londonmark searching for intelligent life in camden town (the search now continues in new york city)
Thursday, October 09, 2003
Absence The weather in Oakland right now is gorgeous and we made good time on the trip up the I-5 from LA. Oh, sorry, what? Art of what? Umm, sorry, wrong blog, mate.
The art of rising
Strictly speaking, I shouldn't be writing this art, because there was an exceptionally good guide on how to rise elsewhere. However now that's all gone cucumber-shaped, and with all due hubris, I shall embark on this little discussion of the art of rising by stating right here and now that you should have some ambition if you intend to rise. If you have no ambition, then I recommend that you switch off your computer, lie down on your bed or floor, and start thinking vertebral thoughts.
Rising in the morning
Bleep-bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep-bleep. Bleep-blee-thunk. You have just read the sound of my alarm clock trying to wake me up and consequently being thrown across the room in my bleary-eyed, semi-conscious rage. Waking up and getting up have never been easy, woah-woah-oh, as Elastica so accurately sang. I hate rising in the morning, mainly because the next step in the day is to go to work and I don't like going to work either. The compromise which I have reached in life is to get to work late, generally by about 15-30 minutes every morning. People at work get a little bit annoyed by this but as I stay late they don't complain too loudly, or at least within earshot.
Techniques I have tried in order to get me up so I can get to work on time include the following:
Setting an alarm clock
Setting an alarm clock and the alarm on my mobile phone
Setting an alarm clock, the alarm on my mobile phone, and my flatmate's alarm clock
Setting an alarm clock, the alarm on my mobile phone, my flatmate's alarm clock, and getting someone to ring me five minutes after the alarms
Not getting blind, incoherent, 'arghhh' drunk the night before
Items 3-5 seem to work, depending on how early I have to get up. Item 5 works always. Funny that. That said, these tips may be Mark-specific. For others, I recommend the following ways of ensuring that your wake-up in the morning is as seamless and painless as possible.
Quit your job. That way, there's no need to wake up so early.
Work from home. That way, your 'colleagues' won't know that you haven't begun working at 8.00am.
The irritation method. Get an alarm clock which plays Boyzone songs as the alarm noise, turn it up loud and place it in the far corner of the room. The minute that sounds, you'll be running across the room to turn it off.
Use feline perversity. Tell your cat that you don't want to wake up at your appointed reveille time. He or she will jump on you and/or spike your genitals with his/her claws at precisely that time. You need reverse psychology with cats. (Note: this may only work once, as the cat will adapt. Other psychological tricks may be needed afterwards.)
Sleep with a supermodel each night. Their heroin dependency will kick in quite early in the morning and they'll be so desperate to get to the needle that you'll definitely wake up. Don't taunt them, though. Heidi Klum is lethal with a kitten heel from twenty paces when she hasn't had her smack.
Rising up the ladder
I have a job, I don't have a career. If I had a career then I would dress better for work and not start every business conversation with the phrase "Our so-called company… ". These two things, combined with a host of other morale-sapping, borderline mutinous acts and a general dumb insolence, are key hallmarks to watch out for in colleagues when you want to assess whether they are jobbers or careerers. If you have a career then the chances are that you will want to rise up the promotion track. Don't worry, Uncle Mark can help you. Here are some good ways in which you can pursue your careerist tendencies to the maximum.
Sleep with your boss. This does not mean 'sleep at your desk while your boss is there' as this will have the opposite effect to the one desired. You should engage in intimacy with your direct superior, find out all the dirty secrets within your company and then blackmail him/her until you are promoted to at least their level. Then you can repeat this with your new boss until you become CEO. Once CEO, you should fire all the people you have slept with, on the basis that they have sexually harassed you.
Destroy colleagues' reputations. In order to be seen by the higher-ups as worthy of promotion, you should ensure that your manager has as low a view as possible of any direct competitors to you. Phrases to include are "I think that James went home early. Again.", "No, Sally's nervous breakdown didn't affect her work as much as we all thought it would.", "If you think John's good with Excel, you should see what he can do with handcuffs, a feather boa and a tub of Haagen-Dazs.", "I don't care what Jane said, I think you do have parents.", or "I admit it's unusual, but if David wears his girlfriend's underwear, there's nothing against it in the company rules".
Withhold information from others. If you know of a new company directive which requires everyone to submit certain forms in order to qualify for an incentive scheme, then where's the sense in just telling everyone? This gives you no advantage. Keep the information to yourself and wait while everyone else mucks it up royally. Your completed work will be perfect and you will be perceived as someone who is not only efficient, but also understands that this is good for the company, understands instructions the first time they are issued, and are a willing corporate drone. Perfect. You can start thinking about what colour your office walls should be.
Go behind your superior's back. Do you hate your boss? Welcome to the rest of us. So, instead of putting up with his/her nonsense, simply take them out of the food chain by reporting directly to the next level up, perferably while mentioning a few of his/her shortcomings. Try not to compare him/her directly to a stoat, weasel or any member of that animal family. Going to your boss's boss also means that you can ignore the mini-diktats which are imposed upon you, instead concentrating on the very important task of sucking up as much you possibly can. Remember that flattery should be laid on with a trowel not a butter knife.
Perfect a new, reliable technique for cold fusion. I have to admit I have little idea of how this will help you but, if you manage it, you must be awfully clever and so should be promoted. Even your boss will see that.
Work diligently for thirty years and hope that others notice your endeavour and willingness to prostitute your soul, destroy your social life, ruin your health and adversely affect any possible chance for love, happiness or joy. By the end of your time with your company, you may well have earned the right to wear slightly more casual shoes or even have been moved to a better desk, three inches closer to the window on the other side of the hall. Upon retirement, you will lose your security pass, the only 'friends' you have had the time to make, your self-esteem, your regular wage, and any form of structure in your life, but you will be presented with a really horrible watch, bought from the pawnbroker around the corner where you once had to sell your mother's wedding ring because payroll screwed up your season ticket loan. The future's great, right?
Rising up, comrades
Revolutions are not just the next Matrix film, they are the principal way of effecting major social, economic and political change in countries beset by tyranny and oppression. France, Russia and America have all had major revolutions (though not at the same time, I should stress, as that would get a bit silly), whereas in England we have had the Industrial Revolution, where machines fought one another in an effort to control the future. Oh, er, I've confused it with T3, … but you get the gist. Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy) has, as is his usual service, described such risings perfectly in the song 'Middle-Class Heroes':
Rise up little souls – join the doomed army
Fight the good fight – wage the unwinnable war
Elegance against ignorance
Difference against indifference
Wit against shit
One of my favourite clichés concerning revolutions or insurrections is the phrase "popular uprising". I would really, really love to see an unpopular uprising. I can just hear the BBC report: "Protesting Prime Minister Brown's new tax on the stupid, one man took to the streets of Westminster with a banner and a megaphone, in what can only be described as an 'unpopular uprising' earlier today". Of course the chances of this one bloke having any tangible effect on the policy is incredibly small, so what you need to do, when organising an uprising, is ensure that you get the word out early. Here's a quick five-step guide to starting your own uprising:
Tell your friends that there'll be free drinks. It's amazing what the words "free bar" can achieve in this world. If you call/email everyone you know and tell them those two little magical words, you will (by a process I like to call the "freeload cascade") end up with thousands attending. Good luck arranging that much beer and wine.
Print up t-shirts. And don't make the slogan a lame one, for the love of God. "Ban The Bomb" has been used, so don't even bother. You need interesting straplines: "Make Paper Aeroplanes Not War", "There's No I In Team, But I'd Like Q In The Worst Possible Way", "My Old Man's A Dustman, He Wears Bifocals", "What Do We Want? A Grande Mocha And A Muffin, Please. When Do We Want Them? As Soon As Is Convenient, Thank You" or even "What Would Batfink Want Us To Do?".
Make banners. See above for suggestions of slogans to daub poorly across some cheap fabric you picked up at cost price on Electric Avenue one Saturday. Pick the real losers in your group to carry the banners, so they don't have to interact with any people you wish to convert to your cause and hence ruin the whole damn show.
Only invite attractive people. This is easier said than done. In an ideal world, you'd just be able to invite along people you fancy because the law of averages dictates in this instance that one of them will find your vehemence and commitment to the cause an attractive and bed-worthy trait. Murmur a few political nothings into their ear, buy them some red roses (both romantic and symbolic, eh, eh) and then start to reform the system, starting under the sheets.
Get the press there. Items 1 and 4 above should be sufficient for at least some hacks to turn up, but be sure to invite the right kind of press, ie the tabloids. You'll get proper front-page coverage of your cause if you ensure that the more attractive members of the group remove their coverage, if you see what I mean, nudge nudge. Who said politics was a grubby business? Oh yes, I just did.
Other than the above, the only thing you'll need is an issue, but that doesn't seem to bother most politicans or Ahnold, so why should you do all the work, eh?
Rising above the rest
This is the really tricky one, as it implies that you are better than everyone at something. Frankly, and I don't wish to insult you, that just ain't likely. And so, what do we do? (Regular readers will know the answer to this one.) We lie our heads off, that's what we do. If you wish to rise in people's estimations, you must do this based on an intricately-woven fabric of the finest mistruths. You want to impress at a party? Claim you are Pierce Brosnan's stunt double. This might not work for the ladies, in which case you should say that you are in negotiations for the leading part in Tim Burton's remake of Barbarella. No-one's going to check, don't worry. All other necessary fabrications I leave to you.
