MAYOR ENTERS QUEEN'S SECRET BACK PASSAGE

Dr Pangloss made a spectacular discovery while on a visit to the former home of Westphalia-on-Sea's Queen of Crime, Clarissa Miller. He said: I got separated from the guide and just pushed a door. It gently opened, and to my surprise there was this dusty back passage in front of me. Temptation got the better of me and I went right in, and there on the floor was this bundle of papers which I now know was a lost manuscript'.

It is believed the book was originally shelved because of it's controversial title 'Ten Thousand Grockles'. It was renamed 'And Then There Were None' but for some reason the manuscript was lost and the book never made it to print. A spokeswoman for the publishers, a Mrs Irene Dalloway, gave the Westphalia Express an exclusive synopsis of the plot: "It's set in a fictional seaside town where all the tourists go missing one by one until there are none left. A little man is brought in to try and figure out what's happened, and he bumbles around for about five years but in the end he solves nothing, but he still puts in a pay claim for a quarter of a million pounds. It's actually very long-winded, drawn out and a massive anti-climax. It's not like any of her other books, and the central character has no sympathetic qualities. On top of all that it is totally unbelievable. I mean, as if a town would let someone come in and pull the wool over their eyes like that - I could have done better myself'.

THEY HAVEN'T GOT A CLUEDO

To celebrate Westphalia-on-Sea's famous connection to the Queen of Crime a mystery event was recently held at a local hotel. A team of consultants were brought in to provide the clues in a story they called 'Daylight Robbery', and locals were invited along to participate. The event was such a success that many of the locals had to be turned away. One man who was lucky enough to attend was Mr Jack Muttock, and he had this to say: 'It was actually quite hard to follow, and there didn't seem to be any logical connections in the plot. In the end it turned out that it was Derek Poundsign in the L-shaped room with the Powerpoint presentation, but I would never have guessed. To be honest I thought it was the mayor - it seemed so obvious, he was such a nasty character, but of course that was just a red herring. I'm just glad it's all fiction, otherwise it would be quite scary. You wouldn't want that shower in charge of anything,' he added, 'they couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.'

TOWN 'NOT DEAD JUST RESTING' SAYS NORWEGIAN-BLUE

A war of words broke out in Westphalia-on-Sea at the weekend when Cllr Lucien Norwegian-Blue branded local taxi drivers 'a bunch of miserable twats'. He said: 'My wife and I called a taxi from the Soothsayers of Doom Cab Company, and all the driver did was bang on about how we live in a shithole run by wankers. I mean, for God's sake, just because I'm a councillor it doesn't mean I want to have members of the public bending my ear about boarded-up shops, road closures, car parks and parking meters all the bloody time. I haven't even got a car, so I don't give a rat's arse. Park your poxy cars in the sea, for all I care, and don't come asking me for money. The driver told me the town was dead. I said it's not dead, it's just resting, and me and the Mayor are going to wake it up, but he wouldn't have it. He said he was as sick as a parrot.' He went on to say: 'In most successful totalitarian states they take a very dim view of free speech, and I think that is definitely the way forward for Westphalia-on-Sea - we could learn a lot from the Spanish Inquisition. We have an excellent Mayor with excellent dreams, and I am doing an excellent independent job checking that everything is excellent, and I won't tolerate locals compromising the overall excellence of this place with their idle chatter.'
Footnote: Since this article was written we have been informed that the Soothsayers of Doom Cab Co. has been bought by the council and renamed the Somewhere Over The Rainbow Cab Company. It is thought that the driver at the centre of the row has now got a new job, helping to support the crumbling seafront promenade.

