RELUBBUS TO HOST BAYREUTH WAGNERFEST!!

By Literary and Theatre Correspondent Emily Bindweed

For the first time in its history, the annual Wagner festival traditionally held at Bayreuth in Germany is to be held in Cornwall -- in fact, in Relubbus. Two productions -- Tristan und Isolde and Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) -- are to be staged in Relubbus.

Speaking at the Panopticon theatre in Boswedden Lane yesterday, the director of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, Herr Doktor Hans Flick, was enthusiastic about the move:

"Cornwall is the natural place in which to stage Tristan und Isolde. After all, this greatest of European love stories is set here, and it will be a privilege for us to bring the opera back to its roots.

"And our Cornish production of Der fliegende Holländer will be the greatest ever staged! We are going to put it on, at night, at the Minack theatre, on the cliffs above Porthcurno. However, our "killer" ingredient is that we shall wait for a storm force 12 -- hurricane force -- before staging the opera. And, at the climax of the production, we shall have a three-masted "tall ship", with sails torn, be buffeted by the 60 foot waves towards the terrible granite cliffs.

The Minack theatre at night

"Unfortunately, everyone is bound by Health and Safety regulations these days. However, by employing only a skeleton crew of experienced sailors we hope to keep loss of life to a minimum. We shall, of course, have a helicopter from RNAS Culdrose standing by (assuming it is able to fly in these conditions)."

Herr Flick went on to say that it was a little known fact that Richard Wagner visited Cornwall in his youth, as a young merchant seaman on the schooner Holländer. He was wrecked in ferocious seas off Lamorna, rescued by breeches-buoy, and taken to Newlyn, where he met and fell in love with local girl "Shingles" Bodinnar. It was this experience that was his inspiration in writing Der fliegende Holländer.

Richard Wagner as a young merchant seaman

RELUBBUS LATEST NEWS IN BRIEF

Prospidnick man gives birth to Octuplets!!

By our medical correspondent, Ivor Kneebone

The recent news of an Oregon man being five months pregnant has been totally eclipsed by the shock news of a Prospidnick man giving birth to 8 children - thirty years ago!
Pictured on the left with their 8 - now grown-up - children are, seated, Jeremy, 62, (on the left) and Daniel, 71, Ladner. Jeremy employs all his 7 sons in his undertaking business, whilst his husband, Daniel, and their daughter, William, rear budgerigars (free range, of course!) for consumption in Jamie Oliver's restaurants.

Since "things were difficult fer people like we in them days", Daniel dressed as a woman throughout their whole marriage - and still does.

Jeremy puts down their unique success in bringing octuplets to the world in a same sex relationship to the peculiar strength of some home-grown fertility drugs, which he developed in the mortuary.

Their children have adapted well to the shock news - as tallest son, Nathaniel said, "I allus thought 't was funny maither was called Daniel, now we all duh knaw why."

Top Eating House opens in Boswedden Lane

by our cullinary correspondent, Morwenna Dollop

Fine dining has always been possible in Boswedden Lane, with celebrity chefs competing with one another to secure catering space in this top address. Now, in a desperate attempt to plug a gap in their outreach to the dining cognoscenti of Relubbus (the likes of W G Trevaskis and R C Oates) the Savoy has spent tens of millions to acquire a prime site in Boswedden Lane and, thereby, to complete their palette of offerings to the rich and famous, by plugging this very obvious gap in Relubbus.

The Savoy's new premises are pictured on the left and will be familiar to all as Mrs Polkinghorne's Pasty Shop (left door) and (right door) Lefty Bennet's Speakeasy and Old-time Pissoire.

Accordingly, one location, famous for the production of high quality pasties, and an adjacent location, famous for both the consumption and expulsion of intoxicating liquids, have merged to become the location of high price consumption of the finest foods.

Courtroom Dramas in Relubbus

by legal Correspondent, Barry Stir

Relubbus Divorce Court was the scene of high tension and of passionate outbursts as the celebrity couple, Dickie Trembath (31), and his wife, Lisbet (29) fought over a financial settlement to mark an end to their ill-starred union. Dickie, a much feted conductor, who learnt his craft with Western National Bus Company, before joining the prestigious Relubbus Philharmonic Orchestra, has become rich working on the international music scene, where he immediately achieved notoriety by using his trade-mark ticket machine instead of the customary baton.
Lisbet started her glittering career as a dental nurse, before she became a gossip columnist, initially feeding the public with gems of information picked up in surgery. She has been a controversial journalist, who, more than once, has been accused of making up the news - most famously when she claimed a scoop involving the English Heritage/Scottish Prime Minister Gordon Brown (117) and champion Russian tractor driver Ludmilla Hamsterovna (84).

Almost as an illustration of how pathetically mundane the "apparent" causes of marital breakdown can be, Lisbet accused her husband of excessive snoring and farting - to the extent that she claimed that it was necessary for her to wear breathing apparatus at night.

For his part, Dickie was having none of it. Nervously winding his ticket machine - always fully loaded and never far from him - he delivered his counter-accusations in his familiar tremulous falsetto stutter, "That bleddy bitch been 'avin' an affair wi' that weirdo 'Landshark' and 'is doggin pals up Madron Carn".

Justice Tregarthen-Bolitho, the child prodigy judge, who is only aged 12 and always attends court in the company of his mother, played seemingly absent-mindedly with his trainset while accusation and counter-accusation flew around the courtroom. Then at 2.30 pm, when one of his favourite TV programmes was about to start, he cooly adjusted his wig and suspended proceedings until the next day.

Lisbet was afterwards seen by this writer heading off towards Madron Carn in the company of various gentlemen of doubtless dubious reputation, whilst her husband pursued her in the back of a chauffeur-driven Ford Anglia with darkened windows, whilst the sound of a manically turned ticket machine slowly faded into the distance.