The art of envying
"Why, hello, green-eyed monster, what are you doing here?"
"Well, Mark, I thought I'd just turn up and say hello to you and both your lovely readers."
"What do you mean, green-eyed monster?"
"Oh, nothing."
"You must have meant something."
"I only meant that I know loads of blogs which have far better content and far more readers."
"So what?"
"Well, don't you feel a teensy weensy bit jealous of them?"
"No."
"Oh, okay." Pause.
"They're richer and far better looking than you."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing." Pause.
"Why did you bring that up?"
"No reason."
"Damn it, green-eyed monster, you do have a reason."
"Well, you must feel just a little bit jealous, eh? Eh?"
"No, well, … not really. No. Hmmm. Oh, b*ll*cks, yes, is that what you want me to say?"
"And my work here is done. Ta ta."
As well as being a mediocre song by Ash, Envy is one of the seven cardinal sins along with Sloth, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Sleepy, Doc, Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, and is directly addressed in the Ten Commandments under the tenth instruction "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's expensive stereo and gym instructor girlfriend", or something like that. Envy, along with its step-brother Jealousy, lurks deep within the unsatisfied heart, constantly on the prowl, judging others by what they possess, what they wear, how they behave and who they are with. In a way, it's very similar to bringing your Irish Catholic mother to a school parents' evening, except that Envy won't agree with everything your teachers say when they're slagging you off. Or agree with your ex-girlfriend, just after she's dumped you, that "you were always too good for him anyway".
Envy takes many forms and many shapes. Let's have a quick look at the common or garden varieties of hating someone's guts and wanting what they have because they don't deserve it, the bastards.
Looks
I know that I'm no George Clooney or Orlando Bloom when it comes to the looks department. (Waits.) Why is no-one rushing to my defence here? Tsk. Anyway, as I was saying, I'm perfectly aware that I was not first in the queue when God was giving out drop-dead-gorgeous, could-stop-traffic, women-flocking-to-sleep-with-me, oh-my-god handsomeness. I'd say I was about average. And that's fine. As an enlightened third millennium man, I know that being me is not all about what women's magazines and fashion shows and Hollywood films and TV programmes and clothes shops and media manipulation tell me I should be. It's about who I am. It's about my personality, right? And I'm fine with that, really I am.
Methinks the Mark doth protest too much. It does get to me. The perfect hair, the perfect skin, the perfect teeth (no jokes from the North American continent, thank you very much, about British teeth; I've heard them), the perfect torso, the sparkle in the eye, the charming smile. It's enough to make you sick. Do I envy them? Well, yes, just a little bit, I do. I envy them because I wish I was a little bit taller, I was I was a baller, I wish I had a … sorry, appeared to have channelled the spirit of Skee-Lo there. I envy them because they represent the pursuit of perfection which I won't attain, and because they stare out at me from advertising boards and magazine adverts and I resent the way that they say, "Hey, if you looked like me, your life would be trouble-free and silky-smooth", even though I know it wouldn't. The rational part of my brain knows this and yet the emotional part of my brain thinks, "How long is it since you went to the gym, you Vietnamese pot-bellied pig, you?".
So how can you cope with this? There are series of self-esteem exercises you can engage in. Repeat to yourself the following mantras:
"I am myself"
"I am happy with myself"
"I am at one with myself"
"I am at peace with myself"
"Myself and I intend to go find Mel Gibson* and rabbit-punch him into the middle of next week."
You'll find that this makes you feel a hell of a lot better and you can comfortably wander off and eat more ice cream or drink more beer without worrying about any further envious thoughts. *Ladies, please feel free to replace Mel Gibson with Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie, J-Lo or whoever the hell else any lads' mag has voted for in the usual round of 'Women Who I Could Never, Ever Sleep With, Which Is Why I Buy These Mags Instead' annual poll.
Possessions
Possession is nine-tenths of the law, but if the law is an ass, then that means that possession is really just a tailless donkey, which is, in fact, a parlour game requiring children to replace the tail, hence possession is a game. All clear? Good. It's really hard not to envy people for what they own, mainly because humans are by nature acquisitive. My young godson is capable of saying only four words: 'Dad', 'No', 'Football' and, most importantly, 'Mine'. Although he's only about two years' old, he has already grasped the concept of 'I own this, it belongs to me, so just sod off out of it, alright?' – he is well on his way to a full and rich integration into adult society, and woe betide anyone envying his football and desiring to take it away from him.
This is the crux of the tenth commandment, though oxen aren't quite as prized these days. You shouldn't envy things which other people have, because that means that you are filling your life with the wrong priorities. Covetousness (boo, hiss) is a bad thing, mainly because it involves so much hassle. if I covet my neighbour's car, for example, I have to (a) wait until they are out, but have left the car there, (b) wait until my other neighbours aren't around, or until it's dark, (c) break into the car without the alarm going off, (d) hot-wire the car so I can drive it, (e) park it somewhere far, far away, (f) pay someone for a new licence plate and a complete respray, (g) never park it near my flat again just in case, and (h) act well enough in front of them, when they mention it, to express sufficient shock and disgust at the lawlessness that is rife in Camden these days. Now that's just way too much effort, really. Coveting my neighbour's wife is also problematic, not least because we live on the third floor and I think I might hurt myself if I had to jump out of the window when the husband gets home suddenly; there's thorn bushes down there as well.
Envying your neighbour's possessions makes for very awkward dinner parties. Complimenting the size and make of their home entertainment system once is fine. Twice is acceptable. Three times and they might start to think you are an electronics salesman wanting to flog them an upgrade. Any more times than this, and they will consider doubling their home contents insurance and/or notifying the local police as to the whereabouts of a potential kleptomaniac: you. Ways of avoiding this faux pas are numerous:
Don't ever accept dinner invitations
Go to dinner blindfolded
Sneak into people's houses before dinner parties and strip their place of valuables
Go to dinner handcuffed
Go to dinner gagged
Items 2, 4 and 5 may give rise to some 'humorous' comments from your fellow diners. Ignore them.
People
Other people can't win in the game of envy. They can be envied for what they have (fast cars, loose women, an income the size of Mexico) or envied for what they don't have (fear, a job at Enron, buck teeth). Either way, everyone has something you want, even if it is only the lack of something. And, of course, the times when this really hits home is when you meet friends of friends or, even more so, your ex-partner's new partner. Fun, isn't it? Well, okay, it can be, assuming that the split is amicable and you are a good-natured, forgiving and open person. Ha, you nearly believed me for a second there, didn't you? No, let's be serious for the moment: everyone does the once-over, the quick up-and-down when they meet their ex's latest beau/belle and immediately forms snap judgements. The art of embracing aside, it's up to you once you've made these judgements whether you're going to be open-minded and prepare to be pleasantly surprised by them, or whether you're going to attempt systematically to whittle their self-confidence down to the size of an M&M (not the peanut ones).
Envy is also prevalent when your current partner discusses their former flames. Get over it. Why? Well, you don't have much of a bloody choice, do you? If he was a prince among men, then that's the way it is. If she was universally loved by your bloke's parents and friends, then you're just going to have to wait for a bit, aren't you? And, of course, for men, the envy and the jealousy can usually be pinpointed to one area of relationship life: the groin. If you're going out with a nice girl, firstly congratulations, and secondly, for the love of God, never ever even come close to thinking about wondering about asking about her sex life previous to you. Is your ego so massive that you can withstand the pummelling which her recounting of his mammoth-sized member will cause you? Thought not, moron boy.
It's better not to know certain things, but then sometimes jealousy compels you to know them regardless of whether you think you should. It's all down to insecurity. The more secure you are in a relationship or friendship, the less you feel you need to know, the less envy and jealousy you will feel. Lucky old you. The more insecure you are, the more you will feel you need to know, the more you will ask stupid questions at inappropriate times, guaranteed to piss off your partner, which in turn will lead to answers or stresses, which then contributes to an increased level of jealousy. For those of a healthy mind, you're fine; don't worry. For those who have an innate capacity to push the self-destruct button when anything good comes along, well done: envy will be your co-pilot, the weather is clear, and the in-flight meal choices are fish, chicken or humble pie.
Of course, all these ways of envying do not take into account one of the most basic and fundamental reasons for envying: just because.
The art of embracing
It seems so simple, doesn't it?
Approach person
Extend arms and spread them to the approximate width of the person
Reach proximity of 1-4 inches of the person
Close arms around the person, clasping your arms around each other
Retain this posture for 5-30 seconds
Lean head on other person's shoulder (if appropriate)
That is the physical act of embracing, but the art of embracing is entirely, entirely more message-laden, more complicated and more significant. You are not simply engaging in close bodily proximity, you are conveying a statement to them: I love you, I haven't seen you, You have done well, You are emotionally close, or any other permutations of intimacy. Like a kiss, an embrace is a thousand words of conversation unsaid.
