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 has always aimed to keep locals up to date on the terrible meteorlogical situation over the summer, as when we correctly predicted two years ago that it’d probably rain. “August bank holiday isn’t supposed to be pleasant,” said Michael Shark of the Met Office. “If it was sunny everyone’d be heading for the seaside and complaining that the roads were a nightmare – or worse still, a national embarrassment.”

Indeed, motoring organisations were the only ones predicting the opposite of misery over the last three-day break until Christmas. “Fuel has gone up so much that local garages are just writing ‘joke’ on their polesign where the price used to be,” explained AA spokesman Bill Flatyre, “and with the added bonus of all this rain we expect to see major routes pretty clear this weekend.”

RAC counterpart Andy Cambelt agreed. “If you can afford to head to Lowestoft or something you probably should,” he advised. “There’ll be loads of free parking and once you’ve filled the car up you might have enough cash left for a siggy bag of chips.”

Neotians, however, were nonplussed by this supposed good news. “They really must do something about this,” complained Irene Pavillion, 38, of Longsands Road. “I mean it really is not good enough.” When pressed on who “they” were and how exactly something could be done about the weather, Pavillion muttered something about the council.

Former council leader Julia Wayward was quick to retort. “I’m not a councillor any more, so I can safely tell you to stop being such a whiny bunch of bastards,” she said in a statement this morning. “Obviously it was going to rain – everyone’s already bought disposable barbecues and enough burgers to feed the Libyan rebels for a week. Idiots.”

Bean-Counting Councillor and Territorial Army reservist, Harry “R” Rogerson, today submitted a formal complaint to The Citizen moaning that we hadn’t been hacking his phone.

Disturbed that his phone calls to Domino’s, The Nawab and The Hong Kong had all gone unreported, the former army chef shouted, “THIS IS A FUCKIN’ TRAVESTY! I’VE BEEN IN CHARGE FOR BLOODY MONTHS NOW AND NOBODY GIVES A TOSS! ALL THAT ARSE LICKING AND SUCKING UP TO THE LOCAL BIG KNOBS TO GET MESELF NOMINATED AND NOT ONE BLEEDIN’ DOWNLOAD FROM THE BLOODY PHONE.”

Citizen supremo and editor, Tim C, responded that “I wouldn’t have a clue how to do it and I don’t intend publishing The Citizen on Sunday anyway.”

Dissatisfied, Cllr Rogerson continued, “AAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHHH. FUCK IT! I WANT RECOGNITION! I’M FUCKIN’ IMPORTANT NOW, MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYONE ELSE! I BET THEM HUNTINGDON COUNCILLORS HAVE HAD MURDOCH SNIFFIN’ ROUND THEIR SAMSUNGS! HOW COME HUNTINGDON GETS EVERYTHING WHEN ST NEOTS DON”T? ARRRRRGGGHHHH!”

Reports that the closure of backstreet “tanning” shop Salon Two could lead to the publication of details of  hacked phone calls are entirely untrue.

“This isn’t on,” said councillor Harry “R” Rogerson. “They can take their horses and fuck off!”

Newmarket is part of Suffolk, although around 20% of it’s area is in Glorious Cambridgeshire. The town is the world centre for horseracing, and councillors wishing to push the border east say the extortionate rates of council tax they are planning to charge equines could shore up services and slush funds in the rest of the county.

However, even if Newmarket does join the UK’s most wonderful shire, there is confusion over which district it would belong to. “Geographically,” explained local town-moving expert John Hall of Anglia Ruskin University, “Newmarket should come into South Cambs. However, this district was recently voted one of the top-ten places to live in the UK, and has no towns. Newmarket’s a town so SCDC isn’t interested.”

St Neots residents refused to allow the town to become an outpost of Huntingdonshire, and it is thought that Newmarketeers would be less than pleased to be associated with people-eating Fenland.

“Ultimately, it doesn’t matter anyway,” said Hall. “Firstly, it probably won’t happen. And secondly, Neotians need to do their research – Newmarket is half the size of St Neots, as horses don’t, despite rumours, each count as 300 people.”

Only Militant Steve van der Whitevanman and Conservative opponent Harry “R” Rogerson had anything new to say, with the rest of the councillors harping on about community centres in Eynesbury.

St Neots heads to the polls today to elect town councillors and to take part in the Alternative Vote referendum.

“Unfortunately,” said Militant Steve, “the rest of the candidates in St Neots seem to have disappeared. Should be another resounding success for the Lib Dems!”

The Citizen does not support any political party, but thinks you should probably vote Lib Dem for town council, even if it’s just because they’re quite good at making sure we pay less tax than Huntingdon or St Ives.

Vote Yes to AV. You know, just to see if it works. It’ll be a giggle.

All lame attempts to increase the profile of the product and the latest ruse by genial local councillor Steve van der Whitevanman to attract some much needed pre-election publicity.

Councillor van der Whiteveanman has re-branded himself a militant promising that if it ever became necessary he would stick a traffic cone on top of his head, in defiance of the law, to stop someone parking there!

Shock-waves of disgust have literally rippled at a snails pace throughout a single internet forum thread.

“WHAT A FUCKIN’ DISGRACE!” screamed fellow candidate Harry “R” Rogerson.

