Next week is National Blood Week, and the Blood Transfusion Service are keen to encourage as many people as possible to make a donation.
"We realise that it's often difficult and inconvenient for people to visit our transfusion units," says spokesman Brian Stoker. "Which is why, over the next few days, every household should receive a special blood donation envelope. This is a scheme we pioneered last year, with great success, and we're hopeful that this time around we will do even better."
Mr Stoker is keen to stress just how easy it is to give blood. There are no doctors or nurses, no expensive equipment or tests. All people will need to do is bleed into the envelope, seal it carefully and label it with the appropriate blood group. Authorised collectors will then be calling in most areas to pick them up sometime over the weekend. It's quick, clean and completely anonymous. And you can give as little or as much as you like, from the merest pinprick to the full eight pints (further envelopes are available on request).
And as an added incentive, the Blood Transfusion Service is offering tokens for every pint you donate. Collect fifteen and you can exchange them for a free spleen.
But Mr Stoker has a word of warning. "Last year one or two jokers thought it would be funny to fill the envelopes with other substances," he explains. "We got envelopes full of soup, salad cream, bolognaise sauce - and one or two more unsavoury fluids. It's not big and it's not clever, so I would like to remind people to be more responsible."
Usually these substitutions are spotted in time, but in one or two well publicised cases it has led to some unfortunate problems. Most people are probably already aware of the plight of Mr H.P. Bramley of Poole in Dorset. Mr Bramley, whom certain sensationalist newspapers have notoriously labelled 'The Amazing Ketchup Man', was in an accident and was rushed to hospital for an immediate transfusion. It was a simple enough procedure but distressingly, thanks to the efforts of one thoughtless prankster, Mr Bramley now has at least three pints of tomato sauce coursing through his cardio-vascular system, and as a result he currently finds himself irresistibly drawn to sausages.
Scandal has hit the tiny village of Chelford in Cheshire after a local woman, Mrs. Edna Slut, claimed that she was being bugged by MI5.
"I know for a fact that there are listening devices in my home," Mrs. Slut told us. "I don't know exactly where they are, but I have noticed that the cat's been walking funny for the last few days."
Mrs. Slut is a well known and highly influential figure in the area. By day she electrocutes cattle at the local abattoir, by night she socialises at the bingo hall. But why is she so certain that someone is bugging her?
"They're trying to topple me from my position of power as President of the Chelford Pottery and Needlecraft society," she says. "Either that, or they're after my recipe for Dundee cake."
The truth of this matter may actually be far stranger. An anonymous caller has, on several occasions, contacted a local newspaper in nearby Macclesfield and claimed that he has proof that Mrs. Slut is not being bugged by MI5 at all, but by MFI, the nation-wide chain of furniture stores.
Police in the Midlands have been baffled by an outbreak of surrealist muggings in the region. In the latest incident, 38 year old swimming pool attendant Tracey Sponge was held up as she used a city centre cash machine.
"I had just collected my money when this youth jumped out, pointed a loaded chicken at me and told me he was an electric tree. Then he gave me fifty quid and ran off."
The West Midlands Silly Crimes Squad have drafted in extra officers to deal with these incidents. In particular they are looking into the case of three young men from Solihull who claim they were on their way to a local night-spot when they were robbed at knifepoint by the colour blue.
Towns and villages throughout the British Isles have recently been hit by a plague of strolling lap dancers. The itinerant slappers have been causing havoc and distress by performing lewd acts of wantonness throughout the length and breadth of the country. The problem is particularly bad in East Anglia, where landowner Christian Pyle has been forced to take the matter into his own hands.
"They're making a real nuisance of themselves," he explains. "All their sensual gyrating has caused serious damage to hedgerows and discarded g-strings are constantly getting caught up in farm machinery. Well something's got to be done, because my insurance simply doesn't cover me for this sort of thing. The local council won't do anything, the government won't do anything, so I've been forced to put traps down. People keep telling me it's cruel, but they don't wake up every morning to find Vaseline smeared all over their turnips."
Meanwhile, local pensioner Harry Beecham was most distressed by a close encounter with one of the lap dancers at a local beauty spot. Seventy-nine year old Harry was sitting in the park, admiring the flower beds and enjoying the warm weather, when he was suddenly approached by a young lady in a thong. The woman performed a number of erotic acts in front of him, most of them involving her bottom, and then moved on.
Harry immediately reported the incident at his local police station. "The old boy seemed quite disturbed," recalls Sergeant Sydney Cook. "Although I suspect the thing that upset him the most was not the actual assault, but the fact that he had come out that morning without his glasses."