At exactly 21:53 last Friday did the fairy lights lining the top of your mould-speckled ceiling stop working, plunging you into a silent damp darkness? Did your ‘pre’s mix’ playlist suddenly cease to blare out of your housemates UE Boom, killing the lukewarm vibe you had both painstakingly cultivated in the kitchen? Did your phone die in an instant, cutting short your 90-minute doomscrolling session and resigning you to a night of staring at your own reflection in the cracked blackened abyss of its absence?

We know why.

In a statement released this morning from Durham Constabulary it was revealed that the power outage that swept across Durham last Friday night was caused by The Swan and Three Cygnets management detonating a powerful EMP.

An EMP (electromagnetic pulse) is a burst of strong electromagnetic energy able to temporarily damage all electronic devices in a set radius. While EMP’s are often naturally occurring, they can also be man-made for a variety of purposes, including acts of domestic terrorism.

Police arrived at the scene of the crime within an hour of the attack, once passers-by had wandered up to the station on New Elvet and informed them of several bright flashes emanating from The Swan’s function room. Power was then restored across the city through the early hours of Saturday morning, ready for the usual hundred gormless tourists to each take photos of themselves on Framwellgate bridge.

After a lengthy stand-off negotiation with the police to switch off their walkie-talkies and body-cameras upon entering, searches are now underway at The Swan’s premises, with officers taking in a Tesco bag-for-life full of match strikers, 39 mobile phones, and three balaclavas (each adorned with swan insygnia) as evidence.

Further details from this morning’s police statement reveal that this is currently understood to be the second in a series of attacks carried out by the management of the historic pub – on October 17^th bar staff were seen floating mylar balloons under power lines in Shincliffe.

Not ones to use social media to establish their presence, the Swan’s management team instead opted to lean three stone tablets on the fence outside the pub. Their demands and declarations read as follows:

“GLORY TO KING LUDD”

“NO MORE PHONE”

“THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES HAVE BEEN A DISASTER FOR THE HUMAN RACE”

Among the businesses affected by the attack were Morgan Douglas, who’s Concurrent system permanently deleted all property maintenance tickets, and Belli E Brutti, who’s refrigerators failed, causing a slurry of melted gelato to slowly stream down Saddler Street, pooling around the front steps of the gutted husk that once housed Waceland.

Thankfully for Friday night’s faithful revellers, Jimmy Allen’s owner DJ Dave routinely stores his DJ decks in a homemade faraday cage, protecting them from the possibility of lightning strikes or insurgent attacks. DJ Dave did not, however, seemingly have the foresight to store his lighting equipment in the same faraday cage, and thus patrons were forced to party in total darkness. Surprisingly, this news was taken fairly well by some, with one master’s student commenting – “It’s actually a lot nicer not being able to see which fresher you’re sharking!”

Another business lucky not to be disrupted by Friday night’s attack is Brown’s Rowing Boats – with their fool proof business model of accepting predominantly cash payments and basing their entire company on wooden rowing boats keeping them afloat for over a century and counting.

It seems Durham is not isolated from the world’s volatile ideological climate. Indeed the ‘Three Signets’ referred to in the pub’s name is suspected to be a coded reference to the three other terrorist cells occupying businesses in Durham – Revolution, Bohemia, and Zapatista Burrito Bar.

The Bubble would advise readers to keep their eyes peeled for any ripples in the river, and to remember the age-old adage, once etched into Sumerian proverbs, now adorning any half-respectable county-town train station – see it, say it, sorted.

Image: Pixabay on Pexels