Mr Gourlay, your kin have been busy with circulating emails around the council in the following lolz-tastic form:

A controversial experiment that aims to recreate conditions last experienced 13.7 billion years ago has been given the go ahead.

Professor Paul Jewell, leader of the experimental team, explains: "We aim on Saturday to recreate something that has not happened for 13.7 billion years - Derby County winning a football match." Professor Jewell went on to explain that a football will be randomly passed around a group of non-entities, known as "Derby County Football Players", in the hope that the ball will end up in the opposition goal more times than it does in the Derby goal.

"We may see things that have not been seen for aeons," continued an excited Professor Jewell, "such as Derby not being bottom of the league they are in, or a three point total being awarded to the club for such a victorious endeavour."

Meanwhile, in Switzerland the Large Hadron Collider has finally been switched on, generating collisions of immense magnitude not seen since Stuart Pearce kicked Ted McMinn into the main stand in February 1988.