TOP TIPS

REPLACE your bathroom lightpull with a Party Popper to get useful audio-visual confirmation that you’ve found the bathroom when trying to go to the loo in the dark. J. Tumbleweed, Lancaster

CONVINCE friends and neighbours that you’re a character from Eastenders by shaving your head and shouting at everyone a lot in an affected cockney accent. Turning up in the neighbourhood a few years after your funeral will also help with the ruse. Hampton Turner, London

TV writers. Whenever you’re depicting a 16th or 17th Century tavern, always have some wench cackling away with half her tits hanging out as she sits on someone’s knee and drinks beer from a tankard. I’m pretty sure it’s never been done before, so you might just win some kind of award. Bartram Niceleybig, Goole

WALK up your stairs backwards so if you suddenly realise you need to go back down you’ll be facing the right way. PRETEND William Mychreest, Leamington Spa

you’re an astronaut by exclusively eating pot noodles and pissing into a hoover pipe. JAF, Dubai

MAKE your own Amazon Echo by putting some fairy lights in a Pringles tube and have your wife bellow “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to do that” whenever you cough or drop a pan-lid on the kitchen floor. Mark Glover, Coventry

GIVE your children the experience of using Southern Trains next Christmas by buying them a train set and making them wait several hours to play with it. Iain Devenney, Oxford