POETIC 'RHYME' WAVE

Angry campaigners are threatening legal action against high street retailers if they refuse to withdraw the latest violent computer game to hit the shelves - Chart topping Playstation smash 'Grand Theft Laureate.'

In the game set in the late 1950's, players take control of vengeful poet laureate, the late Sir John Betjeman, stealing Humber Alpine motor cars and slaughtering innocent bystanders with stout sticks, in a shocking mixture of bloody mayhem and whimsical poetry about changing trends in Post-war British architecture.

Since its release last week, the rhythmic, carnage heavy Playstation 3 hit, has become an obsession for children as young as five, despite its 18 certificate rating.

The object of the game is for the Betjeman character to murder his way around the Home Counties, looking for someone who will draw him a quiet pint of Real Ale, and settle it in an eddying lake of foam on the Oak trestle table of an Ivy wrapped Inn...and then murder them.

Oliff Crackerbarrel, head of Killjoy pressure group 'aSaferUK,' told reporters who weren't really listening to him: "This game is completely disgusting and morally repugnant on every conceivable level."

"I haven't managed to complete level 7 of 'Grand Theft Laureate' so far," he admitted, "but the subject matter is totally inappropriate. If I'm not having to suffocate a prostitute with a left over cream bun, then I'm being forced to fly a helicopter into the belfry of a picturesque English Village Church."

"Kids who are exposed to this level of sustained debauchery and elegiac pining for the lost soul of England will unquestionably be scarred for life."
The company responsible for the making of the game, was unavailable for comment, as their senior management were too busy pissing themselves over the acres of free publicity they had received as a result of the pompous protests.

Despite the manufacturers' flippancy, the games critics insist damage is still being done. Last week a twelve year old child was detained at a school in Blackburn following the attempted stabbing of one of his classmates.
Witnesses say that the boy, John Dibble, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was speaking in four line stanzas at the time, and wildly trying to rhyme 'balustrade' with 'Orange Lucozade.'