Scotland 0-0 Norway. Burley: "Well that went rather well"

With a less than impressive performance against Norway at Hampden to contend with, manager George "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I luv yah, tomorrow!" Burley treated the post-match waiting media to several coats of Professor Pangloss's finest, saying: "I thought we played well considering we don't have an out-and-out striker the likes of Kris Boyd to call upon."

When the waiting media pointed out that Kris Boyd had in fact been sitting on the Scotland bench not ten feet from George, Mr Burley remarked :"It's easy for the press to pick the team, managers have to deal in realities and the realities are that we just don't have strikers of Boyd's calibre available for selection."

Bringing the interview to a close, Mr Burley walked past the squad dressing room noticing Kris Boyd hanging up his unused strip.

An astonished George said:"Has anybody ever told you how much you look like Kris Boyd? Its uncanny."

Inside: Terry Butcher defends Burley selection; " I wont 'ear a word said against the guv'nor! He's a diamond he is and no mistake! Reminds me of me dear old dad he does!

Oh, underneaf the archez!" etc.

KB in George-o-vision

and in normal-o-vision

"Money's gone to Iceland!"

Oh fuckin' bollocks news on the money front this week, with the story breaking that Scottish cooncils have invested heavily in Iceland's (the country) troubled banking sector.

One cooncillor told The JT : "When the cooncil's Finance Director said he'd invested 50% of our capital reserves in Iceland, I thought he meant the place wi' the cheap sausage rolls."

Indeed, perhaps the money would have been better stashed away in Iceland (the shoap) where a twenty course Tudor style banquet including roast swan and larks tongues in aspic may be purchased for a very reasonable one ninety nine.

Contacted for comment, The JT's resident authority on everything Professor Beaker commented : "I think this whole sorry episode teaches two very valuable lessons. One, never invest in a bank whose name you can't pronounce and two, never entrust your capital into the care of a country whose most famous export is well-known heid the ba' Bjork".

It is thought that SNP supremo Alex Salmond will now seek out and destroy all previous references he made to Northern Europe's "arc of prosperity", "independent" successful nations that previously included among their number Iceland - the country, no the shoap.

Inside: I see that Iceland advertiser Kerry Katona claims she's bipolar. I would've thought she was a 38 D but I'm no expert.

Clyde tragedy as Muriel Gray rescued

"Broadcaster Muriel Gray and her family had to be rescued when their boat sank as they watched the QE2 in Greenock on its farewell tour of the UK." BBC News

Clyde based rescue services admitted today that they were forced to rescue professional nippy sweetie Muriel Gray as her family boat sank.

Speaking to The JT, a spokeslifepreserver said :"Along with everyone else who cringes every time Muriel appears on the telly, moaning her tits off about something, we would have preferred to have taken no action. However, because her innocent children and spouse were also on board the stricken vessel we were sort of pushed into rescuing torn-scone face as well. Sorry."

It is thought that the rescuers acted correctly throughout, suppressing, through sheer professionalism, the perfectly understandable human instinct to throw Muriel a lifebelt made of lead.

The rescuers will now receive post-traumatic stress therapy to help them come to terms with the awful legacy of their actions - Muriel's forthcoming 26-part TV series, " How I took on the Clyde river and won."

Inside: Years ago, when the world was made of wood, Muriel fronted a TV show called "The Tube". This was before irony had been invented...

Malawians will "struggle through somehow" as Jack doesn't jump ship

Despite previously pledging himself full-time to the cause of Malawi, ex-Scottish Labour leader Jack "anory" McConnell this week pledged himself full-time to saving the Scottish Labour Party.

Mr McConnell was due to leave Holyrood to take up a full-time diplomatic posting in the small, poverty stricken African republic.

However, Jack's now decided that Malawi can go fuck itself as he's decided to stay put, opting instead to take up a part-time role in something called "conflict resolution".

"I'm sure", Mr McConnell told a frankly incredulous Jaggy Thistle, "that I will bring useful skills to the area of conflict resolution. In dealing with Third World banana republics, mired in corruption and poisonous political intrigue, I will draw on my ten years experience in Labour Party politics in Lanarkshire."

