How to survive a nuclear war, by the pub dickhead

PUTIN’S threats to unleash Armageddon don’t scare me, because nuclear war is actually very easy to survive. Here I, Wayne Hayes, pub regular and twat, explain how.

Start with a positive mental attitude

Only wimps lie down and die when their town has been blasted to shit by a missile. Instead keep an optimistic outlook as the fallout settles over your house. I’ll maintain my bullish positivity by having my favourite meal every day –  pizza – to keep up morale until the radiation sickness wears off. I’m assuming Domino’s will be open.

Build a bunker

Some rich American tech guys have got expensive state-of-the art bunkers hidden away in the desert, but it’s easy enough to make one in your back garden. I’ve already started digging mine. I’ve told the wife the hole is for a fish pond though, because when I floated the idea previously she told me to stop being a f**king idiot and locked the spade in the shed.

Stockpile food

When the missiles hit, the first thing everyone is going to do is run down to Lidl and start looting, so it’s best to get your food supply prepped now. My kids whined when I sold their trampoline to make way for a stack of tins covered in a tarpaulin, but they’ll be thanking me when their mates are forced to eat their own guinea pigs.

Set up a new society

Governance will obviously fall apart, so some strong guy will need to step in and start leading, and that guy will be me. Everyone will call me Big King Wayne and I’ll rule our cul-de-sac. I’m not worried if a gang of thugs turns up and tries to take my food and women. I’ve seen all the Mad Max films so I’ll just put spikes on my Fiat Punto.

Make the most of the long nuclear winter

Winter’s cosy, right? You spend it snuggled up inside wearing lots of jumpers and Christmas happens too. Nuclear winter will be pretty much the same, I reckon. Apart from when the neighbours try to break in and cannibalise us, or we slowly starve to death. The wife says that sounds better than her usual Christmas with me, so we’re onto a winner.

Moaning about buildings: Things Charles is going to have to jack in now he's King

AND so the boy has become a man. At the tender age of 74, Prince Charles is now King Charles. But that means leaving behind his earlier obsessions in his important new role as meaningless figurehead.

Architecture

Charles is not a fan of new-fangled, post-18th century carbuncles. So he’ll have to grit his teeth when he’s required to open a great many such buildings. At a new swimming baths in Milton Keynes, full of staff in ghastly tracksuits, he’ll have to learn to say ‘Very good’ slightly convincingly, not: ‘What a rancid cesspit of vileness! I fear I may faint from the ugliness!’’

Writing letters to MPs about how appalling everything is and something must be done

Writing spidery screeds in fits of impotent rage is not becoming of a monarch. Charles’ beefs about traffic cones, ‘cookies’, tin openers that aren’t as good as the old ones, the dying art of cufflink-making and malfunctioning fountain pens will all have to be suppressed, like a fart at a banquet for a brutal dictator.

Talking to plants

Forget it, Charles. Your role is to maintain international relations by hosting banquets and greeting foreign leaders. If you break off from one of them to chat informally to a potted rhododendron, a diplomatic incident could ensue. And definitely don’t introduce it as ‘My good friend Roger’.

Caring about the environment

Vitally important. You must emulate your mother and stay entirely neutral on the environment. Are rising sea levels, scorching temperatures, floods, famine and wildfires a good thing or a bad thing? You must have no opinion. This will avoid a clash with the current government, which gives the impression of wanting to depth charge whales just to annoy the greenies.

Saying anything about anything

This, in a nutshell, is the secret of the monarchy. Be as neutral as one of your beloved pot plants. If you feel the urge to share an opinion about anything at all, remind yourself of that embarrassing time you expressed an urge to be a tampon. Only that way can you fulfil your core royal duties – waving at people, shooting small birds in an extremely unfair contest, and weaselling out of tax when it suits you.