Embracing is not merely physical. To demonstrate our emotions purely physically may be enough for some, but is inadequate for most. A true embrace for friends and lovers is about more than our presence in the same place, in the same room or in the same bed. It is our consideration of the other which embraces them more than all the "je t'aime"s one can muster and which shows that the father of the deed is thought, the basis of the act is care and the originator of the embrace is love, whether romantic, filial, amicable or platonic.
Ideas
It's easy to be headstrong and wilful; to take up a position on an issue or a philosophy and then resist any argument or persuasion to change your mind. It's even easier to justify this steadfastness by appealing against vacillation or weakmindedness. "I am not stuck in the mud," you may reply, "I am merely convinced that what I am doing is the only way".
It is far harder to be able to take up your stance on new themes or concepts and, while preferring your own options, be able to receive criticism (whether constructive or denigratory), and then reconsider whether you are still true to your first thought. Embracing a new perspective may cause you to doubt the validity of your own judgement, but isn't that a better way to lead you to something more honest and true than to stick to your guns, no matter where they are aimed?
Although not every new idea is golden, it is the fact that you have considered it which shows your receptivity to others. "Just hear me out," is the cry of the often-interrupted conversationalist. "Give me time to show you that this is valid, not merely fanciful or prejudiced." Embracing their idea may well allow you to form your own new opinions or confirm the ones you already have, but it is worth the exploration either way.
Situations
Experience is a wise teacher, so we are told, and the art of embracing new experiences in harness with past lessons learned is a hard one, but without doubt rewarding. Taking what we have known, what we have done, what we have learned and what we have ignored all together and combining them leads us to new ideas, to new experiences and to new lives.
It is impossible to cease making mistakes; as futile as fighting the tides crashing relentlessly upon the shingle shore or commanding the sun not to rise another day. Our mistakes define us and the adversity which we face and endure stays with everyone throughout their now and future acts. Not what we learn but how we learn is key, otherwise we would lead lives which are like tears of rain on the surface of the inconstant oceans.
Embracing our past for the immutable fact of what it is allows us to embrace the current moment, knowing that it may well be immortalised in a song playing in the background, a half-hidden smile caught at the end of a glance or the quiet caress of a once lost letter, re-read after years. This allows us to embrace what is to come, as little known a quantity as the capacity of our soul to hold fast the secrets we have never shared or the knowledge of our unending ability to live and love and lose.
Friends
What greater love can one have for another than to wrap him in a massive bear hug, ruffle his hair (because you know that it really irritates him) and tell him that you love him. Because he's your friend, because he annoys the hell out of you, because he's seen you up and he's seen you down, been there for the trauma, the terror and the elation. Because you know that you will know each other forever, even if you don't speak for a year or live in separate continents, you know that your friends are the people who will count.
Embracing friendship is easier for some than for others. The constituents of friendship are too many and varied to be defined easily, but everyone instinctively understands them. Whereas some people make friends immediately with those they have just met, others take more time to pronounce their judgement on acquaintances or those whom they have recently met. Is the depth or breadth of the eventual friendships different? Does it matter? Everyone understands that some of the friendships we form are natural and almost unconscious choices. The phrase "I can't imagine us not being friends" is so common as to be ubiquitous.
Of course, the embracing of friends, of taking them to your heart and into rooms of your psyche where others are forbidden to go, can be dangerous. It requires a faith and trust in them which can be hard to give. However open or private a person may be, there is a step to be taken which involves the disclosure of things which you may not want to disclose. While no-one is an open book, there are still pieces of life which everyone keeps to themself, either embarrassed or ashamed by their deeds, choices and thoughts.
Those grubby, imperfect jewels are kept tight in a locked box within us, where we are unwilling to put them on display. Which is precisely why we are afraid and disappointed by the betrayal of friends; "I allowed you in, only you, to hold you close, and yet you remained unmoved by this rare privilege, this denuding, and turned to expose me". Just as you can be betrayed by a kiss, you can be betrayed by a hug.
The art of wandering
In my time, I've been known to wander a bit. I'm fairly renowned for my wandering prowess, in fact. I'd like to take this opportunity, however, to point out that I should be referred to as a 'wanderer', not a 'wander'. I think that's what they were shouting anyway. Confusion has occasionally arisen around how to define wandering as opposed to, say, ambling or even strolling. Perhaps the key distinction to be drawn is the level of jauntiness involved. I would contend that wandering is at its best when performed with a jaunty air, a requirement not generally attached to other forms of aimless walking.
'Jaunty' in this context should not be confused with 'cocky'. The sight of a person walking along the street exuding self-satisfaction and an unfounded belief in their own self-worth is enough to make most right-minded bystanders want to rush over and administer an immediate and well-earned shoeing. Jaunty, by contrast, should indicate a certain brio on the part of the wanderer; a joie d'esprit. The pleasure taken in and displayed by a good wander is precisely that: pleasure about the activity not pleasure about the person. This is essential to quality wandering.
So you, the novice, fancy a little bit of a wander. Good for you, an excellent choice. I can reassure you at this point that there is no need to rush out to the nearing sporting goods supplier: you will need no specialist equipment whatsoever. The only apparatus which is practical for the wander is a pair of good shoes. Nothing too fancy, mind, just something comfortable. Next, you will need a knapsack of some kind, in order to transport some items which will enhance your wandering excursion. Depending on the proposed duration of your wander, some of these may not be needed:
A pen
A notebook
A sweater
A coat
A pack of cigarettes
A lighter or box of matches
A small picnic blanket
Not very much at all, but they might prove handy.
You should also consider the location and terrain of your wandering. A little walk through Hyde Park will require different items in your rucksack than if you were embarking on a wander around the Amazon rainforest or the Himalayas. Think within your context, as a team of Sherpas, huskies or snowmobiles will look odd in the Amazon. Likewise a map of the London Underground will get very little use when exploring Annapurna.
So you have your kit together and ready. Now you must consider, as implied just above, the precise starting point of your wander. The finishing point is, obviously, irrelevant, as it will either be the starting point itself or, more likely, it will be unknown. If you know where you're going to finish up, then it's not really a wander. Strangely enough, your knowledge of an area, whether good or bad, won't affect the quality or your enjoyment of the enterprise. If you have a sum total of zero knowledge about where you're starting, then it becomes a voyage of discovery. If you do know some of the landmarks or key points in an area, then you have the delicious mystery of not knowing whether you will see them or in which order you will encounter them.
You're all set. Go forth and wander, my friend. "But, oh peripatetic sensai," you may protest, "we have not yet been taught in the ways of the wandering and its zen". True, child, true. In many ways, you yourselves must discover your own path when wandering. Just as the esteemed philosopher Mark Wahlberg once wrote, "There are as many ways of wandering as there are potential moves in chess or atoms in the universe", so you must come to develop your own style and expression of wandering. There are, though, a few tips I can pass on.
Be wary of wandering in a place which is too densely populated. This will interrupt the flow and rhythms of your walking and may inspire a sudden interest in high-powered artillery or anti-personnel remotely-detonated explosives technology. Too many people around you may also cause you to be inclined to stop and chat. This is fine, provided that a five minute chat remains precisely that and is not permitted to develop into something more complex such as the exchange of bodily fluids, the meeting of parents or rash offers of sudden and binding marriage.
The kindness of strangers is all well and good, but remember that over 80% of the word 'stranger' is 'strange', to mean weird, unknown, eerie, freaky and potentially psychotic. Avoid unnecessary references to shuriken, Charles Manson, Kalashnikov, stiletto knives or Patrick Bateman as this may give your interlocutor one or two funny ideas. If a conversation includes any of the following phrases, then you should terminate the interaction immediately, run away and inform the relevant police, probation or religious authorities:
"Voices in my head"
"Once and glorious leader"
"Lycanthropy"
"Gravedigging is more of a hobby, really"
"They call me The Gimp"
On no account nod your head or murmur sympathetically. They will either view you as a potential comrade-in-arms or, even worse, a rival. Remember that cowardice can be your best friend: quick, run away.
Make sure that when you have finished wandering, you return home. Wandering without ending becomes elopement, abduction or badly-photocopied 'Have you seen…?' posters on lampposts. Unexplained disappearances under mysterious circumstances is something best left to the more tenuously scripted episodes of The X Files, not your own life. If you feel that this is an option to which you might be particularly vulnerable, you should consider (a) being electronically tagged, with a loved one or court appointee checking your geographical whereabouts on a regular basis, (b) carrying a permanently-connected mobile phone with you so that interested parties may call periodically to check on your status and mental wellbeing, or (c) not wandering, you nutter.
Other aspects of wandering I leave to you, dear reader, to uncover and define for yourselves. If every step in life is a journey in itself then your wanderings may be akin to the gait of a drunk after closing time: meandering, ill-chosen and uncertain. It's an enticing prospect, I'm sure you agree.
And yet more artlessness Look, when I said "tomorrow", you all knew I meant "next week", didn't you? Yes, of course you did. I knew that. In fact, I knew that you knew that I knew. How? Well, I knew that when you said you knew, you didn't, but when I said that you knew that I knew, I did. Simple really.
Continued artlessness After twenty-six consecutive hours of awakeness, the thought of attempting to expound eloquently on any art seems both unrealistic and fruitless, so I shall not. Tomorrow, perhaps.
