Winter is coming… and so is Game Of Thrones season 8

Here in the UK, mild winters make us nervous. It’s as if you can sense the ominous clouds gathering just out of sight, like hordes of the undead, waiting to march on our towns and cities and cause havoc. A mild winter isn’t a mild winter, it’s a precursor to snowbound chaos. Word has started to filter out that our temperate January is about to be torn asunder – like a wall before the might of a zombie ice dragon – by freezing conditions. It’s fitting then, that this news coincides with slightly better news from HBO: Game Of Thrones is coming.

So far, the US cable giant had played its cards close to its chest, like Cersei… no, enough analogies! We were teased with 2019, then April 2019, but we now have a definite date to mark on our calendars: Sunday, April 14. For UK viewers, it will air at 2am on Sky Atlantic on Monday, April 15. Of course, you might not want to stay up into the wee hours just to find out what Cersei’s up to, what a banished Jamie does next and whether Daenerys continues to get jiggy with Jon despite him being a) related to her and b) the actual heir to the Iron Throne. You may have a job to go to or sleep to catch up on and I guess that’s fine. If that lack of commitment sounds like you, Sky Atlantic will repeat the episode on Monday evenings at the more sociable hour of 9pm.