The day our royal couple got married, the question on every teary-eyed, Union-Jack-waver’s mind was whether tonight would be the night that the third in line would be conceived (and if so, when the making of it on DVD would be released). Well, the time has finally come. Despite whispers on Twitter that Kate was too “thin to conceive,” the Duchess and the Duke of Cambridge have not failed to provide the long awaited chapter of the Wate/Killiam saga: Kate gets up the royal duff.

On Monday it was announced that Kate had been taken into King Edward VII hospital and, due to very real fears that her hospitalisation would cause a public cardiac arrest, the Palace officially announced that she, 12 weeks pregnant, was suffering from hyperemesis gravidarun (a very acute form of morning sickness). Although this news is of course not nearly as important as when she was spotted wearing a dress from Zara, or that time when she “recycled” her £1,100 Alexander McQueen gown by – wait for it – actually wearing it again, the Guardian has already devoted six articles to the subject and the Daily Mail Online nearly had a server break down.

Everyone from the Princess of Wales to the Archbishop of Canterbury have since publicly extended their congratulations to the expecting couple. Even David Cameron said it was “wonderful news.” Well, anything to make the public forget about what’s actually going on – he probably got down on his knees and cried when he heard Kate was preggers. Remember the benefit slashing, anyone? NHS reforms? Of course not, because Kate’s on private healthcare, silly. Dave even went as far as to say that the couple would make “absolutely brilliant parents.

Granted, with that amount of staff at their disposal and the financial support they’ll receive, it would be mathematically impossible to be bad parents. But on a more spiritual level, it cannot be denied that, as role models, they both fail. Kate, who is a pretty, passive extension of William’s arm and who has hardly spoken a public word out loud, is the perfect upholder of the old mantra that women should be seen and not heard. And as for William, I don’t even need to get started on the whole existential problem of what-is-the-purpose-of-his-life since his degree choice – Geography – succinctly sums up everything we need to know.

Because the unborn child will be third in line to the throne and, if it has more luck than Charles, will one day wear the crown, the public will want to know everything about its life – from when it says its first words to when it sprouts its first pubic hairs. The poor thing doesn’t have a chance. Any responsible adult should at least start thinking about “pulling a Dumbledore”, that is, sending the kid to a Communist country for the first 12 years of its life to avoid it turning into (in the words of the wise Headmaster) “a pampered prince”, and then on his 11th birthday having a friendly giant come to tell him “Yer is a royalist, Harry/Harriet”. This is assuming they decide to name it after its fun and charismatic Uncle (FYI expect a frenzy in the media on potential baby names, alongside evidence on how hyperemesis gravidarum is actually good at keeping shameful baby weight at bay and speculation as to when Pippa will finally get her act together and be a proper woman like her sister).

Since the nation’s love affair with Kate began, the only people who have really benefited have been upper-end high street labels for whom the Duchess has a penchant – Reiss, Whistles, and LK Bennett, to name a few. During the next nine months, anyone passing through Oxford High Street on a regular basis will notice that all those shops which most of us can’t afford will miraculously develop a maternity section. Perhaps some good can come out of making such a fuss over this one unborn child, after all. Perhaps Kate will help all Pregnant Women across the country by making the high street expand its range in glamorous maternity wear. Yes, perhaps the best thing to come out of all of this is that the Duchess becomes the shining beacon of hope for the much underrepresented demographic, the PWILF. 

1. Visit another Uni

You may well have been to Bridge nine times this term, but if you still haven’t had your fill of Wiley tunes then what better way to celebrate the end of an Oxford term than by going to stay with friends halfway through theirs. Head to Leeds, Newcastle and Manchester, the Northern nirvanas of party. You might just have more fun in one night than you did all term.

2. Get Cultural

There is plenty on at the moment, especially in London, as ever. Go ice skating at Somerset House or head to the Tate Modern or British Museum. Most museums have lots of exhibitions and events at this time of year and you can usually get in free with a student card. Besides, it’s not embarrassing and you won’t look pretentious – after all, no one’s around.

3. Go Abroad

This is the perfect opportunity for a weekend away, while it’s not yet high season and the mad rush hasn’t set in. Nip over to the bright lights of Paris for the weekend, or catch the Christmas markets in Vienna while your overdraft is still available and you haven’t blown it all on Christmas gadgets and extravagant presents.

4. Roadtrip

If you can’t quite face emptying your bank account to shell out for Eurostar tickets, then get in the car and go somewhere for a day out. If you’re near Oxford then head to Blenheim Palace or Highclere Castle (Downton), or drive to Brighton for a 99 Flake and a drag show. Guaranteed, it’s better than Facebook stalking Freshers.

