Loughborough

The aristocracy have historically singled themselves out by naming their spawn after exotic locations like Delphi or Arcadia. As usual, the lower orders have corrupted this proud tradition with their own knuckleheaded interpretation. Paris and Brooklyn are bad enough, but proper rough kids are named after a Midlands university famous for sport science degrees.

Tiphanee

The working classes didn’t learn standardised spelling in school. They were too busy earning their keep on a barm cake factory floor, which has resulted in their own children being slapped with knock-offs of real names which haven’t quite got the vowels right. It’s different when posh parents do it, that’s personal branding.

Sports Direct

Why call a child Versace or Hermes or John Lewis when you can go straight to the source? Bearing the nomenclature of a high street sporting outlet has many positives: your name on a mug, guaranteed warehouse work when you turn 16, and everyone’s automatically affectionate to you because of their pre-existing love for the brand.

Pigeon

Animal names are a trend among the upper classes, with Mouse and Panda climbing in popularity. Less privileged parents can do the same by drawing on the world around them. Screeching Mid-Shag Fox is an inappropriate and something of a mouthful, but Pigeon works. One of those city ones that’s lost a half a foot and pecks at cigarette ends.

Tarquin

Once reserved for foppish scions of the baronetcy, it’s gone down society faster than Burberry and now appears regularly on council estates by parents trying to move upmarket. Expect flat-roofed pubs of the near future to be run by a thuggish dealer named Tarquin and his XL bullys Sixtus and Sevenus.

Robbie

A nice, normal name which has playfully taken the edge off the ending? Nothing could be more working class than that. You can practically picture his soot-covered face skipping to work down cobbled streets as he whistles excruciatingly. If he was a social climber he’d have a more aspirational name like Tesla or Joffrey.

Premier League 2011-12, 2013-14, 2017-18

With three trophies available, if awarded to the runners-up two would go to Manchester United and one would go to Liverpool. But nobody likes Manchester United or Liverpool and the world shudders at the thought of José Mourinho receiving a post-dated trophy.

Consequently the first will go to Chelsea, giving them the league and Europe double their money richly deserved, the second goes to Leicester City to make their 2016 win less implausible, and the final one goes to Arsenal as a retirement present for Arsene Wenger following the 2012 precedent of doing the same for Sir Alex Ferguson.

FA Cup 2010-11

No arguments here. Stoke City were the losing finalists in that FA Cup final, have never won a major trophy and have long deserved one. They’ve earned it because without them we’d have no yardstick to test whether fancy foreign footballers could still do it on a wet Tuesday night in an absolute shithole. Thank you, Stoke, for your service.

League Cup 2013-14, 2015-16, 2017-18

Difficult. Based on finalists, the first should go to Sunderland, the second to Liverpool and the third to Arsenal. But any trophy going to Sunderland would immediately bring English football into disrepute and the other two have said they’re fine without it.

The decision has therefore been made to award all three to the fictitious club Melchester Rovers, with goals scored by Rocky Race, Neymar and Louis Tomlinson, and the hope is that US buyers will make huge bids and allow the FA to boost earnings by promoting an invented club overseas, following the example of Wrexham.

Community Shield 2012-13

To be given away to one lucky winner in a competition on cans of Coca-Cola.

Champions League

Didn’t win any. Shame.

Find the best

Never mind that you live at home, you’re traumatised and deserve the best, not mum’s friend Jackie who’s training to be a counsellor. Don’t stint and be sure to delve deeply into finding out exactly why it is that you, aged 23 and masturbating quietly so your parents don’t hear, feel depressed. Who understands your tough choices like: Deliveroo or Vinted?

Get careers coaching

Find a provider who’ll group therapy with career coaching, charging £300 an hour for vital self actualisation exercises and AI generated advice on AI job applications. When you get all that, avoid resentfully thinking you could tell strangers to ‘leverage their transferable skills’ and earn £50 a hour by focusing on your debts instead.

Discuss your feelings of failure

Why does someone who can’t afford a pint feel a failure? Clearly you have unresolved childhood trauma and imposter syndrome. That’s a 15-session problem, paid upfront. It’s an investment in your future, as was that highly valuable degree in Art History and Film Studies.

