Sensationally, the trial of Pauline YerLegason for 'making Bath council look stupid' is to be televised. The government decided that Bath was unworthy enough to be the guinea pig for the American idea. The rights for the trial were auctioned this morning and ITV pipped the BBC for the privilege of live coverage but the beeb secured a Saturday evening highlights package. 'Trial of the Day' will provide 3 minute clips of anyone who speaks and will go out after ten pm on Saturdays. Gary Lineker is considering the offer of presenter. The main live event on ITV will be anchored by Des with analysis from court room experts Bruce Grobelaar, Terry Venables and Louise Woodward. Commentary will come from Murray Walker who has been tempted away from his beloved F1 for a more sedate retirement.
As for the trial itself, the judge has been officially announced as Sir Lord Chief Justice Simon Taylor. Justice Taylor is renowned for stern sentences, he once gave someone 8 years just for fiddling a badminton peg board! There has been a great struggle to find 12 jurors who haven't heard the furore surrounding Ms YerLegason which has been all over the press like a rash for the last two weeks. In the end half the jurors have been brought in from an outer hebredian scottish island while the rest have come from Mansfield which apparently misses out on the modern world of media most of us are used to.
Controversially, the Bath Evening Gazette is being tried simultaneously for 'being very naughty' by not researching the original council minutes story before printing it. If found guilty, it will spell the end permanently for the Bath based tabloid. We realise that two different people charged with two different crimes would normally yield two different trials but, hey, this is Bath - anything goes.
Other news today, and following the sensational story about Hansie Cronje's match fixing antics the entire England Cricket Team has admitted to taking money to lose matches for the last seventeen years. Yes, it turns out that all the time when we thought we were just rubbish we were just pretending and actually we could have won if we'd been bothered. The freak win over the South African team in England two years ago was apparently caused by the fact that the visitors were also trying to throw the game only they were much better at it than us. Sadly, it would appear that we're not even the best cheats!