Since the disappearance of local award winning Cock-Waver extraordinaire Cllr Larry Hackman the town has found itself without a Self-Promotion Champion.

All that changed this week as part-time army chef and bean-counting councillor Harry “R” Rogerson whipped his metaphorical manhood out and gave it a good wave, announcing “THE CINEMA IS A DAMN GOOD IDEA, IT’S NOT MINE, BUT IT MIGHT BE IF IT DOESN’T FAIL. I DON’T KNOW WHY IT’S A GOOD IDEA BUT I KNOW IT’S A GOOD IDEA BECAUSE MARCEL, HACKMAN AND THE OTHERS TOLD ME. THEY ALSO SAID I COULD BE THE SPOKESBLOKE. SEE, I TOLD YOU I WAS WELL IMPORTANT!”

The Citizen asked Cllr Rogerson for his observations on the socio-economic chance for the cinema’s survival based on the local demographic. “YOU FRICKIN’ WHAT?” observed the councillor. “ALL I FUCKIN KNOW IS THAT I CAN GET DOWN THERE WITH THE MISSUS ON SATURDAY NIGHT, HAVE GOOD BEVVY, WATCH A RIGHT GOOD TEAR UP WITH CHUCK NORRIS IN THE PICTURES AND HAVE A RUCK UP THE ROSE AFTER!”

The Citizen is keen to promote the work of good honest cock-wavers like Cllr Rogerson and will be following his exploits closely.

The Citizen reported on the merger last month, with councillors Marcel and van der Whitevanman getting all excited about the prospect of ‘taking over’ their lazy counterparts in the other towns.

However, during discussions on what to call the new town, things turned ugly. “We’d previously agreed to call in St Huntingives,” said councillor Marcel, “despite having an underhanded scheme to leave the historical name of St Neots intact. After all, St Ives and Huntingdon are just made-up names as far as I’m concerned.”

Matters came to a head when Huntingdon councillor Susan Mulligatawny refused to sign an accord stating that the river Great Ouse, which runs through all three towns, belonged to the largest of the three alone. “Everyone has equal rights to this waterway,” said Mulligatawny, “and mayor Gordon Wicksteed has no right to demand a new tax for each litre flowing through Huntingdon. I told him to fuck off! His town doesn’t have ‘shire’ written after it does it?”

The group of St Neots councillors then walked out of negotiations. “They have no clue about how to behave when someone better than you is offering to take away your woes,” said cllr van der Whitevanman. “The only thing I’m worried about now is our cinema – we might actually have to build one, instead of just claiming that Huntingdons is in St Neots.”

Residents again had mixed emotions. “It’s a shame really,” said Andrew Morson of Avenue Road. “As a lover of gyratory systems, I was looking forward to improved access to the ring road. Now I guess that’s just another dream I’ll never realise.” Brenda McShaw, on the other hand, was delighted. “I moved to St Neots years ago to get away from the fucking Oxmoor,” said Ms. Mcshaw, who lives in Milton Avenue, “and I don’t want to be subsumed into some horrible soulless estate without even moving – thank you very much!”

The council said it was looking into alternative mergers, with Bedford and Cambourne considered likely targets. “There is however a town called Eynesbury in Australia,” said Terrence Dougall, “and if we can build some sort of rubber busway and claim it belongs to us we’ll all have much lovlier weather.” A team of councillors will visit this month on a nine-week jolly fact-finding mission and report back as soon as the sunburn dies down.

After years of campaigning and moaning Cllr WVM has succeeded in pissing off enough dog walkers with his grumbling gripes that even the ones that used to pick it up have encouraged their mutts to lay enough canine cables to clog Paxton Pits to the point where the land to the north is fully above river level.

Local anglers were not happy at the news. “I’ve been fishing here for nearly half a century and all I catch these days is Corgi crap and worms,” said one. “It’s all the bloody council’s fault, winding the dog walkers up! It wouldn’t surprise me if they weren’t planning to use the reclaimed land to build a cinema on!”

