Knit Guilty

The public and the press were united today in their condemnation of the ageist abuse which has broken out across social media platforms following the shock defeat of the Dorset LGBTQ+ elite Three Pussies Knitting Team in the West Country All-Comers Non-Euro 2020 Finals last Sunday. The team - whose average age is 75 - lost out in a tense penalty cast-off to a much younger mixed-race heterosexual team from Somerset, after dropping stitches under the intense pressure of a highly partisan crowd. Some have called for an injection of youth and talent into the team as well as a selection process based on merit and ability to knit - something the affirmative action-led Dorset Knitting Association has always stoutly resisted.

Sceptics, as well as died-in-the-wool supporters of the Three Pussies believe that all might not have been honest and above board in Sunday's finals.

Captain and Woolmeister, Mrs Pearl Wan has been singled out for special ignominy following the humiliating defeat, despite the fact that the once-popular octogenarian was the face of the campaign to provide a fortnightly warm beverage to those held under high-security house arrest during the RDC's 2019-20 CONTRIK-69 pensioner-targeted crackdown. Such is the fleeting nature of success and such too is the price of failure that her fall from grace has been described as "precipitate", a word few of her denture-championing contemporaries can still pronounce. Yesterday, a visibly distraught Mrs Wan was pictured smiling broadly [surely smiling bravely [Ed]] as she sipped a brandy and orange at her local pub The Crossed Stitch though friends say the impact of her missed cast-on will "haunt her for many years to come, provided she still remembers it".

However, in a remarkable show of solidarity - described by DHRA PM Mrs Doris Endersley-Kindersley as "heartwarming" - children across the county have voiced their support for grandmother of 15 Mrs Wan as well as her equally-culpable team-mates, some going so far as to write barely articulate letters both to them and to the press as well as to pin indecipherable messages on walls county-wide. Former educationalist Nomor Sküle believes the messages are evidence both of "an unusual level of inter-generational empathy" and of "the frighteningly high levels of illiteracy now endemic across our county".

Today's Sydling St Nicholas Sun reflects a county's growing anger but mistakenly shows a picture of members of the winning Somerset team. Evidence perhaps that their rehabilitation campaign is less than well-foinded.

Meanwhile, catching the mood, the Sydling St Nicholas Sun, renowned for its proactive championing of the people's priorities [and as often for its jumping on the latest bandwagon [Ed]], has gone on the offensive [a very apt word [Ed]] and has begun a campaign to rehabilitate the hopelessly inept, super-annuated, over-protected OAPs.

In what it is calling "Operation Whitewash"* the popular tabloid is calling on all right-thinking people to observe a "moment of enthusiasm" at 8pm this evening [Corfe Mullen time].

*Renamed "Operation Multi-Coloured Make-over" after several complaints.

Whilst several critics believe that "a whole minute might be quite hard to sustain", others are optimistic that bringing people together in this way might just "Heal the County" in ways the Dorset LGBTQ+ elite Three Pussies Knitting Team so spectacularly failed to do on Sunday.