Halifax Howard ‘Livid’ At Oscar Snub

Moonfaced Not-Actor Trashes Set

Howard Brown, best known for his appearances in the Halifax advertising campaign, was arrested last night for criminal damage after he’d read he was not amongst the nominees for this year’s Oscars.

According to one inside source “The guy was reading a news website when the Oscar list was announced. He scanned down the list muttering “Howard Brown, Howard Brown, come on you fucking twats, where’s Howard Brown?” When it became obvious his name wasn’t there he just went mental. He threw his laptop at Cheryl from the Croydon branch, who was due to appear in the latest ad singing a version of ‘Simply The Best’. She’s got an eye on her like Gascoigne’s girlfriend this morning, the poor thing.”

Brown’s rampage continued for several minutes, during which time he threw a script at the advert director which is believed to have been smeared with his own faeces. Several pieces of the set were severely damaged by Brown kicking them while repeatedly shouting “I’ll give them extra, the fuckbastards!”

Howard Brown’s agent, Morden Ebbsfleet, issued a statement this morning, starting by saying “First of all, yes, I know – Howard Brown has an agent? What the actual fuck? Anyway” continued Ebbsfleet “I would first of all like to say that my client has the utmost respect for the Oscar judging panel. He also wishes the best of luck to his fellow actors Sean Penn & Mickey Rourke. Howard has often stated how much Penn’s method approach to acting has influenced his own work, especially during the “My First, My Last, My Extra Thing” campaign.”

“My client has been under great stress recently. The current economic client dictates that financial institutions cannot afford to pay vast sums of money to a wooden imbecile performing barely-acceptable karaoke. The pressure of this, as well as continuing his duties as a Halifax branch manager, led him to mix up his pain medication with some strong horse tranquilisers that had been placed in the dressing room by persons unknown.”

This morning, Metropolitan Police would only confirm that they had arrested “A buffoonish idiot in his early forties after an incident at Elstree Studios”. Brown is expected to be given bail, but one unnamed member of the camera crew who witnessed Brown’s carnage thinks this is a mistake. “The BAFTAs are just around the corner and if he’s not named again, god knows what will happen. I know he may look like a vaguely disappointed, myopic shrew but if yesterday’s performance is anything to go by, a lack of BAFTA recognition could make the bloke go totally Dunblane.”

Get The Fuck Out, Children Told

“High School Musical. Screen 4. Now Piss Off”

British cinema-goers breathed a collective sigh of relief today as the Vue cinema chain unrolled over-18-only screenings across the UK. Under the new scheme, adults will be allowed to watch films of their choice without the added soundtrack of mobile phone ringtones, aggressive snogging and repeated attempts to explain the plot by exasperated parents.

“We polled our customers about what they look for when they go to the cinema” said Vue spokesperson Louis Ebbsfleet “And we were amazed to find that less than 3% of them wanted to hear about who fingered who behind the local Burger King.”

The cinema chain piloted the scheme last year which was an overwhelming success. “People were queuing up for the child-free screenings. Most of them didn’t even want to see the film that was being shown.” As one customer involved in the pilot stated “If it means I can sit in peace for a couple of hours without having dozens of little fuckers chase each other across my line of vision, I’ll even sit through something with Meg Ryan in it.”

Security is expected to be tight to enforce the new screenings, with Vue staff being trained in hand-to-hand combat and issued body armour and CS spray. “We’re aware that some minors may object to being excluded” said Ebbsfleet “And teenagers tend to express their dissatisfaction through the medium of a hunting knife. We’ve got an ex-SAS officer to do a risk assessment. It may seem excessive but we feel a duty to offer our customers the chance to watch Quantum Of Solace in something not resembling a glorified crèche.”

Children’s rights activists have reacted cautiously to the move. One stated “We understand that people want a choice of a child-free environment. But please, don’t piss them off. You’ve no idea what a 12-year-old high on WKD and fizzy fish can do. Stick them in a pair of Heely’s and you can’t even catch the little bastards.”

But Vue remain adamant. “As well as the over-18 screens, we’re creating specific screens for kids. We’ve ripped the seats out, everything can be hosed clean and we’ll just show MTV Base on loop with trailers every couple of hours. I doubt they’ll notice any difference, frankly. Let them fuck each other up in there. Just as long as they leave everyone else to watch their film in comfort.”

Early reactions to Vue’s over-18 screenings have been uniformly positive. One customer, Clancy Knutsford, said “I’ve just been to see ‘Burn After Reading’ and it was fantastic. You could hear all the dialogue and I wasn’t showered in Doritos once. I felt a special form of contentment in there. You know what it was? The contentment of somebody not having the back of their seat kicked every twelve seconds. Bliss.”