Don’t compare yourself to others

Yes, an influencer on TikTok has bought a flat in Shoreditch at 21 and claims it’s by cutting out McDonalds. But we all know there’s some weird foot pics shit lurking there and that’s too oversaturated a market for you to get into now. Though it is still necessary you sob to a stranger about it.

Explore your relationship with money

Why do you feel anxious every time your banking app opens? Why does seeing ‘£4.62 available’ cause your heart to race? Why have you started treating £10 like an heirloom? Your therapist will encourage you to unpack your ‘scarcity mindset’. You can’t put a price on mental health, you reassure yourself, while subject to exactly that.

Work on your boundaries

Learn to say no to things you can’t afford, such as holidays, weddings, restaurants, festivals, pubs, taxis, house deposits and having children before the age of 41.You’ll also learn to set healthy boundaries with your parents, including asking them to stop mentioning that £30 you borrowed.

Identify your coping mechanisms

You may have developed unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as doomscrolling, drinking supermarket own-brand wine or therapy you can’t afford. Your therapist will encourage healthier alternatives. These include journalling, mindfulness and taking a walk in nature. Instead you tell her you’ve done all that and stay in.

Jordan Gardner met James Bates at a sign-up session for kickabout football and, keen to make new friends, made the mistake of starting a conversation.

Jordan explained: “The university years are the best of your life, or should be for the cost, so I’ve been trying to put myself out there more. I never knew it could go so horribly wrong.

“We arranged to meet at the bar later, where he immediately barrelled into a conversation I was having with a fit girl on my course and wouldn’t shut the fuck up about how he can’t wait to try loads of recipes in his air fryer. Then listed the recipes.

“He twisted my arm into buying him a pint saying he’s waiting for his loan, then ruined my second try at the fit girl by forcing me to look at pictures of an OnlyFans model he’s subscribed to.

“I tried to get rid of him by saying I was tired, but he followed me back to halls and started having a go at my housemate for wearing shoes indoors, saying, ‘That would get you arrested in Japan’. That flatmate’s not spoken to me since.

“I spoke to my resident advisor, and he told me to quit football, change course, request to switch accommodation and begin going by a different name. Otherwise the twat will end up being my best man.”

Sleep through the night

Parents of babies expect to have broken sleep. Parents of teenagers get used to some bastard being up at 3am on a video call to their girlfriend while making popcorn. But after two institutionalised decades, the disturbing lack of noise keeps you awake then you can’t sleep after 8am regardless.

Occupy free time

Years of snatching 20 minutes here and there to read, years of pausing telly every time you’re interrupted, and suddenly there’s nothing. Time smothers you like a velvet blanket and all the activities you used to fill an evening with are done by 9pm. This is why old people devote whole weeks to getting a new shower curtain. They have nothing else to do.

Have conversations that aren’t about the kids

Your every conversation has been about the children since Tony Blair was prime minister. Now it’s just two of you on a sofa, awkwardly facing forward, trying not to pick up your phones. And end up bringing up the weather and state of the country, as though strangers waiting for a bus.

Appreciate silence

Once a blizzard of noise, now nobody’s asking where their socks are or if octopuses can be milked for ink. The silence is deafening and disorienting. You hear new creaks and rattles in your knees which were once masked by K-Pop and FIFA. The silence is not appreciated; it’s disturbing. Turn the telly up or have a row.

Socialise

Your one-time party pals, the friendship flame you’ve kept alive through your child-raising years? Now as unencumbered by progeny as you are? You meet for a proper night out and f**k they’re boring, going on about antique restoration or the unfairness of their pension scheme or lawn scarification. ‘Are we that dull?’ you ask your partner, afraid of the answer.

Have sex

With children at home sex is usually a passionless, functional affair, perfunctory and silent. Now there’s time for foreplay and exploration if either of you could remember how to get started or why you’d bother and hadn’t parent-locked yourself out of all devices that might teach you. You try, but the only thing that gets f**ked is your back.

Margaret Gerving, retired headteacher: “I would ban them from eating cakes, or at least cakes with enough sugar and fat content to taste pleasant. They’re allowed iced fingers or Cuthbert the Caterpillar.”

Norman Steele, arcade supervisor: “If you have no income and want to masturbate, you should be forced to monetise it. Do it for our amusement online or not at all.”

