by 
Buckingham Palace has provided assurances that if Her Majesty dies, June’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations will still go ahead via a Weekend at Bernie’s style farce.
After over two years at home, people are looking forward to the relief of an additional bank holiday and the chance to spend a bit more time kicking around the house.
But what if the Queen snuffs it in the meantime?
“Don’t worry – the Jubilee celebrations will go ahead, no matter what,” said Palace spokesman Simon Williams.
“We know the public have a lot of concerns at the moment, what with the cost of living crisis and a lingering niggle that we’re only twenty minutes away from nuclear annihilation.
“However, their number one priority is undoubtedly the jubilee weekend – will they still get a day off if Her Majesty is worm-fodder?
“The answer is yes – in the not completely unlikely event that the Queen stops breathing in the next few weeks, we will simply turn her corpse into a puppet.
“She never smiles anyway, so we don’t need to worry about tricky facial animation.
“We basically just need to tie a bit of string around her wrist and pull it so she waves at everyone. As long as she has a nice matching dress/hat/bag combo then nobody will notice.
“Charles can do her speeches – he’s now proved he can do that, although he needs to work on his falsetto.
“And then after the jubilee, as a nice surprise for everyone, we’ll announce that the Queen is in fact sleeping on the wrong side of the grass and that they’ll get another day off for her state funeral!
“Although actually it might be fun to keep her cadaver on the throne just to annoy Charles – I’ll see how much formaldehyde we’ve got left.”