Artlessness I'm afraid that you will have to wait for the next instalment of artful dodging, as I'm currently listening to the Team South Africa girls and boys singing songs in Heathrow Terminal 3. For those who care, they're actually quite good. Anyway, next stop Los Angeles and posting Stateside. 'Laters', as I believe the vernacular is over there.
The art of snacking
The idea that you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner and nothing else in one day is a laughable one: ha ha. Three square meals a day are simply not enough and so, for further sustenance, the human race invented the snack. For those with specific dietary requirements, I make no apologies. If you require a snack menu to be drawn up for you, I would be happy to oblige. The words 'calorific content' will be written only once in this guide, and you have just read them. Such matters are irrelevant when your stomach is groaning for cake.
One of the most fun things about snacking is the communal guilt felt by all snackers. There is the idea that meal times are meal times and if you're hungry in between then you should jolly well ignore it. This is patently rubbish. There is a school of thought which regards the development of opposable thumbs in human evolution as being for the express purpose of opening a Yorkie bar and I, for one, can see what they are getting at.
Mid-morning
Snacking here should be fairly restrained, as breakfast will have been a few hours ago and lunch is in an hour or so's time. And you don't want to spoil your appetite now, do you? The perfect snack items for mid-morning coffee are biscuits and small cakes. A personal favourite of mine is lemon biscuits, mainly because sweet biscuits often cloy after the fourteenth one. With lemon biscuits, however, you're well into the second packet before you start to feel sick, a definite advantage.
Nice biscuits are fine, bourbons might be a bit too much at that hour and Rich Tea will do perfectly adequately, but the real daddy of biscuits is, was and always shall be the digestive. For those who are feeling a bit kinky, you could have chocolate digestives, but for those of a more traditional 'keeping it real' nature, the plain old digestive dunked a few too many times into a cup of tea will remain the capo di tutti capi of between meals nosh. I won't even bother discussing any biscuit that has 'Be Good To Yourself' on the packet; I'm already being good to myself by snacking – what's the point of semi-demi-proto-maybe-fat biscuits? Pass the lard, Mr Rooney, I'm bulking up.
As only just stated, the ideal accompaniment to this biscuit feast is a nice cup of tea. I would emphasise, and again this is a matter of personal taste only, that the best tea for this is a nice plain common or garden English Breakfast tea. Save the Lapsang Souchong or Lady Grey for the afternoon, mornings are for decent, honest British tea. There's no need to be a fancy dan about the whole thing.
Post-lunch
Office life in early 21st century England requires that lunch be as ghastly as possible, and is most adequately expressed through the prevalence of SAD syndrome: Sandwich At Desk. Naturally for splendid folk such as yourselves, this will hardly be sufficient nutrition to enable you to pursue your high-powered, high-profile, high-flying jobs throughout the day; you're going to need a little top-up in the tummy department.
One word: crisps. (Except, dammit, one more word for our cross-Atlantic brethren: chips.) You simply cannot go wrong with a pack of crisps a little while after lunch. Through extensive research and personal sacrifice, I am pleased to be able to recommend to you the Walkers Sensations range of crisps. They are a fine complement to any underwhelming and wilting cheese sandwich ate while trying to browse the internet and checking that your boss isn't looking. Particularly good are the Thai Sweet Chilli or Roast Lamb & Mint flavours.
There are some small matters of etiquette concerning crisp-eating. Excessive rustling of the packet or stuffing far too many crisps in your mouth and then chewing them with mouth open are both traits which are considered unattractive and irritating in the extreme. Likewise, taking 40 minutes to eat a packet of crisps by consuming one crisp at a time is a habit which others may well find incredibly annoying. Be prepared, if at work, to sacrifice some of your crisps when you offer them around, as you must.
Tea
As cornerstones of civilisation go, tea must surely rank in the top ten. The mere notion of downing tools midway through whatever task is engaging you in order to sit back, sip some aromatic tea and delicately nibble at macaroons, scones, crumpets, toasted tea-cakes and dainty cakes is simply too delicious to bear and I am starting to feel very, very hungry right now. Tea is, however, not strictly considered a snack time, as it is a meal in itself, so I can go little further in recommending appropriate snack foods. I would take pains to direct you to a major proponent of taking tea breaks, so you can peruse and gather further ideas there.
Early evening
If you're feeling a bit peckish, and you know that there are still hours to go before dining, then it's time for an early evening snack. This is possibly the most junk of junk food times, focusing as it does on the oldest stand-by of all: a bar of chocolate. I must confess here and now that I am not a huge chocoholic. I'm not prejudiced, I've got nothing against them and some of best friends are chocolate bars, but I am simply not a major chocolate fan.
Personal confesssions aside, it's hard to beat a Twix with a can of fizzy pop to tide you over until meal times, I have to admit. Things to watch out for here include:
Buying a diet drink while eating five Kit-Kats: be consistent with your snacking.
Any form of crunch, fruit or energy bar: if there isn't chocolate, you shouldn't be touching it.
Turkish Delight: it just isn't as good as you remember it to be. I wouldn't bother.
Yorkie: ladies, don't worry. It is for girls too.
Finish your snack at that time: you don't want to reach into your pocket/handbag to get something only to find that you have left a three day old, half-eaten and now mostly melted chocolate bar there. Ugh.
Midnight
This is the optimal time for snacking. Depending on where you have been that evening, a midnight snack may be the cherry on the cake, the cream on the coffee or just a way of staving off the pangs of hunger which are berating you when you have an appetite the size of a mammoth. Also, it's a handy way of preventing a hangover of nuclear intensity from hitting you the next morning. Ideal snack foods here are: whatever you have in the fridge, all on a few slices of bread liberally spread with cream cheese. Think of David Blaine's appetite combined with Billy Bunter's girth, and you're getting there.
Midnight snacks rely heavily on the king of foods: the sandwich. There are several key principles to bear in mind when making a sandwich, the first and most important of which is that it should be massive. If you have put in less than five fillings, you have made a bagatelle not a baguette. Pile those fillings high, for heaven's sake. The second principle is that you do not talk about Sandwich Club. No, actually it's that you should remember to use Real, Honest To God, Crikey, This Really Is Proper Butter, Isn't It, Would I Lie To You? butter, not some horrible margarine. A snack is an indulgence, so don't skimp on the finer things. The third principle of sandwich making is the use of mayonnaise. Everyone has their own favourite brand, so choose for yourself, but mayonnaise should be applied liberally and with wanton abandon throughout the sandwich.
Once you have made your octuple decker sandwich, cut it into quarters and munch down on it. Ways of enhancing this experience include: (a) the wearing of your dressing gown and slippers, (b) not having all the lights on, just a table lamp, (c) a large glass of very cold milk (those who are lactose intolerant may substitute this for a glass of very cold R Whites lemonade), (d) a small but perfectly formed pie, (e) someone with you so you can bicker over who gets to eat all the bits of filling which have fallen out while you've been stuffing your face, (f) needless whispering even though you and your friend are the only people in the house.
A few final words on snacking: Mmmm. Scrumptious. More. Yummy.
The art of buying Caveat emptor. Buyer beware. Strictly speaking, there are some times when you, as a buyer, probably don't need to beware too much. Buying a pack of lozenges is not exactly perilous. The principle however is that once you have bought your lozenges, if one of them turns out to be a mercenary from the planet Loz intent on destroying humanity, you cannot get a refund from your newsagents because Lockets are not generally regarded as genocidal. On the other hand, if you are purchasing killer sharks, piranhas or other items on your evil genius shopping list, it may be wise to be more wary. The extent to which anacondas are house-trained is not certain, but I'm betting it's somewhere between 'low' and 'non-existent'.
Buying clothes
If you're looking for a new suit, shirt or some casual clothes, then it's best to follow a few rules when browsing and purchasing your items, otherwise you will end up looking like Zandra Rhodes after Willem de Kooning has been allowed a few too many tins of paint. Co-ordination means something slightly more important than being able to rub your stomach while patting your head.
Women and men differ in regards to buying clothes, this much is evident to all but the most myopic of shoppers. As a bloke, I see an item of clothing which I particularly like, a t-shirt for example, and I observe the following sequence: (1) go into the shop, (2) nod at the sales assistant, (3) gaze critically at the t-shirt, (4) hold it up against me while holding my stomach in, (5) muse for a few moments, (6) put it back on the rail, (7) wander around a bit, (8) go out of the shop, (9) walk a few yards, (10) turn around, (11) go back in the shop, (12) stare at a completely different item of clothing, (13) return to the original t-shirt, (14) look to see if it's on sale, (15) buy it regardless.
This makes me slightly unusual for a male of the species, because the general procedure skips directly from point 4 to point 15, yet at no point will men actually try the item on. Changing rooms are for girls. Trousers are held against the outer leg, shirts and t-shirts are held against the upper torso, underwear is merely looked at for a second (to check that the size is not 'S' … no-one buys 'S' underwear, especially not if the assistant at the check-out is attractive), and socks are bought almost randomly.
