Chris de Burgh ate my bandwidth

Lately, as you may have noticed, I’ve been a bit reticent about writing anything of substance on this blog. (Graham, you’ve never written anything of substance on this blog.  Sincerely yours, The World.) Mainly it’s through fear of saying something ridiculous, which these days isn’t so much a risk as a given, but now that my neglectful behaviour has shaken my readership down to about four people, I’ve realised that it doesn’t matter what I say anymore. This page gets fewer hits than Chris de Burgh these days, and doesn’t even have the halcyon era of Missing You to dine out on.

This post, of course, won’t break the ‘substance’ barrier either. I still have nothing to say. I could plug The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas, out on October 1st, but I’m guessing that anyone looking at this already knows about it. Probably more than I do, since I haven’t got round to reading it yet. But, just in case you don’t, it’s a compendium of 41 contributions written by intelligent and prominent atheists, and one fairly dull contribution written by a lanky dullard. The dextrous application of a craft knife on page 277, however, will remove the latter and turn a tainted tome into a perfect present. Order it now for the valuetastic price of £8.44 from a quaint little online retailer called Amazon.

In other news, I have been writing my Last Will and Testament. I have no particular reason to expect my life to conclude in the near future, but it’s one of those things you can keep putting off and then regret when you’re being clubbed to death by a well meaning but overly officious car park attendant. I can recommend it, it’s fun – deciding how much money to give people, which of your manky possessions to bestow upon bewildered new guardians, and stipulating non-religious funeral directions in bold upper case to avoid embarrassing choruses of How Great Thou Art as your cardboard coffin awaits interment. I’m not sure how specific you’re allowed to be, though. Would it be inappropriate, for example, to insist that everyone wears a clown wig?

“Look, I’m not wearing the fucking wig. End of story. He was only joking.”
“It’s his dying wish!”
“Do they make them in black?”
“No, it clearly states that fluorescent pink, orange or green are the only admissible colours.”
“Whatever. I’m only wearing mine for the shortest time possible.”
“So is this a bad time to mention the make-up?”

I’ve been pretty busy with other stuff too, but nothing that warrants a mention.

Incidentally, if you’re only reading this because you searched for Chris de Burgh, I’m sorry that you’ve been misguided. In both senses.

Maintain radio silence

It is all new and it is all good

Making a neat pile of my teeth

This booklet was floating around at work which reminded me that I really ought to update this blog. So here I am, updating with scans from the very same booklet. It's genius, but inconveniently happens to bear a striking resemblance to laziness. But I do not need to worry about these things - you are intelligent people and can tell the difference.

I may have supplemented the dialogue in a few moments of boredom.

Anyway, sorry for being a slacker with my updates. My excuse is that I've been busy trying to figure out what to do with the remainder of my life, a problem I've been wrestling with for some time now. This is my current shortlist:

• Do something really great

The eagle-eyed reader might have spotted [snip!]

Making a mess of things

I had a complaint in the office yesterday that one of our workmen had made a mess of a carpet in one or our client’s rental properties. “You may care to train your operatives to use dustsheets!” said the customer, haughtily. By way of placation he was assured that the matter would be investigated fully and that those responsible would pay with their lives. Or possibly something a bit milder; I forget.

I later collared the employee in question but as I was berating him he pointed out that the culprit was in fact a tiler who had been in over the weekend. My man had left the place spotless on Friday afternoon and found the floors covered in dried tile adhesive when he got there on Monday. Aha! A perfect ‘pass the buck’ scenario, since the tiler had clearly been employed separately by the client and was nothing to do with us.

The client was called. “In fact,” he was told in Columbo style exposition, “the blame appears to lie with the tiler you had in over the weekend. He must have been a really sloppy worker because he’s made a hell of a mess and, according to my man on site, his workmanship leaves an awful lot to be desired.” Bingo! Blame apportioned, other tradesman denigrated, my firm’s reputation restored. We’re the good guys.

There was a pause. Clearly he was swallowing his pride in preparation for making a deserved apology.

“Actually,” he growled, “I did the tiling myself.”

Curiosity

Get out of hell free

Look what I found!

Don't worry, I have hastily applied for my Heathen Certificate to annul it, but it did set me wondering about what the purpose of this document might be. Are people supposed to carry them around just in case they're ever accused of not partaking in a pointless ritual when they were too young to have any opinion on the matter? Do you have to flash them at the door before they let you into church on a Sunday, with the vicar playing the part of the sarcastic policeman?

"Left it at home, did you sir? How many times do you think I've heard that excuse? Step out of the building please and keep your hands where I can see them."

But really, what's the point of it? If I had died in my cot the following day were my parents supposed to wave it in the air like a winning lottery ticket exclaiming: "It's okay! It's fine! We got a deluded man to splash water on his head so he's not going to hell!"

Sorry you wasted your time, Edgar.