The Daily Splash

Flower Bertenshaw, former lecturer at Houghall College in Durham, was due to join the space race today. She is pictured below trying on her new NASA-designed space suit prior to leaving from a custom-designed launch-pad in Jesmond Dene. Press photographers and TV crews were on hand to capture the moment this morning when, at just before dawn, Flower appeared, followed by owner Catherine, to set off on the historic journey. Pausing only to sniff some old dog poo, attempt to steal one of the photographers’ sandwiches, dry hump her owner’s leg for three minutes, harass Henrietta the cat, disappear into the bushes to chase a rabbit, thoughtfully alert the neighbours to the presence of the postman and jump into the stagnant waters of the Dene to chase a stick, she donned the suit and was secured into position on the launch platform.

At 4.15am precisely, the launch went ahead as planned , with the rocket’s trajectory calculated to place the capsule containing Flower in a high-Earth orbit, where she was scheduled to carry out several important experiments, including testing the potency of dog fart in space, and trialling an anti-gravity dog hair remover. Sadly for  the Jesmond Space Agency (JESA) the multi-million pound investment was wasted when Flower was discovered later asleep in a pile of dog hair on Simon’s pillow and not, as had been planned, in space.