. In a Fox News exclusive, to be show on Friday night, Cherie goes into a trance for anchorman, Shepard Smith, during which she throws off her clothes as she channels the spirit of King Sneferu, pharaoh of Egypt. Among her trance-induced ravings, Cherie prophesises the first marriage between man and rat, an Oscar victory for the Dalai Lama, and the Presidential victory of soon-to-be-Republican Senator, Whoopie Goldberg.

Afterwards, Cherie admitted she thought that King Sneferu was ‘being a little playful’ but stood by her vision that Art Garfunkel will be the first musician to perform from the surface of the Moon in 2012. ‘When he has to stop singing Bright Eyes because of a leak in his spacesuit, you’ll wish you had listened to me,’ she said.