The one possible exception here is jackets. Men who look as though they have been dragged through a hedge backwards, then all down the road and through Sellafield reprocessing plant, will nevertheless spend hours gazing at a leather jacket just to check that it is without flaws and fits them properly around the shoulders. Shoulders are important; the alpha male must have good shoulders – a trait presumably derived from prehistoric mating rituals. Me caveman. You cavewoman. Me have good shoulders. You be my wife. You cook brontosaurus good.
My personal observation of women shopping is different. If a male friend needs a new shirt for a special occasion, I can guarantee that this will only take up to 30 minutes of my time, the remainder of the Saturday to be spent in or outside a pub. He might, if pushed, take the shirt out of its bag just to show that it was a bargain ("Fiver for that? Nice one, mate"). If a female friend needs a pair of shoes, this will never take under 3 hours, the remainder of the time being spent in her house, while she tries them on with any given combination of dresses, skirts, trousers, tops, coats, handbags, earrings or other accoutrements. Which can, if you have nothing to do for a few weeks, be fun in itself.
Buying the farm
It is understood that the term 'buying the farm', meaning dying, derives from the death benefits paid to soldiers' families when they died in battle. The sums were sufficient to enable the fallen hero's relatives to buy land and thus ensure their future financial security. Thus you would be able to say that your computer bought the farm in confidence that people will understand that it has crashed rather than believing your PC to have taken its first step on the agricultural property ladder.
Buying popularity
I've never quite understood the phrase 'to curry favour', suggesting as it does that the perfect accompaniment to favour is a pint of warm, weak Carlsberg and peshwari naan. To buy popularity, however, does make sense. Just as clothes may be bought, so may people, votes, elections, popularity and all manner of things that M&S don't sell (the last time I checked, anyway). It is a bit of a desperate move to pay directly for friends, yet in an oblique way, it's something which most of us have done. The (very) old joke goes: "Have you ever paid for sex?" to which the answer is "Only emotionally".
Although not buying popularity directly, a certain amount of generosity or largesse generally proves to influence the way others will look at you. A bottle of champagne bought at the correct strategic time suggests not opulence, but opulence shared. 'See how I have not only money, but also that I spend my money on us all' is the (often not-so-subtle) underlying message. A semi-eaten pack of pork scratchings will rarely have the same effect, by the way.
Buying popularity is not strictly about cash, though. It may also be in return for favours done. In the occasionally excellent Urban Dictionary, there is the phrase 'fall on the grenade' whose definition, with swear words removed, is roughly this: to occupy the attentions of the least attractive member of the opposite sex in a group, in order that your compatriots may enjoy conversational or other congress with the remaining highly attractive members of that group. It is related to the activities of a gentleman's 'wingman', when they are out engaged in what can only be described as chercher la femme. This would be one way of buying popularity, through ignoble self-sacrifice.
Brief note: buying friends should not be taken literally as an exhortation to join any form of slave trade. I hope this is clear.
Buying 'it'
Did you know that the word 'gullible' isn't in the dictionary? Of course you did. We all know that one. Making up random statistics and facts on the spot in an attempt to confuse people can be so much fun, can't it? Although you may get a reputation as an unreliable narrator, it's often a very good way to revive yourself from the boredom of other people's conversation to inject suddenly with entirely irrelevant and untrue nuggets of trivia to see whether they will actually believe you.
You should be on your guard to ensure that you are not buying it from others. Once the word goes out that you are, how shall we say, immensely dense, you will be beset by those wishing to mock, gull and make a fool of you. Prepare pre-emptive strikes of your own. Examples might include:
Did you know that Rusty Lee and Bruce Lee were actually brother and sister?
Did you know that Waterloo station was named after the ABBA song and not the battle?
Did you know that cod liver oil is used on the international space station as a form of propellant?
Did you know that Venetian blinds are named after Venice Beach, California and not Venice, Italy?
Did you know that 3 out of 4 Londoners have webbed feet?
My favourite incident (related here previously) was convincing a friend that the cat in a pub we were visiting had been trained to sniff out drugs. When the cat had detected the drugs and the owner of the drugs, the landlord had trained it to sit by their legs so that he would be able to identity the perpetrator and immediately eject him or her from the establishment. At the time I was relaying this to my friend, the cat wandered over and started brushing its tail against his leg. For a few moments, he looked quite panic-striken until I started laughing. Cruel? Yes. Funny? My god, definitely. It seems that, for a couple of seconds at least, he bought it.
Buying time
If you've read this far, then I'm afraid I have already bought enough of your time.
The art of anticipating
Wa-hey! Calloo callay! Huzzah! It's almost here it's any day now it's going to be great and I've been waiting for ages and now I'm nearly there and I can't wait any longer but I know I have to and when the day comes it's going to be the best thing ever I know it will and come on come on I'm nearly there nearly there oh so nearly there.
Anticipation, the expectation of a future event coming to pass, is one of the most keenly felt human emotions. Childhood memories of being unable to sleep on Christmas Eve because although you're tucked up warm, protected against the snow carelessly falling outside, you want to be awake to see Father Christmas creep into your room and fill your stocking with presents. The harder you try to stay awake, the sooner you fall asleep, to wake with your anticipation fulfilled.
Depending on your own personal scale of what does and does not constitute a life event, different things can be antipated: in an Iain M. Banks novel, one of the (always outlandishly named) spacecraft is called "The Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival". An event itself may make sense only to you or be a generally recognised step on the road of life: perhaps it is the birth of your first child, perhaps it is signing the documents when you buy your first house, perhaps it is gaining employment in the workplace of your dreams, perhaps it's your exam results, perhaps it's the exquisite agony of a few seemingly endless seconds until they reply, "I do".
The plan
You know what you're anticipating and even though you screw your eyes tight shut and you wish, wish, wish that it will happen immediately because you can't bear the hanging around, the waiting, any longer, you know that you must be patient. This is where 'the plan' comes in. To borrow from the esteemed doctor of comedy, Harry Hill, you've got to have a system. In this case, the system is 'the plan'.
The plan mainly involves doing a lot of time-wasting. Regular readers will be aware that this is an art form in itself, and that I may personally lay a good claim to being a world authority on this topic. You will have to take your mind away from the event per se, instead focusing your attention on other matters. Timescales may prove awkward here; if the event is the birth of a new child, then you may well be unable to focus on clipping your nails for nine whole months. Here are a few suggestions for topics and areas which should be able to divert your mind away from anticipating 'The Best Thing In My Life Ever':
Do penguins eat Penguin biscuits? If not, why not? If so, could it be called post-modern cannibalism?
Attempt to build a fully-functional vacuum cleaner with the contents of your handbag (gentlemen may well have to use the handbag of a loved wife, girlfriend, close personal friend, female relative, concubine)
Statistically speaking, which is funnier: a heron or a crane?
Translate the Mahabharata into all known European languages.
Count sheep. All of them. In the world.
"You'll never put a better bit of butter on your knife." Discuss, with specific reference to the Abwehr and glow-worms.
Anagram every Member of Parliament's name into a word or words which accurately reflects their views on European federalism.
Construct a replica of the lost city of Atlantis from matchsticks.
Read every book in the British Library.
Reorganise all the letters in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica into alphabetical order.
There, that should keep you busy until the big day. The more common alternative is just to proceed with everyday life, occasionally making a reference to your big day until you find that no-one likes you any more because you have become "that guy that can't talk about anything without crowbarring [insert event here] into the conversation". You should try to avoid this, as people will hiss at you, arch their backs and swish their tails before padding away to search for mice, stretch or maybe laze in the sun for a bit. Er, … never mind.
The countdown
Some events don't actually have a 'Big Day'. Avoid them, they're no fun. You want something that has a definite day, time, place and fulfilment because that way, when the appointed time comes, you can do a small skip, perhaps a little dance, throw your hands up and allow a small, yet satisfied (but not smug) smile to flit across your face. Less definite events that are guaranteed to fall within a certain date range are fine, though. It would be foolhardy of anyone to predict the exact time, place and coffee shop where the Second Coming will occur, so a guesstimate will have to do.
With a definite event fulfilment time (DEFT) established, you can now proceed onto your countdown. Those who wish to be a little more 'old school' about counting down may choose to pick a day-by-day calendar where you can rip the pages off each day, thereby ensuring that you can see the progress clearly, as well as adding to the litter in your office. Another good option is a monthly wall calendar where you can write a very large red cross in each day, thus annoying your colleagues who will also be able to view this.
If you are feeling particuarly retro, you can carve small lines, barring on each fifth day, on the stone walls of your cell, thus reflecting how many days of incarceration you have suffered. Your colleagues may feel that this reflects poorly on your organisation, however, and also upon their abilities, honesty and criminal intent. The bouncing of a baseball against the photocopier while sitting down, combined with constantly referring to the main conference room as "the cooler" will reinforce this image, though.
For the bright shiny techno-techno things among you, the options of electronic calendars may prove a more satisfying choice. If you are a particularly clever little bunny, you may be capable of programming a little countdown yourself, in one of the computer languages I keep hearing about from people more intelligent than I am (last estimate: 95% of population, and rising). For those not so savvy, just steal request permission to borrow someone else's code. They will be flattered.
The final days
If you're getting closer and closer to the DEFT, then you're probably getting more and more jumpy. Excitement and panic are close friends and will be vying with each other for your exclusive attention. Is everything ready? What have you forgotten? Do you know what to say? Naturally, a small degree of planning will be necessary here. The most common mistakes in the lead-up to your DEFT are as follows:
Forgetting to wear trousers.
