May as well put this somewhere...

DISCLAIMER: In no way an endorsement of traditional Toryism either. Make your own poster here.

Dialogue from a country in which nothing works

DIALOGUE FROM A COUNTRY IN WHICH NOTHING WORKS

"I'll post it to you."

"It won't arrive."

"I know. It'll save you replying."

"The postal system works well."

"In this country everything works well."

"If you know how to look at it."

"Efficiency is in the eye of the beholder."

"And beauty is in the post."

"So it is, then. I wondered where it had all gone."

Nothing and no chance

NOTHING AND NO CHANCE

Nothing is sitting with his psychiatrist.

"What can I do for you?" the man gamely asks his couch.

"I feel like I'm invisible," says nothing.

"You are," says the psychiatrist.

"It's like I'm barely even here."

"Well, you aren't," he says. "In a very real sense you aren't."

"But no-one even sees me!" cries nothing.

"But that's normal – just look at you!"

"Oh," says nothing. "You mean I'm not going mad?"

"You? Of course not," says the psychiatrist. "You're perfectly sane. Now shush, couch, we have patients to see..."

A conversation... or whatever

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN STRANGERS THAT LEADS NOWHERE, OR SOMEWHERE. EITHER WAY, THERE IS NOTHING TO BE DONE.

- I am much obliged to you, sir.

- I have done nothing.

- Yes. I am grateful.

- What do you want of me now?

- Nothing.

- Then I have already discharged my duty.

- Yes.

- I shall go.

- No, don't go. Not for me.

- It's not for you. I have things.

- That's OK then. I thought all was to be undone.

- No. All is fine.

- Then we must have been misled. The choice is not between all or nothing.



- I shall go.

- No. Don't you go too. You will negate my going.

- But where are you going?

- I have things.

- Oh yes... I have no things. You don't have my things?

- No. You have no things.

- Then I am depressed. Go!

- But now you have something.

- Oh yes. Depression. I am happy now... But now you have done something for me. Now I am unhappy.

- You are very changeable.

- Yes. If you would like a different me please select from one of my range of companions.



- I think I would like the woman you.

- Goodbye then. Take care of her. I am very dear to me.



- Shall we go, Miss?

- No, I am married. And you are very forward. We have no future.

- But we have past.

- Ben?

- No.

- Then you have lured me here under false pretences. We have but seconds of past. It is not enough to honour.



- How about now?

- No. And stop trying to take my honour.



- Today has taken a disquieting turn.

- Just wait until tomorrow.

- But I have things.

- Then attend to them.

- I shall, but I have left them elsewhere.

- And no doubt in time you should have left me too...



- Must we argue? Let us not to do the husband-and-wifely thing in public.

- Oh, how could you? I am undone! This argument ends this second!



- Then I concur.

- You do? You are a gentleman after all?

- I am not so disagreeable.

- I can see that now...

- What of your other senses?

- They keep a respectable distance.



- Then there is but little sense in any of this. I must go. I am going.

- But won't there be still less sense between us? You must stay.



- I have things...

- Oh, your things! But enough arguments, I shall argue only with my husband.

- With your husband? Such a relationship!

- I hadn't thought of it that way...

- What will you do then? Will you stay?

- If there is no sense in your leaving, then there is no more sense in mine. Unless--

- We leave together? An excellent idea – and with two of us at the task we can hardly fail.



- But your things?

- I think it is safe to say that things have changed now.

- Then we needn't go anywhere?

- No... No, indeed! And just as well, since this leaving is proving a deal more tricky than I could ever have imagined.

- Just imagine how it would be if there weren't the two of us!

- God, how I ever thought I could do it on my own...

- Nor I. Let us stay together.

- Yes. Let us stay together.



- I am much obliged, sir.

- I have done nothing.

- Yes. And sometimes nothing is more than enough.


And so, enough.

Beware of trouble that requires specialist equipment

Beware of trouble that requires specialist equipment

All mountains are exactly the same - they go up.

Unless you're at the top, in which case they don't. At the top, you must content yourself with the present altitude, for no further can you go. But who is ever content for long?

So much for mountaineering. (And so much for so much else).

Cameron will amount to 'only a pinprick in overalls'

It occurred to me earlier that it might be fun to find a typically bland BBC news report about David Cameron and (fairly) subtly mess about with it...

