Five ways September is an annual disappointment

EXCITED for September? Of course not. The ninth month of the year is an annual lesson in misery and disappointment, and here’s why:

It’s noticeably darker

The nights have been drawing in for a while, but it was so gradual that you barely noticed. September makes it unignorable that it’s going dark by around half-seven and if you happen to miss it cretins will point out this annual seasonal phenomenon and expect you to be pleased.

There’s no celebrations

October’s got Halloween, November’s got bonfire night, and you know the deal with December. September offers us f**k all and expects us to be happy about it. Even if it’s your birthday this month it’ll be tainted by the realisation that your parents were shagging on Christmas morning during Carols from King’s.

Autumn officially starts

Only sick freaks actually enjoy wet leaves, cold drizzle, and coffees pumped full of twatty syrups. You’ll be mildly interested in noticing that the trees have changed colour for two seconds before remembering that you’ve seen this countless times in the past and you don’t care.

You’ll get a cold

Never fun in summer but at least it seems an unfair exception. These days it’s not only the traditional herald of a season of sickness but will cause you to briefly panic that you’ve got you-know-what. Not debilitating enough for time off work, but you’re blowing your nose 24/7 and pissing off everyone around you. Will hang around until March.

Even its name makes no sense

September’s the ninth month of the year but it’s from the Latin for seven. What’s that about? Sure, some emperors f**ked things up 2,000 years ago by inventing new months and bumping back the rest, but we should have fixed this glaring error by now.

Children return to pandemic frontline

THE summer holidays are over and children aged between four and 16 are enjoying their first day back at the frontline of a pandemic.

After six weeks of respite, primary and secondary school students have returned to the trenches of a nationwide experiment to see whether or not they increase transmission of an airborne respiratory virus and what it might do to them.

Mum Nikki Hollis said: “The first day back’s always the worst. Have they got everything they need? Will they make friends? Are they going to give the whole family coronavirus? There’s been lots of sleepless nights.

“And with no social distancing or masks, we’re waving them off to a petri dish swarming with coronavirus variants. But if it means they’re not under my feet all day, that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

“They need to learn maths, English, handwriting, all that and the government needs to learn how frequent long Covid is in adolescents. So everybody’s learning.”

School kid Martin Bishop said: “Apparently there are going to be air monitors in the classrooms to keep us all safe, which would make a real difference if we weren’t all sitting cheek by jowl on the school bus.

“I give it a month until we’re back home and struggling to learn algebra over Zoom all over again. I wonder who Gavin Williamson will blame this time?”