TV Monkey pleads for right to die

Monkey, the star behind struggling television company ITV Digital, is to apply to the British High Court for the right to die after doctors revealed that his degenerative condition would never be cured.

The popular simian TV personality, currently being kept alive by complicated machinery in Rolf's Animal Hospital, London, is said by specialists to be "haemorrhaging cash badly", with his life-long partner and hilarious celebrity drinker Johnny Vegas reportedly mounting a 24-hour vigil at his cage side.

"He's one sick little monkey," Doctor Theodore Singh told The Rockall Times, speaking from just outside Monkey's private hospital room. "Mr. Monkey has been seriously ill for some time, but unfortunately no one has been watching so his illness has gone largely unnoticed, sadly to the point where there is very little that we can do medically to provide him with the quality of life that any self-respecting monkey could expect. Basically, if there's a power cut, he's screwed."

Monkey is expected to appeal directly to the law courts via a high-quality BSkyB satellite link between his hospital bed and the courtroom, and Johnny Vegas has already hinted that some lovely sketches have been written that would have the Jury "weeping with frightful laughter" as they deliberated their heart-wrenching decision. "Monkey and I have been putting some material together in the last few days, fitting in our work between bed baths, catheter insertions and other vital medical procedures," said Mr. Vegas. "Once I've got those out of the way though, Monkey and I manage to squeeze in quite a bit of quality time."

Monkey's request to die is fraught with legal complications, not least the fact that the puppet star has personally invested hugely in English football clubs, with little provision to maintain this investment should he pass away into that void that many people refer to as "The Afterlife".

Speaking from his plush offices on the Cayman Islands, the Chairman of the Football League Sir David Bung highlighted how cash strapped clubs would suffer if Monkey is allowed to die: "How are clubs supposed to survive if they can't pay their hardworking players 40 times the average national wage?" whinged Sir Bung. "Monkey entered into a contract with us and now it seems that he's trying to wangle his way out of it by dying, which my lawyer informs me is frigging cheeky. I hope he rots in hell, with the hand of Satan perpetually tickling his kidneys."