Donna Sheridan, bird trapper: “It seems short-sighted stopping them gambling. A lot of these people are close to that one big win that will get them off benefits forever.”

Helen Archer, lens grinder: “Banning cigarettes but not vaping. Wow. The Tories really are out of touch with the long-term benefits claimant on the Midlands sink estate.”

Mary Fisher, art auctioneer: “I see these benefits people on the latest iPhone, toting Birkin bags, driving their Rolls-Royces. So I would ban them from buying iPhones, Birkin bags and Rolls-Royces.”

I WAS all ready for the school run. Miu Miu coat. Mulberry bag. Devastating list of my children’s achievements. Then nothing happened, because I’m in Warrington. 

I joined the throng around the gates, waiting for our children to depart and for a wave of competitive boasting to begin. Would we be aggressively comparing our husband’s jobs? Our Etsy stores? Houses, cars, holidays? As it turned out, none of them. 

No, when our little ones wandered in, the other mothers turned around and silently departed. I was left there, chai latte in hand, mouth agape, with nobody to tell about the triathlon I’m doing in May. 

I tried again the next day. ‘Can anyone hook me up with a private tutor?’ I asked. ‘Isabella’s struggling with her Spanish.’ Blank looks. ‘They’ve got teachers at the school,’ one drab mother who can’t have spent even an hour on her hair muttered. 

Okay, so this crowd isn’t aspirational! Though still managing to ostracise me, I noted, impressed. 3pm was no different. I announced my intention to organise a fundraising gala to shrugs. Where was these mothers’ combative spirit? 

My husband’s bonus? Nothing. Our plans to build a basement swimming pool and home cinema? Nothing. Our half-term trip to the opening gala for Santander’s new art museum? Either they’re hiding it very well or they actually weren’t jealous. 

I told my husband it was a mistake to move here. In anywhere civilised I’d already be at war with the ruling clique after they shut me out of the PTA for having the wrong kind of Cockapoo. We’re moving back to Islington. 

Anthony Albanese, Australia

You can’t top Oz when it comes to exotic animals, mate. We’ll give him a numbat, a duck-billed platypus, a Tasmanian devil, a breeding population of chlamydia-infected koalas, a couple of cassowaries, a dropbear and a genuine boxing kangaroo that hops around and beats shit out of people. All on the condition he leaves us the f**k alone.

Vladimir Putin, Russia

F**k animals. I will give him what any dictator truly craves: territory. Ukraine is part of Russia obviously, nobody disputes that, but once it has been reunited with the motherland my forces will march on and when we conquer the EU we shall award him whichever countries he should choose. We just need to get past this bit we’re stuck in. Any day now.

Kim Jong-un, North Korea

From one lonely leader to another, I shall give the gift of friendship. Understanding. The empathy of another man who has hit the peak, who has climbed higher than lesser men ever could, and still craves the world’s respect. We will hold hands.

Lee Jae Myung, South Korea

Typically cheap gift. If what Trump truly desires is exotic pets, we shall give him the most exotic of all: his own K-pop band. Called QEEDTH, they will comprise four boys and five girls raised in complete isolation from all human contact, trained to perform sterile hip hop in a foreign language and never to make eye contact.

Andy Burnham, UK

Britain doesn’t have any exotic animals because it is at heart a deeply boring country. But we do have music, so I’ve given him Adele, Morrissey, Robbie Williams, Ian Astbury and Matthew Murphy, lead singer of The Wombats. Hopefully he won’t realise they all already live in LA so I’ve put a big shiny ribbon on f**k all.

Javier Milei, Argentina

I give him penguins – Gentoo, Magellanic, Rockhopper and King varieties – the steamer duck, the Cobb’s wren, and many, many sheep. And I also give him the territory these animals live upon, Las Malvinas or as you call it, the Falkland Islands. Try getting that back off him, Britain.

Wistful masturbator Martin Bishop, 38, has grown weary of the gangbangs, JOI videos and sploshing pornography he has no choice but to wank over, and would rather look at teasing photos of women in bikinis instead.

He said: “My teenage self would be gobsmacked that I’m admitting this, but I’ve had my fill of watching people f**k. I guess with age comes an appreciation for the simpler things in life.

