With Britain’s beaches being overwhelmed by raw sewage discharged by water companies, a new system of warnings and countermeasures has been announced. Dubbed ‘Turd Watch’ by the press, the new measures will include a brown flag to supplement the existing red flag warning of dangerous water conditions. “The brown flag will be flown at any beach where incoming effluent is spotted,” explains Harvey Minkster of the new Marine Effluent Warning Agency, set up to respond to the recent effusions of raw human waste. “It will be a signal to all bathers, surfers and the like to immediately leave the water and retreat as far up the beach as possible – if they believe that they have come into contact with any floaters, then our mobile disinfectant teams will be on hand to hose them down with chemicals.” According to Minkster, the most popular beaches will be patrolled by permanent teams of highly trained lifeguards, who will be constantly on the look-out for dangerous build-ups of effluent and will be prepared to rescue any bathers who find themselves engulfed in seaborne human faeces. “Even as we speak, towers are being set up at regular intervals on every major beach, from where our lifeguards will constantly watch the water for sewage,” the official told a press conference. “Obviously, if they have to go into sewage infested waters, then they will have to be wearing full hazmat suits – so there’ll be none of the sorts of rescues you see on Baywatch. They’ll have to wade out to stricken swimmers – so if you are too far out when the brown tide comes in, then you will be on your own.”
Minkster has been keen to downplay comparisons with the fictional US lifeguards depicted in popular nineties TV series Baywatch, emphasising that no members of the so called ‘Turd Watch’ will be wearing the skimpy red bathing costumes featured in TV series. “I’m afraid that their hazmat suits won’t be featuring any cleavage and won’t be disappearing up their arses,” he commented in response to questions from the press. “They also won’t have any of those fancy speed boats or jet skis, I’m afraid that our budget just won’t stretch to them. There will be a couple of rowing boats and some inflatable dinghys, though, which they can use to row out to victims.” Minkster admits, though, that rescuing and disinfecting victims of the current tidal wave of filth facing Britain’s beaches is merely treating the symptoms, rather than actually getting to grips with the problem itself. “The real challenge is to keep the brown stuff away from bathers in the first place,” he muses. “We’re looking into putting up barriers, like the shark nets you find off of South African and Australian beaches, to try and keep the stuff at bay. Another solution might be to try and scrape it all off the water before it gets inshore using fishing nets or something.” The lifeguards will also be equipped with shovels to clear beached turds from the sand. “We’ll probably have to bury them in pits, or something,” says Minkster. “After all, if the public turns up to an already turd-strewn beach, it’s likely to put them off completely.”
For many, though, these new measures are too little, too late. “For God’s sake, it isn’t bloody turd-fighting life guards that we need,” declares environmental campaigner Chris Lapstew. “We need the government to act to stop the privatised water companies from dumping their shit – our shit, in fact – into our rivers and coastal waters!” He believes that the authorities are simply not taking the threat to public health posed by the current tsunami of shit seriously enough. “Sooner or later, someone is going to get seriously ill as a result of swallowing a turd or something,” he contends. “But their only answer is hoisting brown flags and hosing down the beaches with disinfectant – that will likely kill any wildlife on the beach as surely as the shit will.” Lapstew fears that the influx of of effluent has already disrupted the coastal ecosystem. “Fish are eating the stuff, with disastrous consequences,” he says. “Fish and Chip shops along the South coast have been receiving customer complaints that their battered fish tastes like shit – even more so than usual. Worse still, there’s been one report of a punter finding not locally caught fish, but a huge turd, under the batter in their fish supper.”
Others, however, claim that things have already gotten out of hand, with sea creatures having already been mutated by the various drugs and other noxious substances in the untreated sewage that they have been eating. “Only last week, off the Sussex coast, a couple out in a rowing boat had to beat off with an oar some horrible smelling, slimy brown tentacled thing that attacked them,” claims journalist Tim Colloid in the West Sussex Coastal Shipping Gazette and Boat Mart. “They’d only just fought that off when this huge brown gull swooped down on them and deposited a huge turd in their boat – so big it nearly capsized them. As it was, the thing was so noxious that they were almost overcome by fumes before they reached the shore.” According to the local journalist, there have also been reports of boats finding themselves becalmed in turd-infested seas. “Their crews have described it as being trapped in a brown Sargasso,” he says. “The stench and swarms of flies, apparently, was overwhelming.” Colloid fears the worse is still to come. “If they start releasing this stuff into the sea near nuclear power stations then the radiation could result in giant mutated turd creatures,” he opines. “We could face the terrifying prospect of giant brown shit-spewing Godzilla-type creature coming out of the sea to destroy our cities.”
Some are taking radical action against the onslaught of sea going shit, though. “The problem is that our political representatives just don’t seem to grasp the scale of the problem are are reluctant to take responsibility,” says activist Hank Wallow. “So we’ve got to take the problem to them.” To this end, Wallow and his fellow activists have been engaged in a campaign of taking shit from the beaches and posting it through the letterboxes of those Tory MPs who voted against tighter restrictions on water companies dumping raw sewage in rivers and the sea. “Let’s see how they like having shit on their doorstep,” he declares. “Believe me, as soon as it becomes their problem, they’ll start acting!” In a recent escalation of the campaign, outgoing Prime Minister had several buckets of shit infested sea water thrown over his official car as he drove into his official country residence at Chequers. “Mind you, I don’t know how effective that will be as a protest,” muses Wallow. “The bastard is already full of shit.”
