As the Office of National Statistics drew a vague link between the cultural sophistication of a city and the number of non-heterosexual couples gaying it up there, a small advertisement ran in Exchange & Mart featuring a double-ended dildo coiled around Melvyn Bragg's neck and the caption: “Wanted: Female Shirt-Lifters. About five thousand. Apply Hull.”

 

A source at the Council said: “The response from Barnsley has been huge. I realise it’s only Barnsley but it’s all we can afford. Have you any idea how much it would cost to bring a Lady of the Vulva from somewhere like Rotherham?”

 

But lesbian super fan Dave Hedges said: “I heard the news and imagined an endless parade of Sapphic beauties wending their way down the A63, giggling innocently yet with an underlying hint of forbidden mischief as they fed each other from platters of exotic fruit. Then I heard the word ‘Barnsley’ and my whole fucking world fell apart.”

 

“It’s going to look like Sandi Toksvig and Jo Brand got pumped up on Sunny Delight and steroids and wandered into a cloning lab, after which the resultant tribe was allowed to maraud through the streets of Hull sniffing out fresh unsullied girl-meat, each stumpy she-brute pausing now and then to nibble away at its evil flap-hungry twin.”

 

“I for one do not want to see that.”

 

Local painter Jillian Cartwright said: “I’m a happy heterosexual, so unless the Arts Council offer me a grant I won’t be shacking up with any man-weary divorcee desperate to rebirth her inner woman by organising “quim only” dinner parties as an excuse to hand out pieces of artwork with titles like ‘my reclaimed “cunt”: a study in charcoal”.