Age: Minus 72 hours . . . minus 71 hours . . . minus 70 hours . . .

Appearance: A volcano looming over a children's playground.

Gosh, that sounds scary and important. You mean you haven't heard?

I've been on a three-year holiday in Antarctica. It's good to be back. My house must be worth a fortune by now. Right. We need to have a chat.

You mean the property market is starting to plateau? No, I mean that a near-apocalyptic financial crisis has sent Britain into its worst recession since the war, and now government debt is on course to reach £900bn, or about 70% of GDP.

Oh. Quite.

So no more Millennium Domes then? No. And now the ruling Tory/Liberal coalition has to find a fortune to pay everybody back. This means some taxes will rise, and a lot of spending is going to get cut – which spending, and how much, will be announced by George Osborne at around 12.30pm on Wednesday, after Prime Minister's Questions.

I get it. Time for some belt-tightening. Turn down the heat in public swimming pools, no pudding in prison, sterilise the royal family . . . that sort of thing? Not quite. The chancellor has told most government departments to prepare for cuts of up to 40%.

Holy ice floes! 40%? Possibly, in some cases, yes. Health and foreign aid will be exempt, and education and defence partially protected, but Osborne has warned us to expect an average reduction of around 25% across the board. It might be the most severe spending cut ever imposed by a British government.

So, to sum up, you're telling me that an aristocrat with a £4m trust fund is going to decimate Britain's public services while explaining that we're all in it together? Yes. That's about the size of it.

People are going to get cross, aren't they? Yes. Yes, they are.

Do say: "Fairness", "national interest", "tough choices", "left behind by the last Labour government".

Don't say: "I'm moving to Ireland until all this blows over."