“This situation is totally unacceptable,” says Warren Pearce, 22, who lives on the Oxmoor Estate’s notorious Kent Road and is the chairman of the local heroin and crack purveyor’s association, Huntingdon Ultra Super Narcs. “Our dealers are all independent businessmen, and are really starting to suffer in the recession. Working people just can’t afford hard drugs any more, and although there are more than ever on the dole, it just doesn’t make up the numbers.

“Just last week, one of the most prolific crack houses in our district, in Sandfields Road, St Neots, was shut down, and all the customers vanished. This put at least four badboy Yardie crack pedlars out of business.”

Seemingly unrelated is the news that Huntingdon is the UK’s most well-read town, in a survey by online book retailer Amazon. But local anthropologists have uncovered the shocking truth – namely that the town’s drug dealers have started pushing reading material instead.

“It’s an interesting find,” commented book shop employee Ras Prince, 40, of Godmanchester. “What’s happening is that the kids these days, people have been filling their heads with all kinds of nonsense about how ‘crack is whack’ and ‘heroin is not your hero’ and all that. So, the suppliers have diversified.”

The method, explains Prince, is the same as pushing Class A’s. “You butter some impressionable teen up with a few really good quality novels and such, and then once they’re hooked you can start emptying their wallets. It’s such a simple transition, I’m surprised it didn’t happen earlier.”

Certainly, this may be the only way to explain why Twilight was so popular. “After all,” says Prince, “here’s a pile of absolute dross which takes vampires from being the stuff of children’s nightmares to sparkly, flaky fairies who are scared of having sex. Only someone with a heavy addiction to the printed word would buy it.”

Ingredients:

285g (10oz) Elf-Shaving Flour

 Method:

Mix all of the dry ingredients into a fedora, including the grated lemon zest, bits of fingernails and knuckle-skin. Bind utterly.

Rack-up a fat line. Snort.

Add enough milk to produce a softie. Now dough happens.

Turn out onto a floured surface. Dust your face with yet more kitten.

Roll deep the mixture to produce a roll approximately 15cm (6 in) long and 5cm (2 in) in diameter (about the size of an average kitten – bell detail not necessary, but I would recommend you try).

Prepare either a tea towel lightly dusted with flour, or sheet of kitchen foil or a double thickness of greaseproof paper, or an old newspaper you found in a skip out the back of your nearest supermarket. I personally like to use a nice pair of pert, young kittens brushed with melted butter (please ask permission from the owner first though).

Wrap your dough kitten loosely but securely between the oiled-up kitten, leaving enough space for it to rise. There’s nothing quite like the sight of your doughy kitten nestled in the valley of two firm, rounded kittens – the oil glistening on the lightly dimpled kitten, the gentle, rhythmical undulation of soft kittens as you thrust your kitten…er…sorry, I digress.

Tie or seal the end.

Place in the steamer and cover successfully (think more Jimi Hendrix ‘Cross-town traffic’ rather than All Saints ‘Under the Bridge’).

Steam for 1½ to 2 hours. This should give you plenty of time to finish-off your kitten and throw mung beans at pigeons in your garden.

Serve cut into thick slices with lashings of warm kitten and Tequila stuntmen.

Tequila Stuntman

Ingredients:

Tequila (1 bottle)

Salt (just a pinch)

1 Lemon (sliced)

Idiot friends prepared to hurt themselves (as many as you can find)

Method:

Pour shots of Tequila, enough for you and your friends.

Lick the back of your hand and add the pinch of salt.

Snort the salt. Down the Tequila. Squeeze the Lemon into your eye. Immediately regret it.

A report in the national press today explains that some people are missing a subunit of a receptor that tells them when they have had enough nicotine, making them born smokers.

But in a typical misappropriation of the research, locals have seized on the report as a way of explaining addiction to absolutely anything.

“This is brilliant,” said local crack-fiend Hans Usborne. “Now I can do all the crack I want, and blame it on a faulty crack receptor. I fucking love crack!” 29 stone mum Sharon Corrigan, 43, of Field Cottage Road, agreed. “I finally know why I feel the need to eat a bucket of fried chicken every single day – my chicken receptor is all to cock!”