5. Become a Domestic God(dess)

There is a serious upside to being home, and that is, undoubtedly, a full fridge. Gone are the days of squabbling of whose turn it is to wash up because you have, glory be, a dishwasher! Make use of the free food and appliances, and convert your kitchen into a baking heaven that would make Mary and Paul proud. Your family will thank you for it, if not your waistline, but that’s what pyjama bottoms are for. If you are especially proud, it just gives you another excuse to Instagram your showstoppers.

6. Beat the Rush

Its impossible to walk down Oxford street without buying something, especially with the lights turned on. You want to go shopping the Saturday morning before Christmas. Bloody brilliant! So does everyone else. Instead of spending the week before Christmas wrestling overpriced jam off tourists in Fortnum and Mason, get your shopping in early so that come Christmas eve you can kick back with a smug smile, safe in the knowledge that you bought mum her cashmere socks three weeks ago.

7. Get money get paid

Chances are, though, that you’ve hit the bottom of your overdraft, what with it being ninth week. ‘Tis the season to get money, with plenty of Christmas functions and store redecorations coming up, there is little doubt of you finding an easy bob or two. Apply for a catering job, or reclaim your sixteen-year-old summer job and watch your bank account start to smile again.

8. A Real Job

For some of us it’s crunch time. With the last years of university approaching and the terror of what is outside the bubble looming, this is the beginning of the end. Deadlines are fast approaching, and we need to find a way to account for three years of Jaegerbombs. Dust off the CV and get yourself out there. Whether it is applying for internships or actual real world paid jobs, the old adage stands – there is no time like the present.

9. Bod Squad

Its the end of term: cue party tutes and fake snow. Yet the term doesn’t stop here. While you might want to run for the nearest pub, there is a lot to be said for holing yourself up in the Bod for a week at the end of term. It might just be the most productive week of your life. Come Christmas and New Year, you won’t feel the guilt or the panic that sets in when you realise you nabbed all the core books from the library but have yet to open them. You might even pass your collections.

10. Sleep

It’s cold and you are probably quite ill. You are probably quite tired. Your dark circles probably make your Halloween costume look pathetic. So hibernate. It’s that time of year after all. All our furry friends are doing it, so there is no reason why you shouldn’t just curl up in bed with several seasons of crap TV and a packet of chocolate digestives. It’s easy, it’s free and you’re probably quite good at it.

10. Clean bed sheets! That fateful decision in 7^th week to hold off on the laundry ‘since I’ll be home next week anyway’ will by 8^th week be inflicting nasty repercussions. Your clothes smell. Your sheets smell. And you smell. Turning those socks inside out just won’t do the trick.

9. No early morning fire alarms. Unless there’s a fire.

8. The local café doesn’t serve anything with soya milk. They’ve never even heard of it. The coffee is strong and the sandwiches actually have filling. You don’t leave feeling peckish. Pret A Manger this is not.

7. Fighting against your younger siblings over what to watch on TV is much easier than attempting to prize the remote off the rugby players in the JCR staring gormlessly at the female presenter on Sky Sports News.

6. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are whenever you want them.

5. You feel clever again. Never mind that you scraped a 2.2 in collections and spent most of term amalgamating Wikipedia articles and SparkNotes into your essays. To friends and family back home, you’re seriously smart. People listen up when you air an opinion during Question Time and when a situation demands mental arithmetic, all eyes land of you expectantly.

4. Getting away from friends. You miss people, right? Well not really, not for the first couple of weeks at least. In fact it’s a relief to get away. Thrown together immediately and intimately, by 8^th week your neighbour is starting to irritate you with his bathroom habits and the guy/gal you had flirted with meaninglessly is starting to hang around like a bad smell. Home = solitude. 

3. Your cup of tea doesn’t taste like pond water. The North-West has famously soft water, making for a smashing brew, but regardless of where ‘home’ is, the water has got to be better than the cloudy, chemically-molested rubbish that the taps chunder out in Oxford.

2. Books hanging around on windowsills and table tops include: Mary Berry’s Baking Bible, Bear Grylls’ Born Survivor and an overly worn copy of Fifty Shades of Grey. NOT Nicomachean Ethics, The Faerie Queene or the Oxford Handbook of Quantitative Methods.

1. You can sleep during the day without hating yourself afterwards. Back home spontaneous naps are entirely legit. If you wake up and still feel a bit drowsy then you can sleep some more without having to check the time. Bliss.