Forgetting your own name.
Forgetting how to speak.
Gabbling incoherently.
Retching uncontrollably.
The solutions to these problems are quite simple:
Always carry a spare pair of trousers with you. Either that or look in a mirror before you leave.
Write a small name badge and attach it to your wrist.
Tape record a short message beforehand and carry it around with you at all times.
Shut up and think.
Try not to eat spicy food or drink excess Guinness.
During the final days of anticipating, you will also experience doubts. Doubts can come in many forms. Am I doing the right thing? Is this hopelessly impractical? What if the baby turns out to be half-Martian? What if I fail? Will I humiliate myself? Can I send a clone of myself rather than me, just in case the laser-fence perimeter isn't deactivated after all? Don't worry about these too much. As a wise man once wrote, "There is no 'fun' in 'doubt' (though they both have 'u' as the middle letter)". Sage advice, indeed.
You're not being overly paranoid when you doubt big events; any chance of commitment, any life-changing moment, anything worth the investment of your passions and emotional energy will naturally be an event which will give rise to doubts, because so few of us can say in all honesty that we are 100% sure of every action we ever take. It's the degree to which you feel you're right which counts. If you can stand and look at yourself and say, "I know this will work, somewhere deep within me, and I have done everything I can do to make this work, because I believe in it", then any fleeting doubts you entertain will be dismissed within seconds. Doubting is often a strength, not a weakness.
The moment
Live in it, love it, laugh, smile, celebrate. Because it will be beautiful.
The art of speaking
Unless you are mute, in which case you have my sympathy, you are able to speak. Fairly uncontroversial assertion, I think. The manner in which you speak, however, the rapidity of the sounds emanating from your mouth in word form, the modulation of your voice, your accent, your individual slurrings, plosives and glottal-stops, and the phrases you choose to express yourself are all part of how others judge and estimate you: your voice is part of who you are.
Just as a received pronunciation accent may be preferred by some over Mockney or Estuary English, others will prefer a Scots burr to a Devon lilt, and yet others will be more easily swayed by the gentle cadences of the Welsh than by the quick-talking Scouse. However, to be armed with an accent and a vocabulary is not enough. As already discussed here, you must be prepared.
On the phone
The very first point to raise here concerns the dreaded answering machine. You have telephoned someone who is, for reasons best known to themselves and/or their chosen deity, absent. Damn. They have a answering machine. Damn and double-damn. You now have to leave a message. Damn, double-damn and an added drat for good measure.
Good advice is to clear your throat while their message is on, then (after the beep) speak in a clear voice stating your name, your telephone number, the purpose of your call and the date and time of your call.
Better advice is to put the phone down mid-way through their message and either (a) text-message them, (b) (if texting is unavailable), resolve to call them later or (c) completely forget about it and curse them for the absentee curs that they are.
Best advice is to avoid being drunk and standing outside a noisy pub, then leaving a long, rambling message in which you repeat yourself, overuse the words "um", "er" and "ah", and then completely forget the next day that you called them. In this, ahem, hypothetical situation, they will most certainly save the message in order to embarrass you later.
If you are lucky enough that they (a) are in, (b) have picked up your call, and (c) are actually willing to talk to you, then you have neatly side-stepped the potential humiliations of the answering machine. You will, however, now need to either convey your message succinctly or chat in a witty and informed manner. Both of these options are very tricky, not ably assisted by modern technology. The recipient of the call, if on a mobile phone, could be virtually anywhere in the world unless they are on T-Mobile, in which case they will have to stand on top of a telephone mast in order to even get signal.
Their location will present you with problems: if they are just about to go into a tube station, your call is about to end very abruptly. If they are in Sainsbury's, you will have to share them with the tannoy announcements and the check-out girl asking them for their Nectar card. If they are on a train, then they are quite obviously lying to you because they want to be able to shout "I'm on the train" in a Dom Joly style. Should this third option occur, terminate the call immediately, as you should not be speaking to such a person.
In public
Immediate note: "Unaccustomed as I am…" should never, ever be used in public speaking. It is a cliché at best, and the spawn of Satan and his fiery minions at worst. In the unlikely event that you hear these words coming out of your own mouth, you should gargle with antiseptic post-haste.
Public speaking often unleashes the scared little puppy in all of us. While people are perfectly happy to expound their theories on alien abductions, JFK conspiracy theories, the 'what's wrong with this country' diatribe, why a 3-5-2 offers more flexibility for a deep-lying sweeper, or the public sector borrowing requirement, they are generally only happy to do this in a small group of close friends. The idea of standing in front of a group of more than twenty and just admitting their name will drive people into a frenzy of panic last seen when people realised that Mrs Beckham is recording a new album.
It is a mistake to attempt Churchill-style rhetoric and oratory. The moment you begin, you will unconsciously attempt to imitate him and do the voice, imagining it to be be part-bulldog, part-walrus. You will look like a complete Davro. Needless to say, any attempt to imitate the most prominent German orator of that era will be frowned upon in most circles. Good rules on public speaking are:
Know what you want to say
Leave your assault rifle at home
Speak more slowly than you normally do
Avoid the overuse of the word 'm*th*rf*ck*r', when speaking in a business or religious place
Wear clothes
Clean the blood from your hands
Maintain eye contact with the audience
Don't finish every sentence with "by Thor's hammer"
Stand in a relaxed posture with legs slightly apart
Resist the urge to mount the lectern shouting "Giddy up, amigos" and cracking an imaginary whip
More personal speeches, such as for the best man at a wedding, are difficult in a slightly different way. There is a premium here on humour. The suggestion that the groom has enjoyed ovine intercourse is, sadly for some, no longer a hilarious way of breaking the ice with the new in-laws, and should be eschewed in favour of a more gracious speech, thanking all present, wishing the happy couple prosperity and success in their new lives together and, of course, the intimation that if any of the bridesmaids are at loose end, you are staying in Room 254, the key's under the mat, and remember to bring the baby oil.
Gossiping
The human animal is, by nature, a social one. We like to be with other people, we enjoy conversing with them and we especially love it when somebody gets really, really drunk and does something stupid like have sex with Tessa from Accounts in the maintenance lift at the office party (and she's engaged to be married, you know. No? Ooooooh, yes). Gossip and intrigue are a cornerstone of modern life and if anyone tells you that they never gossip or that this sort of tittle-tattle is below them, then you know that you have immediately found a big, fat liar whose trousers may well be aflame.
Malicious gossip is bad, wounding, hurtful and often the most interesting kind to hear, because that's when you get all the real dirt. "John had a few drinks, stumbled a bit by the door, but then went home" is not gossip; it's a dull moment on a reality TV show on cable. However, "John had a few drinks, removed his shirt and started an impromptu conga with some girl on the other side of the bar. Her boyfriend didn't look happy, especially when John gave her his phone number, pinched her bottom, finished the boyfriend's pint and then lurched out onto the street, where he tried to steal a police car" is real gossip gold.
Of course, gossip doesn't have to be true. In fact, it doesn't even have to be remotely plausible. You can tell most people anything you like and so long as there is a little salacious detail in there somewhere, it will be (a) believed, (b) enjoyed and (c) retold to as many people as possible within the greater metropolitan area. For example, I know a little bit of gossip right now concerning another male UK blogger, which I really shouldn't tell you. But I might. You're not quite sure right now whether I have definitely made this up or whether I actually do have some gossip. Intriguing, isn't it?
Slang
Speaking the Queen's English (word up, ma'am) is often problematic enough, but to complicate things further, we have slang: shorthand expressions for phrases or concepts which are otherwise expressed in an overly complex or verbose way. 'Mad props', for example, derives from 'proper recognition' given to someone whose inspiration or work is to be acknowledged and has been abbreviated in order that we may convey this impression in a shorter time, or in relaxed conversation. The English RP accent does not lend itself to using much slang: "Peace out, dude" as said by Brian Sewell or Stephen Fry would sound ridiculous. Likewise any attempts at Cockney rhyming slang would be ridiculous if essayed in an American accent.
It is possible, though, to use slang provided you have put the correct verbal quotation marks around the slang word used, hence implying (a) your knowledge that you will sound ludicrous using the term 'bling bling' at a board meeting, (b) you are attempting to amuse people by the fact that you are very unlikely to be a person who uses these terms on an everyday basis (you cannot be 'from the ghetto' in green corduroys, apparently), and (c) you're just doing this for a cheap laugh. And where's the harm in that?
The art of speaking is one which is greatly prized in a society where a bon raconteur can command great adoration and where a stumbling, faltering mumbler is generally looked down upon. So I shall take my leave.
Eh? D never tires of telling me that there isn't very much actual content here at Londonmark Towers (and what content there is, I have allegedly plagiarised), but to have a referral from Google with the search term "Funny stories about self-control" really does take the biscuit. Likewise "America, London and Spain men looking for serious girls" and "English pub drunk American football chanting OR singing OR shouting". If I find out it was you, D…
Vive la différence There was a plan for Mike's birthday celebrations last night: to go for a few drinks, then off for a meal.
