‘Cumberland has the highest incidence of Type II diabetes in the country, with the British Medical Association distinguishing between Type I as the ‘unlucky’ kind and Type II as the ‘for Christ’s sake put down the biscuits’ kind.’
A county that probably shouldn’t have had that third pudding, Cumberland’s residents have taken the county’s excellent local produce a little too close to their hearts, livers and thickly clogged arteries.
A decline in hard-working agricultural lifestyles combined with the rise of the Gregg’s steak bake has seen the once strapping county gain weight, stop exercising and find itself staring glassily up at the television screen, chuckling at repeats of fatloads being beaten with Gillian McKeith’s remorseless poo bat.
The World Health Organisation has described the obesity situation in the area as bleak, suggesting that on some occasions people should remember that bulimia and anorexia ‘needn’t always be considered a bad thing’ and could at least help make visiting the toilet less of the fact-finding mission it is today.
Bullying in schools across the county has become a serious problem as a result, with many tormentors passing out from the weight of carrying round other children’s stolen lunch money and inhalers. With education standards in local schools suffering from sugar-induced hyperactivity, Cumberland could become the first county to see its IQ score exceeded by its BMI.
Facts
- CONTAINS: At least 40% pork, 30% rusk
- CALORIES: Average of 4,500 per day for every man, woman and disgustingly fat child
- EXPORTS: Sausages, electricity
- IMPORTS: Betablockers, more sausages
- SOURCE OF UNUSUALLY HEALTHY GLOW: Let’s give it up for Sellafield
- NATURAL HAZARDS: The ‘Hungry Man Sausage Plate’
- SCOTTISH LEGACY: Showing how batter could be used in a salad
- MISS CUMBERLAND: More an instruction than a beauty contest
History
1237 – The Treaty of York formally sets a border between England and Scotland. Tempers soon fray after Robert the Bruce keeps putting his foot over the line whenever the King turns his back.
1681 – The Reivers, a group of bandits and criminals making the most of the lawless border region between England and Scotland, are finally apprehended during a special edition of Sky 1’s UK Border Force.
1846 – A successful Workington merchant dies, bequeathing his dour facial expression to the town.
1916 – The Government is forced to seize all of Carlisle’s breweries and pubs during World War I after drunk munitions workers are found to have only sent packets of tungsten darts and a selection of Union Jack flights to the front.
1956 – Windscale nuclear power station opens, becoming Britain’s first source of electricity to be generated through self-loathing.
2004 – Whitehaven picks up the coveted ‘Golden Ball and Chain’ accolade awarded to the most sexually stereotypical town in the country.
Did You Know?
Held since 1875, the Keswick Convention is an annual gathering of evangelical Christians seeking to talk to God, relying on the assumption that having created all the wonders of the Earth, He wants to hear yet more readings from the same damn book.
Adenoidal broadcaster and shit Melvyn Bragg hails from Carlisle. Wildlife campaigners recently began a campaign to free his sinuses from captivity.
The former mining towns of Workington and Whitehaven have a long and bitter rivalry, with each describing the other as ‘jam eaters’. Eating jam is taken as a clear signal of homosexuality in these parts, as is crapping indoors.
Criminals operating in the Borders region became so much of a nuisance that in 1525 the Archbishop of Glasgow placed a thousand word curse on all the reivers of the borderlands. This curse – which was never formally lifted – has since been blamed for the persistent annoyance of Scottish banknotes, the poor form of Carlisle United, and all the bollocks on the A595. As part of the town’s Millennium celebrations, the council erected a stone artwork with the entire curse inscribed on it. This now stands as the city’s tallest building after every other structure in the town was destroyed by a freak storm during the unveiling ceremony.
After the sinking of the HMS Lincolnshire, HMS Cumberland became the Royal Navy’s only remaining sausage-based frigate.
With the loss of the coal and steel industries Cumbria has become an unemployment blackspot, and many former workers have been forced by economic hardship to publish tragic autobiographies as an alternative source of income.
Toilet Reading 