Fun things to do in half term when you can't do anything fun

HURRAH – it’s half term! Here’s what to do when you’re not allowed to do anything you actually had planned.

A lovely outdoor playdate: There’s no better way to protect against serious flu-like illnesses than a freezing walk in the rain with a worryingly snotty-nosed child from your kid’s class. However you can skip extra hassle like a hot chocolate afterwards because you’re so sensible about avoiding the virus.

Paint rocks: Paint rocks at your kitchen table. Extremely boring, fiddly and messy, so then take your kids into London and chuck them at 10 Downing Street because this sort of shit is Boris Johnson’s fault.

Make Halloween outfits: Okay, indoor trick or treating will involve you clutching sweets behind the bathroom door, listening for the kids to ‘knock’ while they complain pathetically in their witch outfits, but it will still be fun, right?

Check the pension: A fun Maths-based activity for all the family – show the kids your pension forecast and work out if you can live on it. (Clue: you can’t.) For bonus points, get them to work out how far into your 80s the government is going to hike the retirement age.

Go to the cinema: It’s shut, but why not stand outside, point at it, and tell the kids to remember it before it’s bulldozed to make way for an Amazon warehouse or inland border control point? Use your imagination and describe a really good film they’ll never see, eg. The Predator Vs Mamma Mia.

Hibernate: Advise your kids that hedgehogs have got the right idea, tell them where the Kit Kats are, and explain you’re off to bed until at least January in order to avoid a transcendently bad few months comprised of Brexit, Covid and Trump. Take the leftover Halloween sweets with you.

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Hardcore will never die, say scientists

HARDCORE rave music will outlast everything else in the universe, scientists have proved.

Researchers at the Institute for Studies tested the permanence of hardcore by putting a ‘tape pack’ from 90s rave party Fantazia into a particle accelerator.

Professor Henry Brubaker said: “Physicists agree that the universe, and time as we know it, will eventually come to an end. However, hardcore will never, and can never, die.

“Our experiments have demonstrated that the music of DJs like Seduction, Slipmatt, Vibes and Easygroove is immune to the rules that bind everything else in existence.

“It appears that hardcore – by which I mean jungle, happy hardcore and various types of techno – is made of special particles that reverberate at a unique frequency. Although we do not understand how or why this is possible.

“Effectively what I’m saying is, hardcore is mental.

“When the universe eventually implodes, there will still be hardcore, just banging away in the void.

“No ravers though.”

Professor Roger Penrose, 2020 winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, said: “Hardcore will never die? We already knew that.

“I said it myself last week while listening to the seminal ‘Grooverider at Biology ’91’ mix tape.”

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