A trip to the garage

If you're having car trouble, you may be thinking of taking your vehicle to a "garage". But what happens at these mysterious premises? In the latest in our series of educational features on things that happen in the world, our motoring correspondent Clifton Vroom explains the 12 stages of a typical visit to your friendly local garage.

1. You notice your windscreen wipers are only operating intermittently. It doesn't seem too serious, but it's been raining a bit lately so you decide it's probably best to get the problem looked at by your local garage.

2. You phone up for an appointment. Days and times that suit you are unavailable, so you have to skip work/postpone your hot air balloon ride/cancel your life-saving surgery – to fit in with the garage’s hectic schedule.

     3.  When you arrive, you notice there are no customers, but lots of men in overalls who ignore you for several minutes, until every last itch on their arse has been scratched.

      
                
    4.   When you finally get the attention of a mechanic and explain the problem, his look tells you it’s going to take the skills of a £450-an-hour auto-genius to fix your never-before-seen defect. 

   

    
    5. You ask when your car will be ready for collection, but are told the parts needed are only available from a country embroiled in a bitter civil war, meaning they could take months to arrive. 

  

                     
    

          
    6. You ask for a rough idea of how

        much the work will cost, but the friendly 

        mechanic tells you he hasn’t a clue, as if he’s never fixed a fucking car before.

   

                       

    

     7.   Half an hour after leaving, you get a call from the garage telling you they’ve discovered another problem – your engine’s the wrong colour and needs an urgent respray.

     
   
     8. You ignore the sniggering you can hear in the background, which is definitely not a sign they've twigged you know absolutely fuck-all about cars and that they're about to rinse you of every penny you've got. 

          

     9.  Finally, after the Earth has enjoyed a couple more appearances from Halley’s Comet, your car is ready for collection.

      

   

     
    10.  When you get to the garage, the guy at the till dusts off the extra large calculator which is only used to work out bills as big as yours.       

11.  After selling your house, all your belongings and the ugliest of your children, you’re ready to pay the bill. 

12. As you drive off, you hear a beeping sound. Don’t worry, it isn’t your car breaking down! Instead, it's a text from the garage, reminding you your MOT is due to expire in 11 minutes so you’re not going anywhere. Non Voyage!

                 

      

7 ways to survive 2016

What will your life be like in 2016? What will you eat, wear, sit on, and use to clean your oven? 

None of those questions will be answered here. Instead, we gaze into our crystal ball to look at seven things that will terrify the living jimminy out of you over the next 12 months, and explain how you can survive them. 

1. Sugar

In February, Jamie Oliver's startling documentary, What The Flying Fuck Are We Eating? will stun the nation, by revealing how much sugar is packed into our everyday shopping lists. 

Even seemingly innocuous items, like cucumbers, Meccano sets, and bleach, are found to contain more sugar per kilogram than a one kilogram bag of sugar. 

A raft of drastic measures will be introduced to reduce Britain's sugar consumption. In March, Morrisons will become the first UK retailer to turn its confectionary aisles into 'Whoopee Aisles', fitted with sensors that detect the weight of each shopper, and make a farting noise to shame obese shoppers into putting back the bottle of Dr Pepper or multi-pack of Twix bars they've just picked up. 

Sainsbury's will up the ante in April, by putting bits of broken glass into every third pack of Wine Gums, before Asda wins plaudits from health campaigners by introducing teams of snipers to ward off shoppers who veer too close to its pick'n'mix areas.  

How to stay safe: Shop at Aldi. In a two-fingers gesture to the more established supermarket giants, Aldi announces in March that it will only stock sugary items, from Chocolate Toilet Brushes to Caramel-Flavoured Clothes Airers. 

2. Cyber crime 

Cyber crime will take a disturbing new turn in May, when hackers discover how to take control of people's thumbs, allowing them to make their victims: 

• Tap along to music they don't like
• Press the space bar when       they don't want to
• Look like they're trying to hitch-hike when they're actually just trying to enjoy a bit of 'me time' next to a motorway entry slip road

How to stay safe: Wear extremely large and cumbersome gloves that make it impossible for you, or anybody else, to use your thumbs. 

3. Storm Hitler

In 2016, the Government will end its policy of giving devastating weather events cuddly names, when it realises people whose homes have disappeared under water are just as pissed off at Storm Frank as they would have been at Storm Ebola or Storm Katie Hopkins. The deadliest of the 2016 storms will be Storm Hitler, which will destroy everything except Peppa Pig's house. 

