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'Something's happened': Six ways your parents will give you a heart attack when they ring

NO ONE has the gift of burying the lede quite like your parents when they ring you out of the blue. Here’s how they like to create unnecessary drama:

Silence

3pm on a Tuesday is an alarming time for a phone call when your parents know you’ll be at work, so it must be something really bad. Good thing they’ll reassure you when you answer with a long period of shuffling silence while they work out how to operate their mobile.

‘Something’s happened’

Movie trailer editors would envy the unparalleled levels of dread your dad can achieve with one simple phrase. What is the something that’s happened? A flood? A devastating break-in or mugging? Nope, the neighbours have tarmacked their front garden over for a new driveway.

‘She’s died’

Your mum rings to fill you in on the incredibly dramatic details of someone’s hospitalisation and/or death, without giving any names. Is it your gran? Your aunt? The dog? No, it’s a daytime TV celebrity she read about in the paper.

‘We’re at the hospital’

Visiting. Visiting the hospital. Visiting somebody you don’t know. A very crucial extra set of words they for some reason choose to withhold for a full five minutes while you create a hideous scenario in your mind about your brother being in a car crash.

‘Your sister’s not answering her phone’

Said with the kind of ominous energy that suggests she’s been missing for several days and they’re about to call the police. Not that she hasn’t replied to a text about what she wants for Christmas which was sent half an hour ago.

‘Don’t panic’

You weren’t panicking, but now you definitely are. They needed to reassure you, of course, because you were bound to be overcome by the news that they were thinking of changing the paint colour in your childhood bedroom. They’ve probably just taken half an hour off of the precious life they gave you with this terrifying phrase.

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When to keep your dick in your pants: A guide for Tory MPs

WANT to avoid a similar fate to Peter Bone and Crispin Blunt? Follow this handy guide for when you should keep your dick in your pants.

In the House of Commons

The plush green leather benches might seem like the ideal place to unzip and whip out your member, but you must resist. And yes, that includes backbenchers who think they’re safely hidden away. Even something as innocent as looking at porn is verboten in the House of Commons, meaning getting your dick out is totally off limits.

On a business trip

Just because you’re not in the office that doesn’t mean the basic rules of penis etiquette no longer apply. Yes, taking it out in the hotel bathroom is permissible, but first make sure a member of your team isn’t in there already. That sort of thing is frowned upon and could get you suspended from your seat, however much you claim you thought the room was empty.

When canvassing

It will sound like snowflake wokery gone mad, but the public tends to get offended if you rock up on their doorstep with your penis poking out of your flies. You’re haemorrhaging seats as it is, so for the love of God double check that your problematic organ is out of sight before you go knocking on doors if you want to keep your job.

During a televised interview

Getting your dick out when there are no cameras around is bad enough. But at least that can be hushed up and pictures won’t be splashed across the papers. Tug it out on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg though and you’re f**ked. You’d think that shouldn’t have to be spelled out but you all seem to be having cock-related mishaps every other week.

Pretty much any time you’re not pissing

Sounds obvious, but there really is little need to get your dick out if you’re not taking a leak. In fact, maybe don’t even do that when you’re in a work environment, and save all your peeing for home. Yes, you’ll have to put up with an uncomfortably full bladder, but that’s got to be better than ending up as yet another disgraced Tory sex pest.

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