Proposals to occupy New York’s Ground Zero site with a giant mosque have now been approved by US Health and Safety authorities, after tests revealed it to be the architectural form least likely to attract hijacked aircraft. In an effort to assuage critics, the dome section will be converted into a rapid-revolving McDonald’s restaurant, allowing diners to face Mecca and throw up every ten minutes. It will be painted externally in fluorescent orange, thereby resembling from outer space a huge clockwork version of one of Judith Chalmers’ breasts... an image secretly used by NASA to entice aliens.

“I will come here 5 times a day,” said the brake-man on the revolving dome, chewing a flame-grilled burka, “just to read crap puns on menu. And get bonus virgin with suicide happy meal. Would you like to lick out the remains of my fruity sheikh?”

In other memorial-related news, several unsuspecting commuters in Paris found themselves trapped in a series of invisible plate-glass elevators, created to mark the recent death of Marcel Marceau, whilst in London staff at the Afghan embassy were left bemused by the concept of the British Legion’s annual Poppy Appeal.

Elsewhere in the UK, entrances to all road tunnels will now be graced by a statue of Princess Diana, holding a speed camera, with a long lens. Speaking from his table at the Litvinenko Seafood Brasserie, the Duke of Edinburgh criticised the scheme with customary tact and caution. “Let us commemorate her for what she is most remembered,” he said, prizing open a giant clam with his foot. “How about a gang-bang in a minefield? Somewhere in Bulimia. Or any other country where they get slitty eyes from constipation.”