Cllr WVM, who is proud to live in Eynesbury, said “I am proud to live in Eynesbury because there’s not as much shit as Paxton Pits. However I do see this as another opportunity to start a crusade that will eventually get my photo in the paper. Therefore, as of now, I’ll be starting a Facebook campaign (“Don’t Shit In The Pit”) to name and shame anybody or anydoggy that’s leaves a log on the lake. Mind you I do like the idea of putting a cinema there…”

Led by Paul “Mystic” Marcel the Committee has shown unequivocally that a fully functioning international air hub complete with ground support can survive in St Neots. Marcel, well known for reading stuff into the future that can’t possibly add up, said “St Neots sits centrally between everything and we can capitalise on that. A bit like Bedford who claim they are ‘central to the Oxford-Cambridge Arc’ when in fact it’s just a chav shit hole that no one travelling on the X5 is going to get off for.”

“We can write it on signs and everything,” he added.

“Anyway the long stay car park at the back of the Co-op has never been fully utilised, no one wants to stay here too long, and our preliminary feasibility studies have shown that the available length will more than able to cope with the Airbus A380 or a microlight. Just think what this will mean to local business, except the ones we knock down.”

Locals were quick to complain although we only heard from 20,000 or so residents within the first 10 minutes of publishing the news.

Local man Jack Sheet said ” International? Inter-fucking-national? We only need to get to Ibifa and that’s near the Isle of Sheppy which I fink you’ll agree is well inside England.”

St Neots has a distinct lack of tall buildings, with the tower of St Mary’s Church being the highest point for miles around, so early mutterings of a sky-scraping multiplex were quickly quashed.

However, says local councillor Steve van der Whitevanman, by linking the cinema to the popular science fiction concept of the space-saving vertical farm, a towering monument to movies may be more appropriate. “This is a rural area,” said van der Whitevanman, “and as such a massive multi-storey would look out of place. However, the proposed site was a farm once, probably. My nan is always saying how all this used to be fields.”

It is thought that the first six floors of the cylindrical greenhouse-style building would house the cinema and associated food outlets, with ten floors of open grass areas, playgrounds and cattle fields above. “It’s a fucking awful idea,” said Mayor Gordon Wicksteed. “Anyone growing cabbages in an area full of Saturday night drunks is asking for them to be stolen, and they’re bound to be used as crude weapons next time there’s a drum and bass night at the New Inn.”

The planning committee is due to discuss the plan on Thursday.

“Deep-fried food is, as the Citizen reported last week, a growth sector for St Neots for this decade,” said former mayor Paul Marcel, “and we want to ensure Neotians that there will always be at least seventeen places to buy saveloys within a five-minute walk of the Market Square.”

Plans for the new facility, which will be built on seven car parking spaces in Cambridge Street but somehow still have room for eight screens, are coming on a pace according to councillor Steve van der Whitevanman. “It’s brilliant, we’ve had loads of support for this doomed commercial venture, and I’ve been able to distract myself from doing actual council-related work for a good year now!”

As supporters of the cinema further lose their grip on reality, it is thought that the as-yet-operatorless picture house will provide fridges, freezers and lockers for customers to store their purchases if they happen to decide to see a film whilst out shopping. “That’s shit isn’t it,” said local man Charles Chalky, 30, of Milton Avenue. “Might as well put it next to Tesco unless you’re going to show films about drinking and buying houses. Oh, and chips.”

Local bookmakers William Cliff last night increased the odds of a multiplex opening in St Neots ever to 983/1. As of close of business, no bets had been placed.

The St Neots Citizen has learned that retail guru Marie Harbouras was caught in the tailbacks and had the good fortune to cut through St Neots town centre. Whilst being chauffeured Marie Harbouras “Googled” St Neots and crossed our publication to reveal links to the London cable car, our award winning car parks, and cinema which, as yet, doesn’t exist.

The possible new shopping centre will be part of the lesser known Eastfields chain. Huntingdon Town Council have caught wind of this scheme and approached Westfields chain to try and incorporate  their new multi-story carpark.

Local Councillor Steve van der Whitevanman was outraged and over the moon. He commented, “The congestion in town caused by this development will destroy the town’s economy. All these new shops will be great for the local economy.”

The Tories as a whole responded on a local internet forum as “Another Lib Dem gross mismanagment of this town’s future,” and “Larry will be most displeased, he has not been part of  the badly-spelled ‘STNeots needz a shoppin centre’ Facebook campaign.”

It is thought the 250-unit development, with parking for six thousand cars and attendant restaurants and other facilities, will fit nicely on the site currently occupied by the car park behind the Handyman.

A comprehensive press release from SNTC reads: “There has been some interest in the town for a shopping centre.”

Both Marie Harbouras and the SNTC office were not available for comment.

