Roll on silly season to save us all

Bung: (noun, Scottish) – a bribe, a deal sweetener, often corrupt. For example: ‘The footballer accepted a bung to throw the game.’

Not to be confused with bung: (verb) – to chuck carelessly into a corner, with little regard.

For example: “What shall I do with my principles and self-respect? Oh, just bung ‘em in the bin and forget about them…”

Bung is my word of the week. Like heehaw, or stooshie, it makes me snigger every time I hear it.

It’s been thrown about a bit in the wake of the deal between the Conservatives and the DUP, too, though, which is less funny.

Many people are seething about Theresa May’s decision to send £1 billion to Northern Ireland in return for the DUP’s support of her minority government at Westminster.

Other words being bandied about include ‘shabby’ and ‘reckless’ and ‘grubby’ which doesn’t sound much like anything to be proud of.

It’s all very depressing (again) but at least the end is in sight.

Finally, this exhausting period of political chaos is coming to an end. (Like schools, the House of Commons and House of Lords shut down for weeks on end and like schoolchildren, though generally less well-behaved, MPs get massive holidays. In the interest of fairness, of course, I should point out that many of the hardworking ones will still work in their constituencies.)

As a journalist, I usually dread the silly season, when my email inbox is full of stupid stories that would normally be wheeched into the recycle bin before I’ve finished reading the first paragraph.

But this year, I can’t wait. It will be a relief to enjoy a few weeks without elections and referenda and posturing politicians clogging up our telly screens and social media streams every minute of the day.

We can all slowly let our brains turn to mush as we watch videos of water-skiing squirrels and read stories about haunted sandwich shops and Crunchy Nut Cornflakes that look a bit like Jesus.

Some of my favourites in recent years include the one where scientists made the ‘amazing’ discovery of Victor Meldrew’s face in space (visible, apparently, in a collection of constellations aligning in just the right way) and the one about the killer chipmunks attacking people in Wolverhampton. Properly hilarious.

I have even WRITTEN some of them - like the one about the Scottish cop who pioneered a technique of identifying burglars by their EAR-prints.

He claimed would-be intruders pressed their ears against windows before breaking into a house, to listen for signs of life inside. The print they left, he said, could identify them in much the same way as fingerprints. (I don’t think it caught on.)

There are bound to be some good ones this year. So, roll on silly season, to save us all.