“Just as people have rediscovered the value of physical media, I think society should bring back the humble Page 3 calendar. Each picture of Samantha Fox or Linda Lusardi folding their arms over their tits will be a reminder of better times.

“We were too quick to move past photo shoots of women washing cars in their undies. Nothing in the vast repository of online porn can beat their eroticism. And I should know, I’ve done the exhausting research.

“Modern porn has its charms, but it relies on too many gimmicks. Angela White doesn’t need to do a bukkake session to get me going, she’s hot enough as is. I’ll still watch it, but I have my reservations.”

Bishop’s wife Emma said: “I agree. Awkwardly watching Baywatch with your parents was a character-building rite of passage. We tried settling down in front of Pornhub on the living room telly, but it’s just not the same.”

A statue of yourself

Like the one of Wayne, this will be a real conversation piece and a lovely boost to your self-esteem. Might it come across as egotistical? Not a chance. It’s a design choice popular with countless perfectly normal people like Stalin, Mussolini and Saddam Hussein. 

Funny neon signs 

These are hilarious. The Rooneys have several, including one that says: ‘Welcome to the madhouse!’ It’s funny because it’s not really a secure mental institution, it’s their house, and it’s so original too. Another says ‘Eat Sleep Game Repeat’, although that might just be instructions to remind none-too-bright Wayne to not simply stand motionless all day.

Chandelier in the hallway

A chandelier will immediately establish for visitors that you are dead f**king posh and not common as shit. The Rooneys’ appears to be two or three metres in height, but if you’re unsure what size to get, use the simple rule of thumb: could it kill a horse?

Chandeliers everywhere

There’s no excuse for normal light fittings when you can have 18th Century grandeur instead. Install mini-chandeliers everywhere, including the shed, loft and downstairs toilet. Who doesn’t love to feel like Marie Antoinette when they’re taking a dump?

Make everything cream 

Cream is the classiest colour, so all rooms should be painted cream with cream carpets. All furniture and accessories such as cushions must also be cream. You can tell if your home is cream-coloured enough if more vibrant colours like orange give you a headache. Then ensure that everywhere is spotlessly clean and free of clutter for a vibe that is wonderfully bland, sterile and – above all – cream.

A split staircase 

Not really that practical to install in a semi, but worth it for the pointless grandiosity. And great for depressed dads whose dreams have been crushed by suburban family life, who can pretend for a wonderful but fleeting moment that they’re Al Pacino in Scarface.

Games room 

Every aspirational family has one of these, and a room just for your PlayStation, pool table, Wii and so on is both practical and fun. Kids will love it, and dads too, because aren’t all men just big kids at heart? Apart from when they shag prostitutes, obviously.

Lauren Hewitt and Jordan Gardner are always meeting for coffee and hanging out, something she values deeply because there is no pressure on them when sex is completely off the table.

Hewitt said: “I love being friends with Jordan. He’s so funny and cracks me up all the time, so I always seem really happy and interested when I’m with him. But it’s just because he’s funny, obviously.

“You know what’s interesting? My brother always used to make me laugh, so Jordan reminds me of him. I should introduce them. That would be amazing, like having two lovely, protective brothers. Naturally I’ve told Jordan this. 

“It’s not just the jokes, he’s a really thoughtful, perceptive guy. He’ll say things like ‘I bet people think we’re going out together’ and when you think about it I suppose they could make that mistake. I love talking about interesting hypothetical situations that could never happen.”

Hewitt has spoken so highly of Gardner that even her current ‘shag buddy’ Jack Browne is eager to meet him. 

Browne said: “Lauren even trusts Jordan enough to meet a ‘friend with benefits’ because she knows there’ll be no judgement there. It’s great they’ve got such a close friendship. They’re both so lucky.”

Nod thoughtfully

Do not immediately shout, ‘FINE!’ Instead nod slowly, as if they have just delivered a fascinating point at a conference. This makes you appear mature, reasonable and absolutely not like someone who spent three hours researching Japanese bondage ropes online.

Say ‘I just thought I’d ask’

It implies your request was casual. You didn’t spend six weeks working up the courage. You just happened to mention piss play as a way to get more use out of the shower. You might equally have asked if she fancied risotto earlier. Not with asparagus, obviously.