MAYOR EXPLAINS ALTERNATIVE TO CAR PARKS

Dr Pangloss today answered critics who question the wisdom of selling off two town centre car parks for luxury building development. Speaking from his office at the Town Hall he said: 'A number of people have asked where all the cars will park in future, but this line of questioning is, quite frankly, naive. Anyone who has seen the James Bond film ThunderBall will know that jetpacks will be the preferred mode of transport in the future, and they require very little storage space. Alternatively our new upmarket tourists from the north will parachute into the refreshing waters of the bay from private aircraft and then be plucked from the blue-flag-certified briny by water taxis and taken to their four-star hotel, so clearly there will be very little need for car parking spaces in the near future.'
When asked how the water taxis would reach the door of any hotels which weren't on the waterfront the mayor added: 'They will be amphibious machines, similar to the one in The Spy Who Loved Me.'
When our reporter pointed out there were also glaring similarlities between Casino Royale and the plans for a new waterfront casino and asked whether the mayor was perhaps using old James Bond films as a blueprint for town planning, the mayor had this to say: 'That is utterly preposterous. I get my inspiration for regenerating the town from a wide variety of sources such as eye-wateringly expensive consultants, my mother and christmas crackers, but not from Bond films. I do not waste my time thinking about Octopussy, Pussy Galore, or any other kind of pussy for that matter*.'

*clearly a reference to Bond villain Blofeld, who stroked a white cat. Ed

MAYORAL VISION NOT BOLD ENOUGH SHOCK

The Mayor has come in for criticism after it was revealed that the car park at the harbour could be used as a site for the architectural equivalent of Sydney Opera House. Born and bred Westphalian Jack Muttock said: 'It's ridiculous, we really should be setting our sights a lot higher. I think we should be aiming for something along the lines of the Taj Mahal if we can get the marble, or at the very least a couple of pyramids.' His friend Irene Dalloway added: 'I would rather have something taller, like an Eiffel Tower, or a BT tower. You could have a revolving fast food restaurant at the top and call it 'Pie in the Sky.'
Eastphalians were also concerned that they had been shortchanged in the plans. One man, who preferred to remain anonymous, said: 'With the influx of Polish Catholics I think we should not only be thinking 'Garden City', but also 'Garden Vatican City'. I think when the Pope sees what is happening in Eastphalia he will want to play a central role in the development. That renaissance architecture was all very well in its day, but it's looking a bit tired now. I think he would be blown away if he could see what I have in mind - lots of glass and steel, and probably Artex on the ceiling rather than a lot of fussy painting. It that were to happen I wouldn't mind renaming the place 'Vatican City'. Well, you've got to move with times, haven't you? And if it brings the tourists back so much the better.'

VOCABULARY SHORTAGE PREDICTED

A report published today projects that the Westphalia Express could soon run out of words to describe anyone who has the temerity to point out the inherent madness in most of what Dr Pangloss says. This stark warning states that if the paper continues to use words such as 'snipers', 'critics', 'naysayers' and 'high priests and priestesses of negativity' at the current rate it will have completely exhausted its vocabulary supplies by 2009. However, the Editor was quick to robustly defend the paper's actions, saying: 'The people that have come up with this forecast are living in cloud cuckoo land. We have dictionaries, thesauruses, and a crack team of highly trained independent journalists who are constantly coming up with new ways to say the same old thing. In addition, we have root words such as 'cynic', which will generate other words such as 'cynical' and 'cynicism'. There is absolutely no truth in this shortage story - it is scaremongering of the worst kind and we will continue to repeat these words for as long as the mayor is in charge of everything.'

OFF HIS CHRISTMAS TROLLEY

The Westphalia-on-Sea council was rocked today by the news that one of Dr Pangloss's men ploughed his car into a wall in the middle of the afternoon while in an 'advanced state of refreshment'. The driver, who cannot be named because he's far too insignificant, said 'they've got me bang to rights - I was out on the piss and got absolutely mullered'. Deputy Mayor Ahmad Hatter was quick to point out that the Conservatives do not condone driving high performance cars around town when 'mashed off your tits'. He added 'none of us is perfect and we make mistakes, and goodness knows we're going to make a lot more in the coming year, that's for sure.'

This is the most exciting local driving news since another local Conservative MP, Tarquin Pompous-Duffer, parked his car in a disabled bay at Newton Bumpkin station. When people questioned his behaviour on that occasion Mr Pompous-Duffer said: 'For God's sake, there are too many of these disabled bays, it's political correctness gone mad. I mean, when was the last time you saw a raspberry ripple on the train anyway? As a Conservative white male of advancing years it is my inalienable right to park where the bloody hell I like, and I won't have scum from council houses telling me otherwise.'