Archives for Satire
Minifear
HIP’s Whitehall reporter overhears a senior civil servant initiating a new recruit. Sir Humphrey: Welcome to your first day in the civil service, Smith. We noticed that your master’s dissertation…
Snails in the Mizzle
Inspired perhaps by Sigourney Weaver’s portrayal of Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist, RIEU offers this amateur study exploring the geotranslocational abilities of the common garden snail, Cornu aspersum,…
Brexit Misery Mines
Bleary-eyed and yawning, HIP’s Downing Street mole, STUART ROBINSON, eavesdrops on a (possible) 5 July conversation between the new Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, and Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case. SC. Welcome…
Life with Nigel
Baxter Look, ok, I know it’s not supposed to be like this. But sometimes, as a dog, you just can’t seem to bond with your owner. It may be their…
The Bank Job
The Hastings Independent eavesdrops on two conversations concerning Britain’s penal policy. Scene 1. Whitehall. The New Prisons Minister - Edward Argar meets his Permanent Secretary Antonia Romeo. Antonia: Yes minister,…
Mrs Sunak’s Diary
HIP’s Downing Street mole has sent us excerpts apparently from the diary of Akshata Murty, the Prime Minister’s wife. Ba Kode Great God Brahman, can’t they find anything else to…
DFB – Down from Belgravia
My name is Uri Larsonrude and in March 2020 I moved to Hastings from London with my boss, confidant and ‘friend’. We are located on Markwick Terrace, which we thought…
Gaspers are Good for You
RICHARD PRICE almost choked on Inconvenient Facts (HIP 234) and urges you not to believe everything you read in the papers. Tobacco smoking alarmism has reached fever pitch. I am fuming…
Summer in St Leonards
Your guide by KENNY DICKERING Are you wondering what to wear, what to do and where to go this summer in sunny St Leonards? Let me be your guide… BEACH…
Something New, Something Blue
HIP’s Westminster mole has uncovered a recent interview with Health Secretary Steven Barely from the podcast ‘Dying to Know’ with Laura Doomsberg’ Laura Doomsberg: I have with me today the…
Doggy Tails Strange Echo
TEDDY I’m getting seriously worried about my ; He keeps talking to someone who isn’t there. We’re currently into what he calls puppy training - which I call getting treats…
Golden Age of Sewage
In a recent speech, the Environment Secretary, Thérèse Coffey, admitted there was ‘no way’ the government could end sewage spills. HIP has obtained a transcript of a conversation between her…
Revolutionary Students Threaten Hastings School
HIP has been sent the transcript of a leaked conversation between senior staff running one of Hastings’ most prestigious schools. In the interests of Freedom of Speech – a concept…
Teigh-Anne Advice
Hello dear readers! Welcome to my new advice column. With so many problems these days, I am only too happy to involve myself and offer wise counsel. Though I must…
Seeing Stars with Kenny Dickering
Your Horrorscope for February Aries March 21–April 19 You’ll lock horns with someone in February, Aries. Speaking of which, I nearly came to blows with Freddy Bunion the other day.…
At Last, the 1973 Society
Inside the head of Trevor Strang as he prepares the inaugural lecture. I suppose I should organise my thoughts. Quite an honour, after all. Don’t forget the small things. I…
Silent Twins of St Leonards
Teigh-Anne Toast, Hastings’ literary answer to Donald McGill, burst onto our pages in 2022 with her iconic ‘Postcards from St Leonards’, and has been almost impossible to erase ever since.…
SATIRE: Nightmare before Christmas
By Kent Barker I had the strangest dream. It seemed I had walked into the chamber of the House of Lords in the Palace of Westminster. And there they all…
Hastings Surrealism Fails To Fly
Dear Sirs (and all those who do not thus identify), It is with some regret that I have to announce that the inaugural meeting of the Hastings Pre-Post Surrealism Movement…
SATIRE: Drunk as a … Fish
Teigh-Anne Toast’s Postcard from St Leonards “Welcome to the Hastings Juicy Fist Festival!” I looked at my friend, Crystalle de Canta, in disbelief. The compère continued; “Ah, ha, ha, ha!…
SATIRE: Paws For Thought
Calming reflections from The Reverend Canon Canis Well, fellow creatures, it appears once again we face a fight for survival as the cold war is upon us. But I put…
SATIRE: A Postcard From Ireland
By Teigh-Anne Toast Last month I flew to Chaoimh Town in Ireland to visit my brothers, Siegfried and Rodolpho. I haven’t seen them for some years. With an undeclared toothbrush…
Mummy Returns
A few issues ago (11 August) Hastings Artist Ba Kode took up valuable space on this page to invite peopleto join what he termed the ‘Hastings Pre-Post Surrealism Movement’. Well,…
SATIRE: Dog House Blues
By Dilyn Frankly it’s all rather disconcerting. I have no idea where I’ll be living from now on. Mind you I wasn’t that keen on the flat in Downing Street. …
Bookworming
Teigh-Anne Toast’s Postcard from St Leonards I was on my hands and knees last week at The Tipsy Turbot. Naturally, I was trying to be inconspicuous. Yet there’s only so…
Surreal Manifesto or What?