Beatty Broadband, director of the St Neots Rumour Mill and Chinese Whisper Distribution Depot, today said that the company often releases rumours surrounding the future of the empty-since-completion warehouse, next to B&Q, in the hope that one of them will become true.

“Lots of things end up happening because we start a ridiculous rumour about them,” said Broadband, “such as KFC, Iceland and M&S opening in the town.” Indeed, such retailers previously seemed unlikely to open a branch in St Neots until the company got everyone discussing it.

SNRMCWDD, who are yet to make up a name which can be turned into a faintly amusing acronym, are also thought to be behind the massively pointless cinema campaign of recent years, despite denials from Broadband, who says the firm does not deal in lost causes. “We chuck that one through occasionally,” said a company insider who did not want to be named, “just for the lols really. It’ll never happen, but it’s real fun watching people get worked up about it.”

The latest rumour involves the use of the warehouse as the world’s largest greetings card retailer, of which St Neots currently suffers a deficiency. “There’s only about six card shops in the town right now,” said director of Card Universe Simon Sheen, “which is clearly not enough. Especially once we get the unbirthday recognised, which as anyone who enjoys novels written by kiddie-fiddlers will know is a successful card-giving occasion in Wonderland.”

It is thought that the company will occupy the entire warehouse, earlier moves to split it in two having been thwarted by overzealous Health & Safety officers. “Theoretically,” said HSE spokesman Don Kwon, “if you put a wall in somebody might walk into it, and that’d never do”.

English Heritage were aghast at the idea. The group says the warehouse is clearly going to be empty forever, so is working on having it listed immediately to save them the aggro in the future.

The group, which has the “tremendous support” of around 2,500 members and spells the town name incorrectly, has been cited in local and national papers as proof that the population of St Neots are being let down by the repeated failure of the Council to interest a cinema operator enough to actually build one in the town.

Councillors were keen to gloss over the fact that many of the group members were in fact not in favour of a cinema, and most of the ones that were had an average age of thirteen. “If Facebook says it, it must be true!” stated cllr Paul Marcel, 42, having just stated that the group “Paul Marcel has six toes” was based in fiction.

“Basically,” continued the councillor, “we can set up Facebook groups with the town’s name in, and people will join regardless. Then we can claim this is support for the idea, whatever it is, and get it pushed through.”

Lib Dem Steven van der Whitevanman said “People’ll join any group. Honestly! Look how many people think that if they join a certain group some bloke’ll call his as-yet-unborn son Batman. Or get Facebook to change back to the old layout – which is slightly less likely than St Neots ever having a cinema. Perfect!”

Local “new media” consultant Nathan Hoxton said, “This is a fucking great idea. But the councillors need to remember that group names are always spelled and punctuated in a terrible fashion.” He cited the group “I hate facbook groops with horid Speling” as an example. “I don’t think they’ll have any problems posing questions as statements, though, as long as they get councillor Dougall to set them up.”

St Neots-oriented Facebook groups have previously included “Let’s shoot the chav scum that stamped on that puppy’s head that time” with 42,665 members, and “St Neots occasionally smells faintly of eggs”, with over one million.

The Citizen expects to sign in later this week to find invitations to join groups ranging from “Should St Neots High Street be payntid pink” to “Lets have more takeaways in the hi St”, not forgetting “Honestly, guys, the old fire station site IS big enough for a cinema, three restaurants and a car park!”

Councillor Dougall commented, “Forward thinking eh? I only self-think in real time so this is definitely a step…er…well…forward.”

After lengthy and expensive consultation, the final plan to ensure that the cinema is located correctly involves building the cinema on a moving platform that is then guided on concrete rails to wherever it is needed.

Councillor Paul Marcel, a long time supporter of making sure he gets a new year honours gong, said, “This is a triumph of 21st century innovation, just when we thought there was no way to convince anyone of the success of this scheme the ‘Guided Cinema’ puts us right back on track, ha ha, excuse the pun…I’m so happy! Have you got my best side?”

The scheme would see the cinema move through the town stopping at all the sites currently under consideration. The old dump, the old swimming pool, that piece of scrub-land near the evangelists and even the back of Tesco’s can now be part of the cinematic revolution that St Neots will be heading up.

Strangely Councillor Steve Van der Whitevanman was unavailable for comment although unconfirmed reports suggest that he may have been heard shouting “KNOBS” at the top of his voice when told of the scheme.