“I CAN’T FUCKIN’ BELIEVE THAT A LOCAL COUNCILLOR IS ADOPTING THIS ANTI-SOCIAL HOODIE BEHAVIOUR JUST SO HE CAN PARK HIS GEE WHIZZ OUTSIDE HIS FLAT. THE ARMY WOULDN’T HAVE STOOD FOR THAT AND THEY HAD TANKS! Did you know I was in the army?”

“Militant” Steve, as Cllr van der Whitevanman now wants to be known, was unrepentant.

“Call me militant! Please? Oh go on, just once. I’ll buy you a sweetie. Alright if you call me militant I promise I’ll get the town fence painted and and…and er I’ll do something else equally radical.”

The Citizen fully expects the next few days to produce some equally bizarre behaviour from all local candidates as polling gets nearer.

However, it appears reports of a gun battle involving US Marines were in fact covering the true facts – a gang of moody St Neots chavs in fact carried out the execution.

Councillor Julia Wayward said, “Locals may remember that we rounded up a load of angry hoodies a couple of months back to go after Colonel Gaddafi. Having failed in this task, we sent them after bin Laden instead.”

Spokesman Darren Waynerightyeah, 17, said “It just goes to show that if one of the largest armies in the world can’t get something done in a decade, us Neotians can wrap it up in under ninety days. My mum’s well proud. Innit.”

It is thought that the troop of under-agers, who were grouped into an unsettling militia by the rozzers back in February, will next pursue whatever bogeyman the US decides to be frightened of now that the al-Qaeda figurehead ha been slain.

In related news, the St Neots Rumour Mill got all its staff to come in on the bank holiday to begin churning out the sorts of Chinese whispers that normally result from such a result. MD Beatty Broadband said “This is a fantastic result. The resulting conspiracy theories and rumours of who will be next will ensure that when we announce our results for the next quarter, the resulting celebration will be quite a result. Result!”

Keep reading the Citizen for news of our world-record attempt for the most different uses of the word “result” in one paragraph, with live results.

Local staff nurse Nicola Pinkside and her compatriots were accosted by police in the overgrown concrete Hertfordshire shithole and forcibly ejected from the so-called town. “Apparently we’d smashed up a pub earlier in the evening,” said Pinkside, “but frankly I think I’d remember that.”

A spokesman for Hertfordshire Constabulary said, “It’s obvious these Cambridgeshire girls were to blame for the pub-destroying incident. No-one from Stevenage ever does anything violent ever.”

Stevenage suffers from a high level of violent crime compared to the surrounding area, and it is thought the local rozzers are keen to blame all the borough’s problems on intruders from the more salubrious county to the North. “I think we can close the book on every unsolved nan-mugging and midnight shoeing in the area,” said Pc Ras Prince, “as it’s clear that we’ve now removed this violent Cantabridgian faction.”

St Neots councillors responded by demanding Stevenagers look “in the fucking mirror” to find all the criminals they could ever want.

Around 72% of the papers’ coverage has been made up of reports of the project for nearly three years, with the remainder covering missing cats and ugly babies.

But this week, contractors BAM! Nuts’n'all handed over the concrete monstrosity, which has overrun by two years. “It’s a happy day,” said a spokesman for Cambridgeshire County Council. “When this project started, the economy was booming and everyone had loads of money. Now, following a global recession which you may not have noticed, we’re all skint, and the completion of White Elephant Avenue is a much-needed ray of sunshine in an otherwise cloudy outlook.”

Cambridge residents were not so happy. David Morennes, of the city’s Gilbert Road, said “All this means is that St Ives and Huntingdon residents can get into Cambridge a little quicker. Let’s face it, no-one needs that.”

Former News. Crier & Something editor Matt Scottish, who now works somewhere beyond civilisation’s western boundary at the A1, said “There’s a real challenge here for my replacement. They’ll need to dig out some back issues and see what we used to report on before the busway.”

This reporter seems to remember it was mostly cats.

Cambridgeshire announced the scheme today via local rag the Cambridge Evening News, which is published in the morning. “The county council can no longer afford to reduce speed limits,” said a spokesman, ” and seeing as people seem to think that changing the limit will actually stop people breaking it… well, why not let them have a go then?”

Julia Wayward was incensed. “It’s a bit daft to say the least,” she commented. “You know how awkward people in St Neots are. We’ve already had people in Monarch Road making applications for speed limits between 5mph and seventy, on different sections of the road.”

High Street traders were similarly unimpressed. “I seriously doubt we all want the same speed limit,” said Andrez Superturk of the Hotspot Chicken and Pizza takeaway. “I would like to see a blanket 60mph zone in the town centre so that our delivery drivers can get where they need to go fast. Other shops rely on passing trade, so would like motorists to crawl past at three miles an hour. Clearly these wishes aren’t compatible.”

The idea was not without it’s proponents, however. Cllr Jonathan Chatsworth, who represents Histon and Impington near Cambridge, commented that “This is a marvellous idea. The council receives £20m a year for highways and the suchlike, and by outsourcing all the costs to whiny residents who actually want the speeds changing, will be able to continue to provide all councillors with these nice gel rollerball pens, instead of switching to cheap orange Bics. Hurrah.”