The Framley Examiner
The Framley Examiner is a parody of a newspaper in a small provincial English town. Not much happens in Framley, so that the highlights in the newspaper are the absurdist classified ads for items such as second-hand Dachshund stabilizers, firmly in the British tradition of The Goon Show. Upon close inspection of its articles which occasionally contain doctored photos, it has been noted that Framley and its surrounding villages are actually based on Chelmsford, Essex and surrounding settlements such as Writtle, Great Baddow, and Danbury.
The Framley Examiner originally began as a website. It's success then spawned The Framley Examiner book (described on the cover as "the book of the website of the newspaper") ISBN 0-7181-4579-8. A second book, Historic Framley ISBN 0-141-01528-4 was later published, produced in association with Framley Museum.
Among the Examiner's contributors are:
- Challenger Putney, wife of mayor William D'ainty, who always writes articles about him
- Katie Blirdsnest, whose "The Blirdnest Report"s have included such surreal topics: interviewing a man who claimed to swallow the tide to stop it from flooding Framley; being date-raped and being happy about it; and rolling down rubbish heaps with binmen.
- Damiun Clavalier, son of international fridge magnate Garuth Clavelier, writes ridiculous articles in the hope of being sacked
- Adam Wrent, appears to be a child of about 10 who does the only vaguely normal articles
- Pigshit Nelson, who writes unintelligible sport reports
- Ursula Cloybeam, the Examiner's Arts Correspondent
- Jesus Chigley, wrote the first article ever published in the Framley Examiner, and spends most of the time reminding his colleagues of this fact
Other areas around Framley which also recieve coverage:
- Wripple
- Whoft, which frequently suffers deluges of "fluff", and was once demolished in a planning error
- Whotton Plodney
- Princes Freshborough
- St Eyot's, whose historic castle is thought to be the home of Britain's first batman
- Bellaire
- Sockford
- Chutney
- Little Godley, which has been controlled by concillor Haris Paris since a military coup in late 1994
- Molford St. Malcolm
- Dungeon estate, apparently Dungeon has more single fathers than there are grains of sand in the mighty desert