Today’s Front Pages
Monday 29 October 2029. The Dinglese papers as they landed this morning, translated from the Scouse by the Government Press Office. Under Article 42 the Government doesn’t get a say in what’s on them, and it wouldn’t want one.
The dailies
WeatherGales, easing to gales. 9°C
Q1.50No. 13,318
The Times of Dingle
Alicia blows through. The island shrugs.
Ferries cancelled, Baker International shut for fourteen hours and a purple bin reported halfway to Newfoundland, as the season’s first named storm crosses Dingle on its way to Britain
By our Weather Staff
Storm Alicia crossed the island from the south-west overnight on Saturday and for most of Sunday, with gusts of 94 mph recorded on the Dodd Coast and 88 mph at Baker International Airport, which closed to all traffic at 6am and did not reopen until 8pm.
Every ferry sailing was cancelled. The Coastguard described its weekend as “busy but boring”, which is how it likes them, and the Nee Nors reported no serious injuries. Heat and power stayed on everywhere.
The storm is expected to reach the west of Britain tonight and London tomorrow, where it has been given a name. Dingle does not name its storms. “If we named every one of these,” said a forecaster, “we’d be on Z by February.”
Continued on page 4
Westminster
Commons returns to restored chamber
British MPs sit this week in a House of Commons chamber fresh from the first phase of the Westminster Palace Restoration Programme. The works include new wiring, new stonework and new carpets. They do not include air conditioning.
The Commons Speaker, Huw Billington, is understood to have ruled that jackets and ties stay on. Page 7
Today’s cryptic
1 Across: Avoid national symbol (4)
Answer tomorrow, or now on the Times of Dingle Crossword Game
Inside: World 6–9 · Woolyback Affairs 10 · House Purple 12–13 · Opinion 14–15 · Letters 16 · Crossword 31 · Sport: Kopites 36–37, Toffees 38–39
The New Swan Times
Exclusive
Gobshites Broadcasting Corporation
Brit state telly’s “Dingle hates you” special branded fiction. We asked 100 Dinglese what they think of the British. 61 said: “Who?”
By Eleanor Finney, Political Editor
GBC News last night broadcast Hostile Island, an hour-long special claiming the people of Dingle are “totally hostile” to the British.
So we went and asked them. On Scotty Road yesterday, in a gale, the New Swan Times put one question to 100 people: what do you think of the British?
Sixty-one said “who?”. Twenty-seven said they’d never really thought about it. Eleven said the people were alright, it was the government they couldn’t stand. One said something we cannot print in a family newspaper.
Full story: pages 4 & 5
What do you think of the British?
NST street poll, Scotty Road, 28 October. Sample: 100. Margin of error: Alicia.
TalkTube host: “I’ve never been, but I know what it’s like” p.6
Win! A week away with Scouse Airwheyyyyys p.23
the Pink Echo
Late FinalMon 29 October 2029 · Q1
Hands off me pallets!
There isn’t a tree on the island, so every bommy in Dingle is built from imported pallets. The councils want theirs back before Monday week.
Depots in Port Ringo, Rigobert and Huyton de Ma say pallets are disappearing faster than they can count them, a week before Bommy Night.
“We know exactly where they’re going,” said a spokesperson for the Port Ringo office of the national civil service, which everybody calls the council. “They’re going on a bonfire on the fifth. We’d just like them to go on a lorry first.”
With not a stick of timber grown anywhere on the island, every pallet in Dingle came in on a ship, and every one of them, the council says, belongs to somebody. Page 3
The Sketch · Moira Shennan
Pughluigi’s book is filling up
The Speaker has shown more yellow cards since May’s general election than in the whole of the last House, by this paper’s count. The whistle went more often last week than at a derby. Page 9
Kopites & Toffees Your weekend from 1,100 miles away. Every result, every row in the pub: pages 40–48
On the shelves this month
November 2029 · Q4.50
Hot Flush
Celebrity News Hotter Than A Volcano
Strictly PurpsWhich MHP can actually dance? We rank all 175
Gales vs. your blow-dry12 styles that survive a Dingle winter
The change40 Dinglese women tell it straight
We Met on A Blind Date!
The PM & Mary: love, tango and that jacket
Men’s lifestyle · November 2029 · Q4
Speke Easy
Fittest Bird in Politics 2029
She’s only gone and done it again
The Attorney General tops our readers’ poll. Again. All 175 MHPs ranked, p.34
Trial by combat We asked for one. The State sent a dinner lady. We lost.
Baltic! 20 coats that will survive a Dingle winter
The politician’s gilet Why every last one of them owns one
Butty of the year Shabba The Butty, Port Ringo
On the box tonight
Monday 29 October 2029 on the Dingle Broadcasting Service. All times Dingle Time.
DBS One
- 06:00DTV Breakfast
- 13:00DTV News at One
- 18:00DTV News at SixPolitical Correspondent Mason Roberts at the House Purple
- 19:00Storm Watch: AliciaHow the island coped, and how Britain is about to
- 20:00Rigobert Song Contest: the Best of 2028Including Charlotte Doyle’s winning song
- 21:30Live from Rigobert: Tiger Roll Bakery
- 22:30DTV Late
Parliament TV
- 09:30House Purple: LiveEvery word, from the opening whistle to the last division
- 19:30CommitteesRecorded earlier
- 22:00The Day in the Purps
No adverts. The Speaker has asked us to remind viewers.
Sprogs TV
- 07:00Pippa Heroine
- 07:30Bin Day!The purple bins sing the alphabet
- 16:00Pippa Heroine
- 18:30Sprogs Storytime
DBS Radio
- 07:00The BrewNews, weather and gales
- 12:00The Phone-inShould the Purps sit on Fridays?
- 19:00In Session: A Convoy of Pigeons
- 23:00Shipping Forecast and close
Front pages and covers are reproduced by the Government Press Office for public information. Copyright remains with the publishers named in the Article 42 register. The Press Office does not edit, approve or comment on them, apart from in this sentence.
Page last reviewed: 29 October 2029