The village of Harefield in Middlesexshire was crippled by power cuts in the early hours of this morning, causing widespread panic and multiple postings on the popular Facebook page Harefield Up Your Arse by irate villagers. 

The power went off around two in the morning and didn’t come back on for at least thirty minutes, disrupting vital services such as the beer pumps in the Legion where a twenty four hour Drinkathon was being held and making people’s digital alarm clocks flash on and off when the power came back on. 

Council vans with with loudhailers attached were dispatched to the streets, waking residents up to warn them not to panic. A special hotline was set up for householders worried about what to do with the contents of their freezers in the sub-zero temperatures outside. 

Fathers with new born babies worried about heating up a bottle for the midnight feed were advised to risk the wife’s wrath and wake her up for some milk on draught. Late night online porn viewers were told to revert back to paper version for the duration. 

At Blackheart Dairy Farm emergency traditional milk maids were bussed in from Ambridge to deputise for the electric milking machines that were standing idle. The milk in the yoghurt maker that had stopped working turned to cheese and production was halted in the opium factory. 

On Facebook Barry Tinfoil-Nutjob from down St. Anne’s Road posted ‘Its a conspiracy. The Saucer people in conjunction with President Trump and the New World Order have secret weapons that can make electricity run backwards. Don’t say I didn’t warn you when you wake up dead!’  

The Scandal’s local news reporter Gladys Friday phoned Councillor Pygmalion in the middle of the night to ask him what he intended to do to help the distressed villagers “What the fu….what time is it?” he spluttered down the telephone “Harefield? Where the hell is that? Oh right! Sorry, I forgot. I’ve never been there y’know. Are the Christmas lights still on in the High Street? They are? Then what are you peasants bothered about. I’m going back to bed. GOODNIGHT!”