Popular Nintendo character Super Mario has been elected into Italy's top office to help get them out of their economic hole.
"It's a good a job I am so good at collecting them there coins, eh?" said Mario Monti. "I collect them and I put them into that there economy yes?"
Anti-Mario campaigners maintain that the new boss of Italy is the wrong appointment.
"I know Greece are jumping into bed with the Chinese," said Culo Per Cognito of La Forza, a protest group based in Milan. "That's great for getting their togas washed, but we in Italy have more taste. Sartorial elegance. We invented good taste. And organised warfare, but that's by the by. I don't like jumping into bed with a large Japanese multinational games manufacturer."
Opposition parties believe that Mario will spend too much of his time running around the piazzas looking for secret rooms, jumping on people's heads and avoiding some character that he calls "Bowser".
"We think it's some kind of dog," said Per Cognito.
"Italy has so many a problems, yes?" said Mario. "I solve them all with a bit of good plumbing. Not a problem, you'll see. I'll dress up as a beaver and eat some mushrooms that make me grow huge and hard."
On hearing this news, Per Cognito was astounded.
"I thought Silvio Berlusconi had gone?"
