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Sun sets on Yelland

The world of print journalism is tonight in shock. The news of David Yelland's departure from the Sun newspaper has landed like a giant rubber duck in a pool of putrid water, causing ripples of scum and pond life to spread to the edges and splash gently over the aghast onlookers peering into the murky abyss.

The short-haired but powerfully built Yelland announced that he was leaving Britain's favourite hard-hitting investigative newspaper with his bald pate held high having achieved the six tasks he set himself. However, strangely enough, the charismatic but curiously shy Yelland failed to say what these six tasks actually were. This led to malicious speculation amongst media junkies that the whole list had been made up as a smokescreen to cover his brutal sacking by His Highness Rupert Murdoch.

Reports from inside Fortress Wapping tell of tears before bedtime and foaming at the mouth while rolling on the carpet. His success at Harvard Business School looks set to be assured.

We can also reveal that Yelland's failed in his aim to defeat The Rockall Times as the paper of choice in the all-important North Atlantic offshore market. "He failed, no doubt about it," puffed media pundit Hans Blix from a private club in Noho, "beating the Times was was his principal objective, but in that he sank without trace."

Despite spending millions on fish promotions and sending his top men to woo newsagents across the island chains of the North Atlantic, Yelland failed to persuade more than a tiny minority of loyal readers to change from the soar-away Times to the increasingly old-fashioned looking Sun.

"I trust The Rockall Times to give it to me like it is," said one ganniwick bird perched on a ludicrously isolated outcrop of granite far from civilisation, mobile phone masts and Internet cafes. "It's a hard but fair journal of record," said a distinguished penguin, 23 months old, as it hunted for a fish dinner in the cold waters around the rock.

The Sun's new editor — the long haired but powerfully built Rebekah Wade — is expected to adopt new tactics and may suggest a merger of the two papers though it is thought unlike The Rockall Times would go along with her stated intention to get rid of Page 3 gulls. Another obstacle could be that our own editors might feel that they could not measure up to the Sun's legendary standards of journalistic excellence. Time will tell.

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