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Shock news on house prices

A new survey carried out by a consortium of UK estate agents has revealed the surprising finding that the majority of Britons "don't give a shi*t" about house prices. The announcement immediately sent news organisations into a spin as they faced the prospect of finding other ways to pad their bulletins and fill their vacant column inches.

"This has come right out of the blue," said a visibly-shaken Suzanne Harlequin from Soho-based media group InterMediaMediaWatch. "We've been using that one for years. It's one of the first things trainee journalists learn because it's the perfect story: no matter what happens you can run it. House prices have gone up? Run it. Gone down? Stayed the same? Run it anyway. And all this time we had no idea people weren't moving house every three months, or that some might even be renting their homes. How are we going to manage without that story?"

Analysts say it is too soon to calculate the long-term damage from this finding, although everybody is agreed that it will be both damaging and long-term. One commentator told The Rockall Times: "News reporting as we know it could soon be at an end."

Ms Harlequin echoed this sentiment. She told us: "We in the media are only just recovering from the discovery last year that nobody gives a rat's fart about the FTSE 100 share index. That was an awful time," she added with genuine feeling. "Just awful."

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