I mean, really – what sort of bollocks is this?

“The sky is dark. The terrorists seek mass casualties and are entirely indiscriminate…”

Yes, I know that it’s true (even the bit about the sky being dark, what with it being nearly winter and all). But what happened to policemen popping in with a reassuring “Evenin’ all – nothing to see here”? That seemed to work pretty well at keeping everyone calmly going about their daily lives during the Blitz, from pretty much all I’ve heard. Or were the Luftwaffe not after mass casualties? Were doodlebugs not totally indiscriminate?

*** WARNING – OVERDONE ANALOGY COMING UP ***

Your job, Sir Ian, is not to run around flapping your arms about and screaming like a little girl who’s been stung by a wasp for the first time, getting the rest of the children terrified in the process. It’s to calmly set up plastic bottles with some beer in the bottom to trap the buggers safely or, in worst case scenarios, get out your rolled-up newspaper to swat them (even though you know that doing so will only attract more of the mindless buzzing bastards).

Then your job is to reassure the kiddies who rely on you that the nasty wasps have all gone to calm them down, but warn them to keep a careful eye-out just in case. It is emphatically not to scream out and point to the giant nest in the bushes, because that not only sends the kids into a panic, but also makes them more likely to do something that will provoke the viciously pointless insects to attack them again. Such as, for example, support a motion that anything black and yellow (bees, sunflowers, JCB diggers, the remote, sparsely-populated desert planet of Tatooine etc. etc.) should be locked up for 90 days, just in case they turn out to be wasps.

*** OVERDONE ANALOGY ENDS ***

My advice? If you can’t tell us “we’ve caught some terrorists and have plenty of evidence to convict them – the trial starts in a week”, don’t say anything at all. Cheers.