What actually happened: a few drinks turned into a five-hour drinking session, replete with shots named "Brain", "Blue Death", "Anabolic Steroid", et al, some falling over (not me), some bad pool playing (me), some potentially incriminating photos (not me), the bumps (27 in total, and Christ, but he's heavy), and the spending of far too much money (everyone).
Minority retort
Here is the current shortlist of taglines for my title bar. I am still inviting new suggestions, and you will notice a few themes emerging from the contenders below.
If your name isn't Kate, you're not winning (D/Kate)*
If your name isn't David or Pete then you're doing well (D)*
I have a few favourites out of the list above, but of course I would never name names (Karen, Pix, Krissa and Vaughan, you're doing well), but I would like even more suggestions, so that I can ensure my decision has been based on the widest possible catchment area of cheap puns, character assassination and gross personal slurs. Set to it.
Update: new suggestions are included and marked with an asterisk, not an Asterix.
Update update: I've decided that the lines will close on Friday, so you have a few more days to mull over, cogitate, ruminate and something-else-that-sounds-clever-ate on your suggestions until then. Big announcement of winner on Monday.
Some advice When playing pool against a one-armed man, don't ask him if he's seen Dr Richard Kimble. This will make your eventual defeat and humiliation even more shameful.
Stop that right now When waiting in a meeting room for Mr Big Boss Man (whose nickname, behind his back, is 'The Brain', so fierce is his intellect), it is not the best idea in the world to say "I've been expecting you" the minute he walks into the room. He will look at you in a strange and not very good way but not mention anything. This may harm your 'career' chances when he marks down in your personal file that you are a complete loon.
Adaptive verbs
The English language is, let's face it, pretty fit. If the English language were, say, a lady, she'd be wearing a nice top, a shortish skirt and tall boots and you would be trying to buy drinks for her in the hope that she and her cool friends (French, Italian) would speak with you. You would try to admire her professional manicure as a way of further ingratiating yourself. Unfortunately, language is not a lady, so the analogy falls down immediately at the end of this, the first paragraph.
The English language is, let's face it, pretty sexy. If the English language were, say, a car, it would be a Jaguar XKR convertible. It's sleek, it's powerful, it's elegant. It's everything that a bit of metal on four rubber wheels that travels oooh, really quite fast, is meant to be. It costs a lot to insure. Unfortunately, language is not a car, and so this failed analogy brings not only the end of the second paragraph but also the end of my analogising.
One of the joys of the language is the ability to adapt words to suit your purpose and to soften potential self-criticism. A situation may be described three times and though each time the facts are the same, the interpretation put upon that situation gets increasingly harsh depending on, let's face it, how much the narrator likes the other participants. Herein I would like to bring you some 'adaptive verbs' to illustrate the girly carness my point:
I sip, you drink, he/she binges
I pay homage, you borrow, he/she plagiarises
I chat, you rabbit, he/she babbles
I cope, you flap, he/she panics
I agree, you crawl, he/she grovels
I understand, you confuse, he/she misconstrues
I enjoy, you party, he/she overdoses
I groove, you step, he/she flails
I dine, you feed, he/she pigs
I observe, you look, he/she gawps
Take 3: The English language is, let's face it, pretty good. If the English language were, say, a weblogger, they'd definitely be … okay, okay, I give up.
M'aidez I need your help. No, not psychiatric help, thank you very much. I need your help in a completely different way. The strapline 'londonmark : from camden with love' has been in the title bar since I started this ramshackle place. And frankly, I'm sick of it by now. So, I would like suggestions, please.
In contrast to Hydragenic's Slag me off now, please competition, this is not an invitation to vent spleen at me, so I'll thank you not to do so. Funny descriptions are obviously preferred, but bear in mind that if they are too funny, you'll be ruining the rest of the site for new readers.
The LondonMark Guide to Football
It's the beautiful game. It's a game of two halves. It's football, which for half the male population of the United Kingdom is one of the main reasons for living. In England, Scotland and Wales, it's also one of the arguments for the existence of God: nothing as beautiful as football could have evolved by itself; it shows a design, an elegance, a majesty beyond human capability. What higher power could have created football? (Insert the necessary logic bit here.) Therefore God exists. Therefore stop fucking about with the offside rule.
Football is not a funny old game. Let's get that clear right now. Football is very serious indeed. It has the power to reduce grown men to tears for the only time in their lives. It has the power to turn decent, rational, shy men into absolute gibbering Neanderthals, capable only of grunting, howling and pointing. It has the power to make men believe that a pair of socks which have been unwashed for twelve years have some kind of 'magic' or 'lucky' properties. Serious.
Let's get something else clear as well. This guide will refer to football fans and players as 'he', 'him', 'men', 'blokes' and possibly 'muppets'. I do realise that many, many football fans are women, as indeed are the players at the World Cup currently happening in America. One of the most knowledgeable and passionate football fans I know is a woman. Unfortunately, she's a Manchester United supporter. Even more unfortunately for me, a Newcastle United fan, she's my sister. All this is a roundabout way of saying: if you are a female fan, don't whinge about the fact that I've used masculine pronouns throughout. Please.
So, on with the guide. Are you mystified by football? Can you never work out why the players are doing what they are doing? Do you care? The answers to these questions, respectively, are: (a) good, you're in completely the wrong place, but please stay and enjoy the facilities, (b) you must be a Newcastle United supporter, you have my fraternal sympathies, and (c) if not, give up now.
Brief version: there are two teams, each containing eleven players, competing against each other for a total time of 90 minutes (divided into two 'halves' of 45 minutes each) on a pitch. If a player propels the ball into the net (of which there are two, one at each end, also known as the 'goal') without using his hands or arms, he has scored a goal. After 90 minutes, the team that has scored the most goals wins.
FUN FACT: The legendary German player Franz Beckenbauer managed to score 14 goals (one of them with his backside) in one game when he played a demonstration match at Crystal Palace in the 1960s. His nickname was 'Von Pele', a reference both to his Pele-like ability and to his startling resemblance to Max von Sydow, of The Exorcist fame.
We should get into the specifics now. The eleven players in a football team consist of one goalkeeper and ten outfield players who can be sub-divided into defenders, midfielders and strikers. There are also three players who can be used as substitutes for any three of the starting players, in case of injury or for a tactical change. Let's examine the positions in turn.
Goalkeeper
The goalkeeper's job is to keep the goal intact, ie unsullied by the opponent's attempts to score a goal. He is the only player in his team allowed to use his hands to come into contact with the ball while it is on the pitch, although he is not allowed to throw the ball directly into the opposition goal and thus score. It's unlikely this would work anyway, as the other goalkeeper would probably catch it, and if he can throw a football over 90 metres and still score a goal then he's in the wrong sport. The goalkeeper is also allowed to wear gloves, because goalkeepers are girly and don't want to ruin their manicures.
If an opponent strikes the ball at the goal but the goalkeeper manages to deflect, parry or catch the ball, thus preserving the integrity of his net, he is said to have 'saved' the ball or 'made a save'. Hence, when a goalkeeper displays incredible agility or reflexes to keep the ball out of the net, all the supporters of that team will instinctively cry "Save!". This is not an exhortation for the goalkeeper to immediately redeem the souls of the other players, it is merely a recognition of the fact that he woke up in time to stop the ball.
FUN FACT: Many goalkeepers have been nicknamed 'The Cat' due to feline agility and reaction time. This may be why Mark Bosnich is known as 'The Polar Bear'.
Goalkeepers are usually very tall and really quite crazy. Their careers generally last longer than those of outfield players, mainly due to the fact that they do sod all during a game. If a team's defence are particularly good at smothering any attempt on goal by the opposition, then often the goalkeeper will bring a good book with him onto the pitch, in order to catch up with some light reading while the game is being played out. If they are a more active sort, they may well be telephoning their agent to see if anyone would pay them to let in a goal deliberately.
Goalkeepers are often referred to as 'netminders' or 'strikecatchers' by English fans attempting to confuse Americans about 'soccer'. This is a practice to be encouraged. Other useful terms, as practised by The Guardian, include 'eight-meter free-strike disc' for penalty spot, 'ref-charged' for being booked (see Discipline below), 'directional switchplay' for half-time, etc, etc, ad nauseam.
Defender
The job of the defender is… well, it is pretty self-explanatory, isn't it? In the English game, there are usually four defenders, hence the term 'flat back four' (see Formation below). For any team managed by Kevin Keegan, the emphasis is for defenders to move higher up the pitch away from their goalkeeper in order to aid the strikers, hence the term 'Keegan, you twat'.
It is vitally important for a football team to have defenders who communicate well with each other, in order that they may co-operate to deny strikers a chance on goal. This may well be amusing: footballers communicating. Almost oxymoronic, you might say. Don't worry; they don't have to use very long words or construct elaborately phrased or perfectly grammatical sentences.
Generally, these instructions will involve "Oi!" (Please don't pass the ball to Thierry Henry, he's rather likely to score a goal), "To me, to me!" (Please pass the ball to me in order that I might get it away from Fabien Barthez, that no-hoper), or "Square it!" (Please pass the ball in a straight line across the width of the pitch and, this time, aim it at one of our players and not the lad sitting in Row K with a Wagon Wheel).