Perceptual and Conceptual Hastings artist Ba Kode declares his/her manifesto for a new Art movement: Pre-Post Surrealism Inspiration can strike when you least expect it. Though perhaps it should come…
Postcards from St Leonards
By Teigh-Anne Toast Last Friday evening I went to an art exhibition on the seafront with my good friend, Crystalle de Canta. It was the opening night of a group…
Postcards from St Leonards
By Teigh-Anne Toast My friend Muriel recently visited me from the Antipodes. One particular day, she was a little fatigued, having spent the previous evening at Bexhill’s newest sex dungeon.…
Imagining the Endtimes
By Nick Pelling What will be left when Boris’ travelling show finally falls over the inevitable cliff? There will surely come a moment, very soon, when Boris slides away -…
SATIE: Top Trumps
Boris, HIP’s spider-mole in Whitehall, recently recorded the following exchange at an office in Marsham Street and sent it to us to transcribe. Sir Humphrey: Welcome to the Home Office, ;…
SATIRE
Diary of a Seaside Landlady By Teigh-Anne Toast Signore Benito Falabella arrived, tottering behind two enormous suitcases, fit for a princeling. His luggage contained more clothes than he had words…
Importance of Being Arthur
By Nick Pelling How much does it matter what names we use? Evidently, quite a bit. Take the Royal Family for example. They are, of course, the Windsors. But actually,…
Springtime for Boris
The Downing Street Spider had leaked yet another anonymous diary entryto HIP. “With one bound he was free” … perhaps that has too much of the Dick Tracy and not…
Of Goats and Goebbels
By Nick Pelling When history turns bad, language itself has a tendency to shrivel up and become almost meaningless. The creature in the Kremlin tells us that there is no…
Feeling Priti and Witty and Bright
The Spider has leaked us a diary entry discovered in Whitehall a couple of weeks ago: Dear Diary, By the time anyone reads this I may no longer be Home…
Beautiful Game – Ugly Times
By Nick Pelling One wonders how much the Russian führer will care that UEFA have taken the Champions League final away from his country. Or that even FIFA - formerly…
SATIRE: Carrie On Partying
The Spider has passed HIP a copy of a draft email found at Number 10… Yo, Kay! How lovely to hear from you after all this time!! Yes, that Toga…
Was Mrs Tiggy-Winkle a Marxist?
By Nick Pelling It is surely time to come to the defence of the scruffy eccentric creature who blunders about in a garden but can’t really give you a plausible…
SATIRE
The Spider, HIP’s ‘source’ inside Downing Street, has made a secret copy of letter found on a mantlepiece. We consider it in the public interest to reproduce it here: To…
… and a nappy new year
By The Spider A cleaner, emptying a wastepaper basket at a prominent address in Westminster, came across the following list of New Year’s resolutions: 1 Get more sleep! I…