Household Cavalry to provide 18th Duke of Norfolk with a horse during his driving ban

The Household Cavalry have agreed, for the duration of his recent driving ban or until the coronation of His Majesty King Charles III, whichever occurs first, to lend one of their horses to Edward Fitzalan-Howard, the 18th Duke of Norfolk. As Earl Marshal, the duke is defined as 'the principal organiser of royal funeral processions, royal coronation processions and all that kind of stuff'.

However the cavalry have respectfully requested him to observe speed limits, not to ride through any red traffic lights and to bring his horse to a halt when requested to do so by police traffic officers. In particular they have advised his grace to refrain from using his mobile phone while his horse is in motion.

He has also been advised to comply with any police stop-and-search operations intended to detect whether he may be carrying a bladed weapon of any description. It is not known whether he will be required to wear the full uniform of the Household Cavalry.

However, as a mark of respect for the people of Ukraine, and to signify his disapproval of President Putin's invasion of their country, he is at least expected to keep his shirt on at all times.

Hibernation: the on-trend way people in YOUR neighbourhood are subsisting NOW!

With eating, heating, dressing and not being curled up in a whimpering, frostbitten ball becoming nostalgic memories of long-fled luxuries, millions are realising hunkering down in a state of sub-consciousness (aka the operating level of Eamonn Holmes) as their only hope to surviving the winter. So banish all memories of the time Peter Purves picked Tommy the tortoise from his haybox come spring and a leg fell out of his rattling shell (that hardly ever happens), and follow our top tips to smashing it like a snoozy fat-tailed dwarf lemur. Or a cooler animal which hibernates. Like a mite-ridden ground squirrel. Yeah.

Fatten up

Bit of a catch-22, this one; if food was readily available, you wouldn’t be licking Rustlers wrappers out of the corner shop bin and eyeing up another tea of woodchip wallpaper and ennui right now, but to survive a few months blissful dribblefest you need to blubber up like a Primark shopper ambushed by the Krispy Kreme concession. Thanks to the government failing to implement phase 2 of the sugar tax, Sunny D is still readily available if you want to load up on calories, e-numbers banned in 47 countries, and bonus in-bottle embalming fluid. Or it’s a record acorn harvest this year, if you’ve got the strength to see off a few pawsy squirrels and get yourself tanked up on tannin, protein-tastic cankerworms, and- ooh, niacin!

Prepare a suitable receptacle

Hmmm, a cosy box, as sealed and insulated as possible. Well, the fridge is nice and toasty- and, bonus, furry- since you switched it off to save on ’leccy last month when E.ON advised your bill was going up to approximately the annual GDP of a small Pacific island. Per unit. However, unlike Madonna, you will still need to take the occasional breath. Remember when you ordered that single screen protector from Amazon, and it came in a box the size of a Shetland pony? Bingo! Take care not to let any of your unchecked tears dampen the shredded final demands and rescinded mortgage offers you need to fill it with, but just before you climb in, remember you also need to…

Secrete yourself in an undisturbed location

Try staying in a corner of your rapidly cooling, crumbling house, and you’ll be disturbed by a rotating Evildex of busybodies, bailiffs, election candidates, estate agents, and endearingly amateur Jehovah’s Witnesses fleeing rampaging hordes of professional End Of The Worlders hyped up on Prepper podcasts and Snowpiercer. So, somewhere warm and soporific, where you won’t be bothered, provisionally for years on end? It’s got to be the backbenches of the House of Lords; just make sure you’re hunkered down before Sanatogen Friday, when things can get a little last-days-of-Rome-y.

Switch off WhatsAapp

However well jell you’re hoping your neighbourhood group will be by your foresight and cunning, it’s vital not to be disturbed; every time your body is roused from torpor through semi-consciousness to the unstoppable screaming that comes with the dawning, horrific realisation this is reality, and not just a… I remember that stuff- used to come from really big dogs, with udders. Tasted of catsick and Farmer Jeremy Clarkson’s ejaculate. Was last able to afford a Babybel in 2011- dream, you’ll start burning calories quicker than a Tory backbencher through restraining orders. We know this will be the hardest step, but you MUST switch off all webcams and social media. Also don’t write ‘Found myself a great box, about to go down, wish me luck! Hoping to get off nice and quickly’ as your last post- it’s probably not the Twitter legacy you want to leave.

When to emerge- or just don’t bother?

Really, what’s the point? Compared to crawling, hollow-cheeked, blackened-toed and ruptured-spleened, into whatever post-apocalyptic ravaged landscape exists in spring 2023 …even worse in 2033 …you're having a laugh, mate 2187?; the prospect of slow, lingering, semi-conscious starvation seems like the golden time you got to rub up against Frankie Hinkle to ‘Relax’ at the Scouts disco two glorious rotations in a row. Pop in your earbuds, wince that you forgot to cancel SKY, and close your eyes...

Family falls apart when the internet goes off for 10 minutes

A family from Shitterton (yes, it is a real place!) completely fell apart when their internet went down for 10 minutes.

Mum Sarah Smart said, “I realised the internet was down when I was in the bedroom trying to find something with Ryan Gosling in to watch on TV, but I couldn’t get Netflix to load. That’s when I heard the screaming start, as both my teenage children found out they couldn’t get on the internet. Then my husband started yelling downstairs.”

Sarah’s husband Dan said, “I was trying to watch Match of the Day on iPlayer when the internet went down. It was awful! My wife came downstairs and said the internet would probably come back on soon, and she suggested we could just sit and have a chat in the meantime. That was when we discovered we no longer have anything to say to each other, and should probably think about splitting up. At that point we tried to Google ‘divorce lawyers’ on the iPad, but we couldn’t, because the internet was down.”

14-year-old Olivia Smart said, “It was like literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to me! What would all my friends think if I didn’t upload a selfie of me sucking my cheeks in and pouting every 2 minutes? I like really needed to post a pic of myself pretending to watch TV with the hashtag ‘just chillin’, followed by another one of me deciding what crisps to eat with the hashtag ‘big decisions’. I yelled at Mum, and she said I could still post on Insta using the data on my phone. Like, duh! I’d already used up my phone data for the month uploading TikTok videos, cos the phone plan she put me on is like really crap, and it doesn’t have enough data allowance, which is like really bad for my mental health.”

15-year-old Byron Smart said, “Bruh, I couldn’t even play Fortnite or nuttin’! No internet, that’s like against my human rights or sumfink, man. It’s bare child abuse, innit? I was well fangry.”

The family crisis was resolved a few minutes later when Sarah turned the router off and on again, and the internet came back on. The Smarts are now living perfectly happily together, all glued to separate devices in different rooms, and hardly ever speaking to each other.

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