Local health chiefs were disgusted by the news. NHS spokesman Mike Primark said “This is completely irresponsible. The research was only on nicotine, so yes, the town’s thousands of smokers do have a potential reason for their continuing need to spend £6.85 a day on their precious Marlboro Lights. But it by no means affects everyone, and certainly doesn’t extend to any other drug or addiction – unless people are mixing nicotine into chocolate then the fatties have no excuse.”

Local high-end chocolate manufacturers B&B Chocolat said development of a 70% cocoa bar with 0.5mg nicotine was underway. “If people are going to explain away their addictions to cocaine, weed, pills, meth, m-cat, MDMA, skag, angel dust, alphabetti-spaghetti, PCP, BZP, AZT, temazapam, diazepan, ketamine and a list of drugs no-one’s thought of yet, as well as burgers, chicken, kebabs, tea, coffee, Red Bull, Fosters, Smirnoff, Wham bars, sandwiches, supercider, Special Brew, Lottery scratchcards, lighter fluid, overpriced French bottled water, Sara Lee gateaux, flapjacks, curry, pizza, special-fried rice and fucking Lambrini – then why shouldn’t they have a lovely high-quality luxury snack to be addicted to as well?” said a spokesman.

Under the current Job Seeker’s Allowance scheme, which is intended to help people look for work but is normally used as an excuse to do just the opposite, under-25′s are paid around £20 a week less than those with the good fortune to be born in the eighties or before.

“It’s a fucking outrage,” ranted Colin McWilson, of Knaresborough Court, who is almost twenty and has never had a job. “My outgoings are just as high as my older friends but they get more – around £38 every fortnight, which is a good few cans of Supertennants!”

Indeed, the cost of living for workshy dole-queue scum has increased well beyond inflation in recent years. Professor of Economics at Cambridge University’s Judge Business School, Charles Howitt-Lowry, explained, “Alcohol duty has gone up, which is a massive cost for the unemployed who generally drink twenty or so cans a day. It’s a big increase to cover compared to those of us with jobs who only consume fourteen units a week. Also, the price of games consoles and LCD TV’s, whilst falling, is still a lot higher than the price of equivalent items ten years ago, when all they needed to afford was a SNES and a twenty-eight inch Alba. And don’t even get me started on rolling tobacco and Rizlas.”

Local dealers were also slated for profiteering from the desperation of under 25′s. “Teenagers are so inept at growing their own weed these days. Those without an older sibling to teach them proper plant care must instead shell out up to £25 an eighth – that’s £50 a day to alleviate the boredom which hits after Jeremy Kyle finishes.”

Claims that these tax-dodgers should seek employment were fast refuted by Kieron Daily, 19, who we encountered signing on at Huntingdon Job Centre. “Obviously, there are jobs out there, but I’m fucked if I’m working in some office for eight hours a day,” said Daily, who lives in the town’s Oxmoor estate. “That ain’t a man’s job is it, and how am I supposed to consume enormous quantities of ketamine if I’m being watched by some conformist, tie-wearing middle manager?”

The Department for Work and Pensions said it would review the JSA paid to the young so-called jobseekers. “Obviously,” said a member of staff, “we’re not in full possession of the facts. I doubt anyone here knows the true price of a gram of MDMA, and whilst we want to keep the unemployed on the poverty line, it’s probably best not to push them below it.”

The grotty old bogs, whose odour can be detected as far away as Little Paxton, have long been a blight on the landscape of South Street, especially since all the shops and warehouses on the road were turned into houses.

Resident Michael George, 51, who moved into a townhouse directly opposite the pongy pissoir in 2004, said “I keep thinking I haven’t flushed, but in fact it’s just the stench from across the road. It’s particularly bad on market day when so many weak-bladdered old dears visit from the Fens, they have to form a queue outside.”

However, not everyone welcomed the news. “This is a prime location for dropping off ching, horse, mandy and all manner of other drugs,” said Eynesbury dealer Ian Ovitch, 22. “The police aren’t allowed in without breathing apparatus so it’s relatively safe. And I always get my customers to rinse their hands and walk out shaking them dry, so it looks like they actually have just been for a slash.”

Councillors however denied they were taking the piss. “We can’t actually tell you why we want to shut the worst toilets in the district,” said a mysterious unnamed spokeswoman, “but as soon as we think of a reason we’ll be sure to let someone know.”

When we suggested the council use the sale of narcotics as an excuse, the spokeswoman flushed with embarassment and walked away.