At first it was funny. Then it was mildly amusing. Then it was ludicrous. But now no one is laughing.
As Donald Trump triumphed on America's famed 'Super Tuesday', winning Republican primaries in seven states, the world was forced to concede that, not only is he the runaway favourite to secure the Republican nomination, but he could actually become President.
Bookies currently list him at 2/1 - Hillary Clinton is priced at 8/15 - but with eight months still to go, things could swing even further towards Donald and his fanatical supporters, who want to Make America Great with no plan other than building a wall across the Mexican border, closing the internet and banning Muslims.
So real is the threat that Google searches for "How to move to Canada" surged in the hours following his victory announcements, with Google Data Editor Simon Rodgers the first to spot the trend:
However, the searches grew, with the query rising to a peak of 1,150 per cent before settling back to 500 per cent.
A majority of the searches were coming from Massachusetts, where Trump won with an enormous 49 per cent of the vote. Understandable, really.
Brilliantly, the Canadian government's website appeared to be suffering under the weight of the traffic, with an error message reading: "You may experience delays while using the website. We are working to resolve this issue. Thank you for your patience."
We have every sympathy with Americans who might want to get the hell out of there; we'd invite you over to the UK, only we'll probably have Boris in charge soon.
God help us all.
[via Mashable]