自從見到那段令人捧腹的英國報紙簡介之後，我就一直想知道原始出處，終於皇天不負苦心人給我找到了。原來這是擷取自英國國家廣播公司BBC所製作的一齣喜劇「Yes, Prime Minister」在1986年的一集劇本中的其中一段，原文如下：

Humphrey: The only way to understand the press is to remember that they pander to their readers prejudices.
Humphrey：瞭解媒體的唯一途徑是謹記它們總是迎合讀者的偏見。

Hacker: Dont tell me about the press; I know exactly who reads the papers.
Hacker：別跟我提媒體；我很清楚是誰在讀哪些報紙。

The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country.
《每日鏡報》的讀者是自以為在執政的人。

The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country.
《衛報》的讀者是認為自己應該執政的人。

The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country.
《泰晤士報》的讀者是目前確實在執政的人。

The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country.
《每日郵報》的讀者是那些她們的丈夫正在執政的人。

The Financial Times is read by people who own the country.
《金融時報》的讀者是那些掌握國家的人。

The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country. 《晨星報》的讀者是那些認為本國應由他國執政的人。

And The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think that it is.
《每日電訊報》的讀者則是那些認為他們仍在執政的人。（註一）

Humphrey: Oh, and Prime Minister, what about people who read The Sun?
Humphrey：喔，那麼首相，請問《太陽報》的讀者又是如何呢？

Bernard: Sun readers dont care who runs the country as long as shes got big tits.
《太陽報》的讀者根本不關心誰執政，只要執政的人有對大乳房就成了。

從這段對話可以略微體會尖酸刻薄又複雜的英式幽默。一個不小心，連被拿來消遣都不知道！如果對1986年這齣喜劇的其他內容有興趣可以參考這裡： http://poll.imdb.com/title/tt0086831/quotes

至於那些移民到大西洋彼岸的英國後裔也效法先人列了個報紙讀者表，大家不妨參考看看：

The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
《華爾街日報》的讀者是執政者。

The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.
《華盛頓郵報》的讀者自以為是執政者。

The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country, and who are very good at crosswords.
《紐約時報》的讀者是那些自以為是執政者以及對填字遊戲很在行的人。

USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but dont really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.
《今日美國報》的讀者是那些自以為應該執政卻不真的看得懂《華盛頓郵報》的人。他們確實，就像《今日美國報》上的圓餅圖所呈現的統計數字。

The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldnt mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didnt have to leave LA to do it.
《洛杉磯時報》的讀者是那些不介意自己執政，只要他們能撥得出時間且不需要離開洛杉磯的人。

The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.
《波士頓環球報》的讀者是過去執政且政績相當好的那些人的子女，非常感謝你。

The New York Daily News is read by people who arent too sure whos running the country, and dont really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
《紐約每日新聞》的讀者是那些不確定是誰在執政也不關心是誰在執政只求能在地鐵上找到座位的人。

The New York Post is read by people who dont care whos running the country, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
《紐約郵報》的讀者是那些不關心是誰在執政的人，除非那些人做了些糗事，特別是在銘酊大醉時。

The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who arent sure there is a country .... or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs, who also happen to be illegal aliens from ANY country or galaxy as long as they are Democrats.

《舊金山記事報》的讀者是那些不確定那兒有個國家或有人在執政或諸如此類，總之不管如何他們都持反對意見的人。偶爾有些特例是他們的頭頭是殘障少數族裔女性主義無神論的侏儒，且碰巧他們是來自任何國家或銀河系的民主黨非法外國（星）人。

The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.
《邁阿密先驅報》的讀者是那些在他國執政然而需要看棒球比賽成績的人。

註一：有些網路版本將這句改成The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who still think it is their country，這樣比較容易理解其意。

註二：原寫於2006年2月3日星期五。