According to reports the British man who has learnt to speak a foreign language fluently is to be burnt at the stake on Tuesday.

Lord Rosetta, High Court Judge, has told reporters that Justin Milhouse, 44 and three fifths, from Littleborough has been found guilty of witchcraft after it emerged that he is somehow able to “speak foreign.”

The judge said: “I have heard the particulars of this case and they are very disturbing. It’s just not natural. All that talking in tongues and ooh la la. How does he know what French people are saying just by listening to them talk. I’ve never heard the like.”

“It’s not as if English people are capable of learning languages naturally. It has to be some kind of black art, maybe he’s in league with the devil, perhaps he sold his soul or something.”

“What we do know is that we can’t have freaky black magic types wandering about who are capable of goodness knows what. The obvious thing to do is to burn him at the stake.”

Justin insists that he learned French on his mobile phone by accident doing “Duolingo on the bog” but authorities remain unconvinced.

“As a nation we’ve been teaching foreign languages in schools for hundreds of years and we have yet to teach a single child to speak one. I studied Latin for nine years and all I remember is ‘Caecillius est in horto’ and I’m still not entirely sure what it means.”

“We’ll burn him and scatter the ashes at sea, just to be on the safe side.”

Quentin D Fortesqueue is a founding editor of The Rochdale Herald. Part time amateur narcissist and full time satirist Quentin is never happier than when playing his lute and drinking a full bodied Bordeaux. He rarely plays the lute and never gets to drink Bordeaux.