Loose lips not only sink ships but they make for lousy raspberry sounds too.

I am speaking to you today, in our country's hour of crisis, via the magic of the wireless radio, from the Hour of Crisis Rooms deep in the bowels of Owl Towers. This is why I am, speaking to you in a peculiar cadence, and with far, too, many, commas.

The dastardly Eastern Front and the Western Front upon which so many of you have already fought and developed chilblains and those damp snotty bits at the end of your noses, have finally collided over our fair isle.

The Generals came to me this morning to tell me that in spite of their best endeavours, almost an inch of snow has been allowed to fall overnight upon Lincolnshire and immediate environs, bringing down with it the iron jackboot of the velvet fist of Nartzi rule upon our land and some of the village playing fields. Upon hearing this news I immediately expostulated and, in my striped pyjamas and dressing gown with a little plaited cord, cleaned my tushy pegs.

I have never sought to deceive you, my people, and I shall not do so now. The situation is dire. We are in crisis. Every poop the dog takes on the lawn is going to shine like a black or very dark brown beacon of the Axis of Evil until the next dusting of light hail or powdery shnow. I shay again. Shnow. Yerss. Indeed. Shnow. Shnow happens and it is up to each and every one of us, including the dog, to resist it as best we can.

Even though, though the hour is indeed dark and there's a hell of a draught blowing into the changing area for the Officers & Senior Ranks Plunge & Steam Room through the window pane that Tubby "Tubbers" Cholmondeley-Fnarrefnarre broke during indoor cricket just last year, I say to you now that we shall prevail. There is no foreign occluded front, no confluence of moist warm air meeting cold, that cannot be beaten back into submission if we but keep our heads and our wit about us. Dear gods, I hope I brought my wit with me when the inclemency sirens sounded last evening and I ran down here to safety like the big girls' blouse that I am.

Anyway. Whatever. Empty the shelves I say, strip the big five supermarkets to the bone if necessary, and, when you drive, do so with a look of grim determination and a heavy foot on the acceleratrix pedal. Should you begin to skid and slide, never, never, never let up on the loud pedal or take your foot off the brakes for these are skills beyond horror, beyond the civilised human condition. Do not, I say, do not play into the Nartzi weather's hands by slowing down, leaving gaps or antici ............... ............. ............ ........... pating what others may do or altering your driving patterns.

If each and every one of you pulls together and does what he or she can, man, woman, child or highly combustible OAP, we shall yet survive to see the springtime and the birds will once more sing in Berkeley Square. Gather your loved ones about you - they make wonderful insulation. If you have a fire and fuel to burn then allow others into the room and have your chair angled so that you don't hog all of the heat. If you have spare underwear layers, share them selflessly with neighbours who are often without.

I have given this day orders for elephants with snow-plough attachments and special "gritting arses" to be sent out among you and to open up once again the schools, the hospitals and the barracks of our once green and pleasant land. Though these beasts may be up to their toenails in snow, and even though the occasional flurry of stinging icy hail is building up a damp layer around their little scarves, they will not cease in their toils until every road, every lane, every motorway and car-park is safe for English wusses and national media types who apparently drive pedal cars and think that the world is about to end. Safe, safe I say, for you to once again rush about like div-heads and loons without the common sense or intelligence of ringworms.

Each of these brave elephants & drivers is represented and tracked on the Crisis Rooms map table as Tarquin and Big Jasper from the stables push at the little pachyderm markers with pachyderm-marker-mover sticks, and Sebastian, seconded from the Household Cushions Division, monitors the wireless for reality-radio showbusiness advice and occasionally checks the thermometer we have left outside in the snow just to see if we can get the liquid inside to all disappear back into the little bulb at the bottom of the scale. The AWOOGAH sirens you may have heard a few moments ago were a false alarm, caused by some of my breakfast kedgeree falling off my plate and onto Kent, where an invasion was thought to be taking place but which turned out to be simply a bit of a greasy spot and a haddock bone. My apologies. Still, it could have been worse - Marjorie dribbled cornflakes all over Essex a few minutes earlier and no-one noticed a thing.

As you huddle indoors, terrified, wondering when the mains voltage for the Wii may be summarily cut off or whether the paper-boy may ever get through with the Racing News, you may wish to amuse yourselves with improvised board games such as "Tie the Toe-Tag on Grandma" or "This is my Last Will and Testicle". Another popular game you may wish to try is to draw lots among the children to see which of them you will eat first when the Pop-Tarts run out. Make this game fun by using differently coloured crayons for each child's name.

Remain near your wirelesses. Whatever you do do do not venture outside and play at making friggin' great snowmen, or long slides down hillsides, or expend your energy in throwing snowballs at the freshly-neutered dog. Instead you are advised to spend all day putting status updates on ArseBook saying novel things such as "We have snow here" and "Marks & Spencers are all out of cheesey potato skins". Tweet every last item of intelligence that you can gather, prfrbly in txtspk, and await rescue by someone, anyone, except yourself.

In the fullness of time Messrs Nowin O'Fee, solicitors and ambulance chasers, will pass among you with claim forms the better with which to sue the Meteorological Office, the Council, the Government and each other in the hopes of a huge pay-out in our increasingly Americanised court system because, let's face it, if you can't thoughtlessly and carelessly do for a couple of days everything that you ordinarily would thoughtlessly do without a care, it must be somebody's fault.

Remember: Loose lips not only sink ships but they make for lousy raspberry sounds too.

England. Never once invaded since 1066. Built an empire in the days when folk did such things that spanned the globe and encompassed 25% of the planetary population. Gave the world the industrial revolution. Stood firm (and alone for half of the time) in two bloody world wars. Brought to its knees by the Health & Safety Executive and the Antigua-based Boards of Directors of several Insurance Companies.

Pah!