While cynics suggest that Mr McConnell has been leant on to stay at Holyrood to avoid a possibly difficult by-election for Labour in Wishaw, Mr McConnell insists that nothing could be further from the truth. He told BBC Scotland, (I'm not making this bit up, honest) that he'd been taking soundings among Wishaw constituents who "would prefer him to stay on as MSP."
Indeed, on the streets of downtown Wishaw, the talk is of little else...

Contacted by the JT for comment a Malawian local said : "I vaguely remember a politician named Jack from somewhere called Scotland visiting us once and having his photograph taken. So he is not to visit us again? Ah, well. We'll manage somehow."

Our Malawian source said that he didn't have much interest in the movements of white Western polticians as he found that the little matter of surviving below the UN standard of the poverty line took up most of his time.

Inside: At some point McConnell can look forward to being criticised for being a "part-time MSP" by Alex, "MSP, SNP leader and Westminster MP" Salmond...

Malawians bravely hide their disappointment on hearing that some white bloke isn't coming to visit...

Bank merger definitely on, maybe...

With confusion still abounding over the proposed merger of HBOS and Lloyds TSB, senior civil servants contacted by the JT describe the situation as "fluid".

Speaking from Holyrood, our source said: "The bank merger is definitely on. Hang on, it's off. Oh wait, that's it back on again. Oh just a minute, that's it back off. On, off, on, off. Fuck it."

Meanwhile, working on the basis that the deal does go ahead, Alex Salmond this week called a special meeting of his Council of Economic Advisors, asking the boffins to come up with a watertight case to put to Lloyds TSB on future banking operations in Scotland.

Mr Salmond told the JT: "I want a hard-headed, no-sentiment business case for Lloyds maintaining a high-level management team in Scotland. I'm asking the Council to come up with ten good reasons why Edinburgh should remain a centre of strategic banking. I've already come up with reason #1 - Edinburgh. It's got a nice castle."

Back in the real world, it is thought most likely that, should the merger go ahead, Lloyds would engage in a round of cost-cutting, as this senior complete banker now explains: "Short-term ramping-up of the share price means big bonus bonanza time. The only rational argument bankers are interested in is the one with big zeroes attached."

Inside: This Council of Economic Advisors... sounds a bit Star Wars, doesn't it? Ah. The Keynesian income multiplier effect is strong in this one, Master Luke" etc.

Cross-border Bronze Age bumming competition continues

"Well, it was they English bastards that started it". That was the message from the cream of Scotland's archaeological talent as this week's Bronze Age bumming contest threatened to spiral out of control.

First into the ring were boffins working for English Heritage who surmised that Stonehenge might actually mark the site of some kind of Neolithic A&E, with ill people travelling hundreds of miles to take advantage of the site's healing stones; a Neolithic 'Casualty' if you will, except on whatever the Bronze Age equivalent of telly was.

Not to be outdone, Scottish archaeologists quickly riposted that relics from the same period found in Scotland indicated an eco-sensitive community living in harmony with nature and all that bollocks.

A spokesstratification for Historic Scotland told the JT: "Our finds definitively prove that Scottish Bronze Age relics are better than England's. So there."

Elsewhere on Planet Ancestry, a report this week rather unsurprisingly found that submititng your DNA to one of those genealogy outfits will be of little use in tracing your immediate ancestral lineage, as Professor Beaker, just back from a long sabbatical, now explains: "All a sample of DNA will show is that the subject is probably human and was probably born on Planet Earth, although there are exceptions to this general rule. When testers received DNA cells from Airdrie, for example, they just say nothing. It's kinder that way...

Inside: Do you know we share 99% of our DNA with primates? If you don't believe me, just stand outside a Dunfermline boozer at closing time.

School dinner bill : nervous throat-clearing ahoy!

With it not at all clear who will be picking up the bill for the new, free school dinners scheme, The JT offers a free, foolproof guide to avoiding picking up what our Amercan cousins term 'the tab'.

• Government says to council: "Have another look in your wallet, I'm sure I saw an extra £60m in there
• Council says to government: "I'm going to the bog. If you get this, I'll square up with you later, yeh?"
• Government to council: "Tcch. Would you believe it eh? I've come out without my credit cards. Or any cash"
• Council to government: "Hang on. Our schoolkids never had the starter. Or the pudding"

And if all else fails... "OK. Whose kids had the macaroni and cheese? OK that's 12000 portions of macaroni and cheese. Right how many kids had the baked potato?"