FUN FACT: The word 'muppet' dates back to 1897 and derives from a little-known but vastly untalented defender, Maurice "Mo" Peters, who scored a hat-trick of own-goals (3) in a game for Nottingham Forest. The term 'mopeters' (plural) gradually made way for the more straightforward 'muppet' (singular) and so a new way of slagging off useless players evolved. It is believed that this is where Jim Henson drew his inspiration.
There are various different positions within a defence: centre-back, wing-back, right- and left-backs. These describe where the player is supposed to be. For England's national side, this attempt to make it easier on the player to remember what he is doing rarely succeeds, because generally the defence is all over the bloody shop. A more accurate description would be 'right-mess'. One of the centre-backs may well have the added responsibility of the team captaincy, such as Tony Adams did for Arsenal, because they are able to direct the events on the pitch, unlike, say, any of Wolves' defenders.
Midfielder
As their name suggests, midfielders play in the middle of the field. (Yes, this really is quite a simple game which doesn't demand complicated naming conventions.) Their role is to channel the ball from the defenders up to the strikers, often they must create goal-scoring opportunities for themselves, they will required to go back towards their own goal in order to help a beleaguered defence ('tracking back'), they aim to control and dominate not only the middle of the pitch, but also the rhythm and pace of the game, and also they generally take responsibility for free-kicks, corners and other set pieces.
And you thought it was just kicking a ball about.
FUN FACT: The highest goalscorer for the England national side is not a striker, as you might expect, but rather a midfielder: Sir Bobby Charlton. Although he and Jackie Charlton, the former manager of the Republic of Ireland national team, share a surname, they are not in fact brothers. Jackie Charlton is the first successful result of a cloning experimentation project started by Francis Crick and James Watson. They were said to be devastated that Jackie chose football rather than science as a career.
The qualities required of a good midfielder (or 'centrocampista' as the central midfield role is known in Spanish), other than the possession of an Alice band, are that they have a certain flair, an industrious workrate, they are team-minded rather than selfish and that they can pass the ball with great, great accuracy. By this explanation, it is hard to see why Robbie Savage continues to be regarded as a midfielder, when it is quite clear he would be more suited to a career as a hairdresser somewhere just outside Carmarthen.
No description of a midfielder's role is complete without mentioning St David of Beckham. So I have.
It has often been said, generally with table-thumping and deep, insane staring (when drunk), that it was a tragedy that George Best, who played his international career with Northern Ireland (a team that can best be described using the word 'moribund') was never seen at a major international tournament such as the World Cup. This has also been said recently of the massively talented Ryan Giggs, a midfielder with Manchester United and Wales. Wales' (thus far) successful campaign to qualify for the European Championships held in Portugal next year has gone some way to stop Welsh fans from harping on about this tedious subject for years to come.
Sadly, for the rest of us, Northern Irish fans have little chance of being able to see George Best ever play internationally again (a genuine tragedy), as he has instead forged a career as the favourite topic for page 15 of The Sun (not tragic), and so we will have to listen to the fans' Kilburn-accented dronings for years to come (Hamlet-level tragedy).
Striker
Put simply, the striker's purpose is to strike the ball towards the opposition goal. A successful striker is one who scores most of his attempts at goal. An unsuccessful striker is one who is Emile Heskey.
FUN FACT: As part of the promotional campaign for FIFA World Cup South Korea/Japan 2002™, Michael Owen was asked to take a timed run against a cheetah and a gazelle. If Michael or the cheetah won, they would be entitled to tear the gazelle limb from limb and feast upon its entrails. Unsurprisingly, Michael chose not to take part. Rivaldo did it instead.
Scoring goals is not the only task required of a striker (aka 'centre-forward'). They must also be capable of 'holding the ball up'. Essentially what this means is being able to keep hold of the ball – avoiding the attentions of defenders attempting to take the ball away from the striker and thereby clear the danger – until another player is in a position whereby they can receive a pass and get a clear short on goal.
Good examples of this art in the English Premiership are Alan Shearer and Teddy Sheringham. Who are both about 76 years old and yet still playing. Why? Because these kind of strikers rarely break into a jog, never mind run the length of the pitch à la Michael Owen, the lazy so-and-so's.
Despite a skill in being able to 'hold up' the ball, nevertheless the primary function of the striker is to score goals, otherwise the name of the position would be, to borrow a former nickname of Ade Akinbiyi, a 'misser'. Another recognised term for a striker is 'goalhanger' (fairly self-explanatory, I hope), used for those players who can't be arsed to do any running or passing or tackling, ie all those little things that make football a game.
So, there we have the basics of position. There are then the small matters of formation, skills and discipline.
Formation
As anyone who has played football in the schoolyard knows, the best formation is to put the fat kid in goal, the asthmatics in defence, the school bully as centre-forward and everyone else in what must loosely and generously be described as midfield. This is not quite the way that teams such as Real Madrid or Juventus are organised, but it does seem to be working relatively well for Chelsea so far.
English teams generally favour a 4-4-2 approach (four defenders, four midfielders and two strikers), whereas other popular formations include 4-3-3, 4-3-2-1 (the so-called 'Christmas tree'), 5-3-2, 3-4-3 and, indeed, any combination of 10 players in three or four lines. The schoolyard approach is best described as 2-7-1 and is not the most practical of formations unless you are eleven years old and are playing during lunch break.
Skills
Once the formation is settled, you have persuaded everyone to stick to it, and you have told the goalkeeper to stop running out of his area to get his packed lunch, then you can consider their skills. Strikers should learn how to hit the ball in the general vicinity of the opposing goal; it'll go in eventually, Emile. Midfielders should learn how to hit the ball so that other players can get it without needing a Zones 1-6 Travelcard. Defenders should learn the ancient art of 'hoofing'.
In order to hoof, you must approach the ball, whether stationary or in motion, close your eyes and kick it really, really hard in any direction; don't bother aiming, you'll just ruin the fun. Think of Martin Keown in the Champions League and you've got the idea. There are other skills as well, such as passing, dribbling, tackling, scoring, throw-ins, dealing with corners, showboating (ie outlandish tricks with the football), but really English football is at its best when one bloke scythes another bloke down just after he's hoofed the ball upfield randomly.
FUN FACT: In the 1966 World Cup when one of England's goals was actually offside but ruled to be legitimate by the Russian linesman, the linesman was in fact neither Russian nor a man. He was a chimp who had been trained for years by the English Football Association in order to make just such a decision. The chimp, Barney, later went on to have a long and successful career in Hollywood.
Discipline
Discipline can be explained simply: for an infraction against the rules (a 'foul', for example) of a minor or secondary nature, the offender is shown a yellow card. For misdemeanours of a more serious kind, the naughty, naughty footballer is given a red card and must leave the game from that moment. They also become ineligible to play the next three games.
When a player is shown a card of either variety, it is known colloquially as 'being booked', because their name gets written in the referee's little black book. I should emphasise that this is not so that the referee can telephone them in a few months, just after his girlfriend dumps him, and ask them out on a date. The basic rule is: the ref's in charge, don't screw with him.
So, there it all is, except for the insane and unswerving devotion that fans have for their teams, which can sometimes border on the religious/monomaniac. For that, there is very little rational explanation, other than the usual psychobabble about wanting to belong, channelling aggression, finding an individual identity in groups, blah, blah, blah. Personally, I think men like watching football because it gives them the opportunity to shout obscenities at a pitch or a television, without fear of getting beaten up. Just a thought.
Oh, you wanted me to explain the offside rule? Well, it'll take some time, but if you've read this far…
Conversation This morning, while walking up Lyme Street, I encountered one of the many cats that seem to live there. Being a friendly soul, and meeting what looked to be a friendly cat, we had a very brief conversation which went a little something like this:
Good morning, cat. Meow.
How are you? Meow.
That's good, but I'm late for work so I have to rush now. Meow.
See you tomorrow. Meow.
Now, you may think that this is a perfectly pleasant conversation between man (me) and cat (the cat). However, sitting on the Tube travelling into work, I suddenly wondered what exactly the cat had said. After, 'cat' is a foreign language which I don't speak, a bit like every language other than English (which I'm not brilliant at) and French (passable, yet inaccurate). So, the conversation between myself and cat could easily have gone like this:
Good morning, cat. Good morning, man.
How are you? Fine, thanks for asking.
That's good, but I'm late for work so I have to rush now. Well, I suppose you'd better hurry then.
See you tomorrow. Bye bye.
Yet it seems more likely, knowing what cats are like, that it went a bit like this:
Good morning, cat. What? What are you saying? Eh?
How are you? I'm eyeing up some pigeons, you dimwit, get out of my way.
That's good, but I'm late for work so I have to rush now. Oh, keep your voice down! Oh, hang on … great, they've all flown away now, you idiot.
See you tomorrow. Thanks for nothing, you git.
25 things
i was born in 1977 and lived in mill hill until the tender age of 17, whereupon I went up to oxford for my degree. two years of varying success later, i left (degreeless) and wandered the tide of mediocre jobs while living in, variously, new marston, brixton, finsbury park, camden town, notting hill and greenwich village. i'm six foot tall, thin, i wear glasses, i work in an office, i drink in nyc and i live in hope.