Pretend you’re relieved

‘Actually, I’m glad you said no’ allows you to sound as if you were conducting some sort of psychological experiment and were never particularly committed to 69-ing anyway. If challenged, say: ‘I suppose I wanted to know where your boundaries were.’ You’ll sound like some sort of sophisticated sexual connoisseur, or possibly that twat out of Fifty Shades of Grey.

Never mention it again

Especially not at 2am. And not after numerous glasses of wine. And absolutely not with the opening line: ‘Remember that sex thing you said you’d never do?’ They’ll remember, and oddly the passage of sixth months hasn’t changed their attitude to sexy Toy Story cosplay.

Respect the veto

A rule of bedroom negotiations is that ‘no’ means ‘no’, rather than ‘ask again regularly until they give in’. It’s totally unreasonable of them, but sometimes your partner’s boundaries do not exactly match your imagination. Channel the disappointment into something dignified, like bitterly staring out of the window for 20 minutes convincing yourself your ex would have been up for it.

Do not seek revenge

Your partner has rejected your desire for a spanking over the bins. This does not mean you should retaliate by sarcastically asking if the missionary position is ‘too adventurous now’. Nor should you tell them: ‘I’ll sign you up to be a nun, and not the hot, slutty kind.’

Delete the browser history

You asked, they answered, the relationship survived. But it still makes sense to pretend the idea came from something you happened to see on telly, and you weren’t specifically searching the internet for ‘wife sister threesome’. Delete the browser history and hope this all goes away before the family Christmas shindig.

Dental hygienist

Unless you’re a sicko turned on by the clinical atmosphere of the dentist’s, hotties are wasted in this industry. It’s impossible to feel stirrings in your pants as they subject you to pain in the name of cleanliness, and the spectre of the bill will kill your libido even if they’re a ten. And if you’re still aroused despite all this, how are you supposed to safely recreate this thrilling kink at home?

Driving instructors

Learning to drive requires intense focus, so the last thing you need while hurtling towards a roundabout in first gear is distracting erotic thoughts about the person sat mere inches to your left. In the interests of road safety, the DLVA should require that all driving instructors have acne or are prepared to wear a paper bag over their heads.

Rag-and-bone man

It’s not a very progressive thing to admit, but you expect certain jobs to be filled by a particular type of person. When it comes to tat collectors, toothless old geezers who look a bit like Popeye fit the bill. Hotties like Henry Cavill or Sydney Sweeney rummaging around for scrap would spark more of a backlash than a female James Bond. It just goes against the natural order of things.

Cold callers

You don’t feel bad about slamming the phone down on someone if they’ve got an annoying nasal voice, but hanging up on a cold caller with a sultry purr is nigh on impossible. Their dulcet tones will have you handing over your bank details for any old pyramid scheme and they know it. By law they should only be allowed to use their vocal talents for the more honest profession of phone sex operator.

Masseuse

Getting your knotted muscles manhandled by some ogre is actually better than a stunner running their oiled palms all over your body. With uggos you don’t have to keep your body in check by thinking unsexy thoughts while you’re trying to relax. Hot masseurs can’t reasonably expect your groin to behave when they’re touching you, and it’s outrageous that they’ll charge you more or phone the police if you ask them to finish what they started.

The separatist Oxfordshire village of 350 residents will be handed over to the East African country in exchange for Britain taking sole ownership of Chagos, its military base and its territorial waters.

Foreign secretary Ed Miliband said: “I hate to admit it, Piddington, but you’ve won. Your secession was a total success.

“No longer will you labour under the yoke of Britain, instead being ruled by the kind, beneficent Mauritian government headed by Navin Rangoolam who has big plans for your village, namely some manner of export centre.

“From now on, asylum seekers landing on British shores will not be your problem. You’ve fixed that with your principled vote you insisted wasn’t in the least racist, a principle you now have ample opportunity to be tested on.

“And the Chagos Islands will remain as British as a Union Jack bowler hat on a bulldog smoking a cigar and drinking a pint. It’s win-win.”

He added: “We’ve sent a team out to secure our border with you as we speak. It will be very, very secure.”

YES, there have been other effusive reviews of Nigella on Bake Off. But after seeing her captivate viewers with her beauty, wisdom and wit, I have decided she must be mine.

