offcom!

Public dissatisfaction with the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom came to a head yesterday when over a million members of the British populace phoned the authority’s complaints-line to complain about it.

Numerous controversies ranging from the regulator’s funding structure to the ‘com’ part of its name sounding a bit rude, led to the UK’s largest bitch since records began, with 1.4 million consumers contacting the authority in what the tabloid media have dubbed ‘Moronic Blind Outrage-gate’.

Mother of nine, Mona Lot, was shocked to hear from her neighbour’s boyfriend’s cat that, in the previous financial year, Ofcom cost the individual British tax-payer over £35,000.

‘Well it’s outrageous, ‘aint it?’ she grumbled. ‘And what’s worse is I only pay £8,000 a year in tax! I had to give ‘em a piece of my mind, didn’t I?’

‘Luckily I’ve got their number on speed dial.’

Ivor Nolyfe, an unemployed cement-mixer from Deptford, lodged his complaint to the watchdog after seeing a documentary on Channel 5 that purportedly claimed that Ofcom employees spent their lunch breaks burning postage stamps and defecating over photos of Baby P.

‘Well it’s outrageous, ‘aint it?’ he grumbled. ‘There weren’t any footage of them doing it or nuffin’ but the reporter bloke said they’d done it and he looked like a really clever bloke.’

‘He was wearing a tie and that.’

In keeping with other public outcries, the vast majority of the yesterday's complainants were over 65 years-old and didn’t actually know what Ofcom was.

One such old-timer, when asked by the complaints-line operator what it was he was complaining about, screamed ‘the Blacks!’, before snoring loudly down the phone for the next twenty minutes and then informing the operator that he'd soiled himself.

In response to the various indictments, Ofcom CEO Jimmy Luffman this morning issued this statement: ‘We’re not entirely sure where these allegations have come from. Our best guess so far is that they are the result of escalating negative press about the authority, possibly stemming from last Wednesday, when my secretary told the person using the self-service check out in front of her if she wouldn’t mind hurrying it along a bit.’

However, the public outcry to ban the regulator has presented Mr. Luffman with an unprecedented dilemma. ‘Do we follow our mandate and act on the British consumers’ request and take away our authority? Because if we do that, we won’t have the authority to take away our authority. What a head fuck!’

‘It’s like that bit in the Back to the Future when all his relatives start disappearing from that photo! Sort of.’