A short satirical story by Tom Sharpe, published in The Daily Telegraph on 8 January 1994 as part of the paper’s Saturday short story series, with an illustration by Paul Sample, ‘Stirring the Pot’ is set in the offices of the Lexham Gazette, a small provincial newspaper. When the reclusive Major Grail sends in an advertisement reading ‘Deaf mute required for chain saw work. ESN teenager preferred’, the advertising manager Mr Potter and the editor Mr Wellstead decide to run it for the sake of a good headline, and find themselves facing a flood of complaints from the Education Department, the RSPCA and the paper’s proprietor. It pokes fun at the tabloid circulation war and at the language of early-1990s political correctness.