All the ingredients we’ve come to expect – warmth, drama, ambitious creations – were there, but the icing on the cake was Nigella, flitting between contestants like a rare and beautiful butterfly. A butterfly you could own and keep if you subdued it with chloroform, but back to the show.

Nigella was unbelievably wonderful. ‘Cakes that you have to un-mould can be very stressful,’ she said, with the wisdom and humility of Jesus, but better. It was a great start to the new series, filmed in the idyllic grounds of Welford Park, surrounded by quiet country lanes ideal for inconspicuously parking a van.

But despite the praise rightly heaped on Nigella, I feel that no one could ever love her as much as me. Do they know about her passion for pickled vegetables? Or Colman’s mustard? Or double-buttered toast? I doubt it. Although to be honest I think the toast thing might be bollocks and they just put it in because they were running out of ideas. 

After the show it was even clearer to me that I must have her. When Nigella told the contestants ‘Don’t let the sugar shout, let it sing’ in a weird, uncomfortable way, I knew this was the woman I wanted to be with forever, kept at the right humidity.

But how will we be together? Her agent has blocked my number. Channel 4 refuses to forward my marriage proposals. I will have to be bold to win her heart. I’ve noticed through my binoculars she sometimes goes for a walk in the woods during breaks in filming, often with Noel Fielding. But he would be easy to kill.

And so that is my entirely normal review of The Great British Bake Off, back in our living rooms and everything fans of the show could have hoped for. Keep up the good work, Nigella. Your glass case is waiting.

Post Script has been created from Smith’s unused vocals by longtime Fall members but fans fear that without the frontman drunkenly calling them ‘f**king muppets’ while randomly turning their amps down, it may be almost listenable.

Fan Julian Cook said: “I’m hearing on the forums there are guitar solos that don’t end with the instrument being snatched away and smashed. That’s not the Fall I know.

“How can they produce anything that lives up to the band’s legacy without a moody, slurring bastard saying ‘That’s f**king Eagles shit, cock’ and firing them?

“We’re hearing these musicians are using chord progressions, time signatures and mixing the vocals so they’re audible, rather than feeding them through malfunctioning equipment that’s deliberately had a pint of Boddingtons poured into it.

“To live up to the Fall’s legacy it should have been made in the dark by musicians who have never met overseen by an aggressive Salfordian bullying them for no reason, then released under a random three-word title. Rawlplug Overfamiliar Drones would work.”

Fellow fan Thomas Booker said: “Yeah, thinking about it, I’m fine with the 31 Fall albums we’ve already got.”

‘He’s a beloved national broadcaster’

It’s important to get the facts right. Calling Piers Morgan a ‘beloved national broadcaster’ might be a concise introduction, but glosses over the reality of longstanding public contempt. Future editions will describe him accurately as an irritating wanker who Susanna Reid was professional enough never to admit she despised with her whole being.

‘He published hidden camera photos of Diana’

The sticking point for Morgan and one easily disproved. He couldn’t have published intrusive photos of Diana in The Mirror in 1993 because he didn’t work for the paper until 1995. At that time he was innocently arranging paparazzi to hide in the bushes outside 18-year-old actresses’ homes for The Sun’s Bizarre column.

‘He doesn’t have a micropenis’

Unless Earl Spencer has seen it, how can he make this oddly specific claim? Though the former This Morning host certainly behaves like a man frustrated by his unimpressive member. To set the record straight, a man as focused on journalistic integrity as Morgan should take a dick pic and provide it free of charge to the world’s press.

‘He was a key figure in Diana’s life story’

Ask anyone what they know about Diana, and they’ll list key details like shaking hands with that Aids guy, the revenge dress, and her affair with a tank commander. Morgan wouldn’t get a mention because he’s irrelevant, unless there’s an appendix about grifters riding the coat-tails of the deceased in which case he’s in there after Paul Burrell.

‘He no longer has blue balls for Meghan’

Bollocks. Only a man who has been rejected by his crush would behave so abhorrently towards her. He still has a shrine to Meghan in the garage and thinks of the Duchess of Sussex every time he makes love to his wife. Unlike his other dubious claims, that’s verifiable fact.