James Blunt provokes ferocious coffee-shop punch-up

Angst-riddled miserablist caught in caffeinated cross-fire

by Ian Ascough

Fresh from enduring a wretched six-week spell at the top of the UK charts, James Blunt was today involved in a ferocious tug-of-war between the UK's high street book and coffee shop outlets.

James Blunt: Angst Borders Group Inc. the American-based owners of Borders Books, has issued a "hands-off" warning to competitors in respect of the angst-riddled former armed forces miserablist. "James Blunt has today signed to a ten-year deal with Borders Group Inc.," said Jackie Jacques, spokesreader for Borders Group Inc. Exact details of the agreement are unknown but it is suspected Borders Group took the unusual step of signing Blunt after perennial British High Street favourite WH Smith tied up dour David Gray to a long-term contract last week. Rumours of a late bid from Caffè Nero for Blunt — whose surname rhymes with punt — could not be confirmed at time of press.

A damning new report leaked to The Rockall Times reveals that music played in book shops and coffee houses has the effect of sounding relaxing and sophisticated to the advertising world's key 18-74 demographic. However the dossier — which we have passed on to Scotland Yard to assist its investigation — goes on to demonstrate that the majority of those who buy music on impulse experience feelings of severe depression and develop symptoms of suicidal tendencies once they have played the music in their own homes. The phenomenon — dubbed "Venti Caffè Latte & Impenetrable Scottish Author Iain M. Banks" syndrome by medical boffins at Hemel Hempstead Polytechnic — is so widespread scientists fear it could affect as much as 99 per cent of the general population.

Blunt, who makes Leonard Cohen sound like an American television evangelist, has remained tight-lipped over the allegations. Sources close to the tortured singer — who is notorious for undressing in a snowstorm before jumping to his slow-motion death in the video for You're Beautiful — say he is "as delighted as his inner torment and artistic public persona will allow him to be".

2005 has seen a massive increase in depressing dirge played over shop tannoys to captive and unwitting audiences. Enormous coffee chain Starbucks — which owns South America and is famous for selling dishwater at three quid a pop — has revealed that music sales account for 64 per cent of their total yearly income (£964,135,167,316,946.50). Sources close to the Seattle-based purveyor of fresh ground claim bombarding their clientele with rounds of seemingly innocuous sonic diarrhoea enables the multi-national chain to propagate the myth that drinking coffee makes people interesting.

Some critics have roundly criticised the practice of playing music by vacuous former public schoolboys from the Home Counties. "It may be well-received by the kind of granola-bothering, sandal-wearing lesbians who read The Guardian, listen to Dido and pretend to give two shits about fox-hunting but the practice is quite clearly having a detrimental effect on the general public," blasted David Bacharach of the British Recording Institute. "We had anticipated the trend would stop after what happened to Waterstones in the late 1990s but if anything things have become progressively worse," he remarked to a bemused passer-by.

Ubiquitous book retailer Waterstones was famously hours away from bankruptcy in 1999 after they were found to have been responsible for the death of an entire family. In a vanguard legal decision, Judge Peter Cottontail ruled that Waterstones should pay damages of upwards of £1bn to the family's deaf spaniel Daniel after the chain was found to have played The Lighthouse Family for an uninterrupted 24 minutes one Saturday morning at their Middlesbrough location. Immediately following their shopping expedition the family drove their stolen Vauxhall Pikey to nearby cliffs where they proceeded to launch themselves into the North Sea. Had it not been for the emergence of baby-faced jazz twat Jamie Cullum, the fine would have bankrupted Waterstones — whose flagship shop in London's Piccadilly now contains a bar where despairing shoppers can seek solace in alcohol's warm and welcoming embrace.

Blackwell's — whose founder Benjamin Henry Blackwell was heavily involved in The Temperance Society in the 1890s — today issued a statement from their Oxford HQ: "Blackwell's is pleased to announce that absurd Canadian Daniel Powter, whose single Bad Day is threatening to dislodge David Blunt's stranglehold on the UK Number One position, has signed up to a four-year deal to provide our in-store soundtrack. We feel the intense, mysterious nature of his songs and the fact he wears a stupid bobble-hat projects the image we have worked hard to cultivate."

Powter, who makes Morrissey seem like a giddy lottery winner, could not be reached for comment at time of press as we simply couldn't be mithered to speak to him.

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James Blunt provokes ferocious coffee-shop punch-up

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