How to stay safe: Follow astronaut Tim Peake's lead and spend the next six months in space.  

4. The BBC

The BBC's television viewing figures will plunge to an all-time low in 2016 following the demise of some of its most popular shows. An unprecedented global shortage of marquees does for The Great British Bake Off, before Strictly Come Dancing crumples in bizarre circumstances. 

After Len Goodman's contractual commitments to Farmfoods force him to quit as head judge, the cash-strapped Beeb will inexplicably replace him with the woman from the SCS furniture adverts. The show is pulled after she awards Timmy Mallett's series-opening rumba a score of £399.99 and then declares that none of the dancers will have to pay a penny until the summer of 2017.

In a last, desperate bid to regain its audience share, the BBC launches Neighbours Under the Hammer, arguably its most controversial piece of programming to date. Each week, the show's producers enter a different council estate and spray-paint the words 'paedo scum lives here' onto a communal rubbish bin, before depositing a box of hammers nearby, and secretly filming the results. 

The BBC initially defends the programme as a "thought-provoking social experiment" but after the death toll reaches three figures, it concedes it should simply have put on more Top Gear repeats instead. 

How to stay safe: The hammer-proof clothing range from George at Asda, starting from £11.99.

5. Sharks 

Fed up at media scare stories that exaggerate the risk they pose to beachgoers, sharks will decide in 2016 that they may as well live up to their reputation and kill as many humans as they can.  

In June, a Bull Shark will discover how to survive on land, and will eat most of Leicester. The government will call an emergency Cobra meeting, but few of the cobras turn up because they are also afraid of sharks. The crisis will drag on throughout the year, because nobody in Whitehall has Richard Dreyfuss' number, and Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw are both dead. 

How to stay safe: Follow the guidance outlined in the nature documentary Deep Blue Sea, and carry exposed electrical wire with you at all times.

6. Zoella

In August, pranksters will spike a glass of Vimto belonging to popular fashion vlogger Zoella with mind-bending Absinthe. Temporarily befuddled, Zoella will post a video to her You Tube channel  declaring the only way girls will look pretty is if they repeatedly staple gun their faces. 18,000 girls are admitted to accident and emergency departments in the hours that follow. David Cameron makes an emergency appearance on This Morning to announce that the threat of further Zoella vlogs has been raised from 'substantial' to 'severe'. He urges people to retreat to their Anderson shelter, or stop going on You Tube, whichever seems easier. 

How to stay safe: Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete, then under Applications, find Zoella, and then click End Now. 

7. Online bullying

This will be the year that cyber bullying stops being seen as a grave challenge for society and instead becomes a national pastime. Popular TV shows like How I Trolled Your Mother, 10 Ways to Cyber-Cripple Your Kids, and Mary Berry's Great British Emojis will give Britons useful tips on how to be cruel to others digitally. 

How to stay safe: You can't. Somewhere out there, right now, somebody is digitally manipulating a photograph of you innocently stroking a kitten to make it look less innocent. Minimise the damage by convincing the world that you are in on the joke, and that you think every cruel slight on your character is rofl-worthy.

"You can't make an omelette since I cut off your hands" - great proverbs turned into Christmas t-shirts!

The wine is mulling, the chestnuts are spitting on an open hob, the reindeer are bobbing on the tree. It can mean only one thing - Christmas is around the corner! 

But if you're struggling to think of gift ideas, and if John Lewis and Aldi have both run out of telescopes, why not get your loved ones a festive Ugly Truth t-shirt, hoodie or jumper? 

We've put nine of your favourite sayings onto fabric, with uproarious results. Order now* to avoid having to order later.  

* Clothes shown may not exist. If they do exist, actual proverbs may differ from those shown above, and may be more alarming, threatening or offensive than seems necessary. Materials used may will be dangerous. All clothes shown contain nuts and were made in a factory where employees were encouraged to bathe in nuts. Clothes may not be exchanged for holidays, weapons or mortgages. Wearing these clothes will make you less popular than you were before, if and where this is possible. Clothes should not be worn on Wednesdays, Thursdays, or ever. The Ugly Truth cannot accept responsibility for anything, although it probably should. Judge's decision is final. Photos cannot be returned, although thanks for sending them in, especially that one. Full terms and conditions will be displayed on an aerial banner that is being flown past you literally as we speak. (V) = vegetarian. (GF) = packed full of gluten.