Spoofflé - freshly baked satire and alternative news | Satire and alternative news, plus humorous and dark short stories from UK writer Tim Neill

‘You will remember me’ (Worried by the Gatwick drone scare? I wrote …

The phone on Dan Benson’s desk rang once and stopped. He drained his coffee mug and scooped up the receiver. ‘Benson’. He already knew who …
Bog Patrol

Steven Collins is a plump, unremarkable, middle-aged man. He lives in a 1930s semi, with a trimmed hedge, neat flower borders and net curtains at …
Inside Information

Winston Trenneman teased the last traces of tumour from the patient, then collapsed. Within the hour, neurosurgeon James Lovatt had raced from home to operate …
The Downing Street Cook

‘Like a favourite aunt’, that’s how people remembered Lizzie Gould. ‘Sweet lady, heart of gold she had’. For nineteen years Elizabeth Gould had worked in …
The Pool

‘The buggers are in our pool again, look.’ He steered his wife to the villa window and stood behind her, arms crossed, anger seething. ‘Every …
The best Pork Stiffado in the world

The tiny island of Stiapos, a crooked finger of rock barely three miles long, lies in the deep azure of the Ionian sea. Too small …
That special courage

A pearl of sweat swung from the tip of his nose, glistening in the early morning rays and dripped onto the brass terminal. He froze …
The Great Escape

It was Boz’s idea to break out of Milton House. Boz who’d slipped a Stanley knife and a screwdriver from the workshop down the back …
Teacher’s pets

Ten treacherous, worn steps led from the quiet Camden backstreet down into the damp gloom of Rose Porter’s basement flat. Decades of garbage lay packed …
Bill Jarvis

In his youth his strength was legendary, some called him the ‘iron man’. Bill Jarvis was the small-time farmer who could lift a calf above …
Sunday

They’d say he was a fine man, a hero. Lucky too. A finger lost at Tobruk, a shard of Panzer shrapnel on a Normandy beach, …
Tea with Aunt Ada

Bill Parson’s hand shook as he stirred a level teaspoon of pesticide into Aunt Ada’s little bowl of Demerara sugar. Her special souvenir pot she …
The Tattoo

He waited until breakfast before telling his wife. As he’d feared, she was livid. ‘Jesus, Gavin … a three day conference in Bangkok and you …
The Coat

Charles Frensham was reading in his study at just after 8pm when the knock came. Three sharp, urgent raps. ‘I’ll get it!’ called his wife, …
The Camera

She tugged the gilt-edged tickets from his hand and spread them across the breakfast table. ‘The Goodwood Revival – lucky you!’ His wife cocked her …
The language student

‘She’s staying for how long?’ A pendulum of yolk swung from her teaspoon, dangling en route to an unsmiling mouth. Her husband struggled to reassure …
The Collector

She woke with a start, jolted from dreams of a better life in a better place and reached to silence the 5.30 alarm. The rays …
A Greek Tragedy

We bade farewell to our conference colleagues and set off for the harbourside apartment we’d rented for the following two weeks. For seven years, Philippa …
A life

Sirens wail in a nearby street as a running man stumbles and collapses in the gutter. A woman’s scream splits the damp night air and …
The Lift

‘Going down?’ asks pinstripe, mischief in his smile. The pretty PA blushes and presses 86. In the greasy darkness two hundred feet above, a rifle …
Breakfast in paradise

They lie awake, her husband cursing the night’s mosquitoes for the livid lumps girdling his belly. ‘Leave them’ she whispers, ‘they’re starting to bleed.’ They …
Together

She bends over the coffin, gently strokes the cold wax forehead with a fingertip. For thirty years he’d loved and cherished her. Other men held …

BBC modifies weather map to stop presenters obscuring Cornwall

Traffic wardens given role of police, fire service, paramedics and vets in remote areas

Simple brain zapper gives older adults the cognitive skills of a 20 year old

Australian toddler attacks crocodile with light sabre to save mother

Royal Navy nuclear submarines to go to a Norfolk Broads holiday firm

Jeremy Corbyn says Spoofflé ‘very silly indeed’

Labour council branded ‘anti-cementic’ after rejecting tower block plans

HS2 lavatory cleaner on salary of £72,000 plus car

WI ladies start digging tunnel from Isle of Wight to mainland

Pensioner events to be included in Tokyo 2020 Olympics

Pope says ‘Nuns look just like penguins’

British firm to supply 51 foot ladders to Mexico for Trump’s 50 foot wall

KitKat bars found hidden in prison drug haul

Workman’s toolbox shortlisted by mistake for Turner Prize ‘a regrettable error’

Briton arrives home after crawling around the world

Trump security man ‘shot Royal Corgi’ during meeting with Queen

97 year old man ‘trapped in over-demanding marriage’ is refused divorce from wife, 23

President Trump’s first day in office (written the night before he was elected US president in 2017)

Shanghai

The Sailor

The Trader

Only the best (following Donald Trump’s election to President in 2017)

The man in Room 22

Woman climbs The Shard to save injured pigeon (May 29th 2018)

Pensioner surfaces ‘alive and well’ after being brutally murdered (2nd June 2018)

‘I seen Jezza’s sausage’ says nightclub worker. (Highgate Clarion, March 26 2018)

Easy money

Things you didn’t know

An innocent in Moscow

Return to Kathios

The woman at Pump No. 3

Choosing who to vote for is like choosing a new car (Written on May 17th 2017)

The antiques dealer

Why Greek toilets are crap

£18,000 to mend garden gate ‘very reasonable’ says Jeremy Hunt (May 8th 2018)