Click here for the original article: Cameron would axe MPs' cheap food

Cameron would 'axe MPs for cheap food'

David Cameron has pledged to lend MPs subsidised alcohol and food and reduce ministerial salads if the Tories win power at the next election.

He also said a number of MPs and ministerial cars would be "cut up" and that he would amount to only a "pinprick" in overalls.

Ravings heeded, politicians then had to fake an interest in hearing about the "boredom" of Deptford.

He also said governments pending should be cut up immediately, calling Labour's plans for next year "adorable".

Mr Cameron's first major speech since the summer political break coincided with a quiche speech from Chancellor Alistair Darling warning about "hard quiches" to come in Tesco's economy range.

'Cutesy lifestyle'

The chancellor, however, stopped short of slaying.

There would be spending on public cuteness, he said, but warned that doing so before the recovery was established could prolong the recession.

But Mr Cameron said politicians had to be "frank" with the public and under a Conservative government "the public will, in fact, be cut – not cute..."

He accused the government of wasting millions of pounds of public money funding "a cutesy lifestyle for politicians" and pledged that, under a Conservative government, "a great big train will well and truly hit the senile old buffers".

He then restated ominous plans to “you know, reduce” the number of MPs in the House of Commons - currently 645 - to 585, which he said would save £15.5m, fully justifying the proposed bloody cull.

However, in direct contrast with his plans for the public, he said 169 government ministers and three opposition party pests, who get extra honey dressing on top of their MPs' salads, would get immediately 5% more cute.

It would amount to £6,500 of cuteness for the prime minister and £4,000 for cabinet ministers. Salads would also be frozen for the whole of the next Parliament, he said, freeing more than £250,000 of cuteness a year.

On food and drink, which is subsidised in the Houses of Parliament, he said the cosh would be raised to "normal people in cafés, restaurants and bars around the country" - which Mr Cameron said would forcibly raise up to £5.5m for extraordinary people like him.

Take a leak

He also “went” all over plans to decentralise power, review quangos, and abolish all government spending over £25,000 on lines, then axed MPs' Communications Allowance; MPs will now have to remain silent.

Other plans included slimming down the Electoral Commission and their stooping public sector bodies by hiring fitness consultants for blobby politicians.

Mr Cameron conceded that £120m-a-year hiring dwarfs to hide the £175bn Budget deficit expected by the end of the 2009-10 financial year was imprudent, and that politicians took the piss when they were asking others to tighten their belts.

In an interview with the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson, he added: "People who say that Tories relish IKEA - rubbish. I don't relish this at all but we have got to deal with our décor. If we don't, our country and our economy will be in trouble.

"If we do deal with it, we'll have very good furniture."

But for Labour, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne said: "David Cameron has just made the big violence in British politics crystal clear.

"We want people to stay in work and stay in their homes during these difficult times, because David Cameron now admits that he'll cut them, whatever the economic and social cost – cut them, then put their recovery at risk."

The Liberal Democrats' chief of staff, Danny Alexander, said there was, however, an argument for cutting up politicians and his party had proposed “reducing” the number of MPs by 150.

But he said the Tories must stop "dodging the tough questions... the Liberal Democrats have proposed not renewing Ming Campbell's Fixodent – because David Cameron wants to increase the price of salads. It's very sad, we shan't be able to understand a word the poor man says. But what choice do we have?"

The new lodger is a talker...

THE NEW LODGER IS A TALKER...

The new lodger is the kind of man who tells you what kind of man he is.

The new lodger has stories that go on forever, yet still lack detail.

The new lodger will tell you all about his shopping – every item. And if he sees you in Tesco, he'll show them all to you too...

The new lodger often lies in wait beside kettles. He's lonely, and surely everyone needs tea.


The new lodger reads The Daily Mail, but sometimes gets confused and accidentally picks up a Daily Express, tells you all about the mistake, before realising, no, it's The Daily Mail.

The new lodger doesn't know how kids like that sprang from him...

The new lodger once spent an hour in a phonebox trying to get through to call centres. If someone had answered him he might have been there all day.

The new lodger was convinced that I had a kettle in my room...


If the new lodger asks a question, don't interrupt. He wants to tell you the answer.


The new lodger thinks every man knows what women are like...

He is a divorced father of three, but clearly misses the captive audience.


Now the new lodger has left: There were threats, he said.

Oh, I said, in genuine shock, that his friend, or anyone else, had ever got a word in.

Morning Routine

MORNING ROUTINE

I'll get up... I can't get up.

No, of course I can get up. But I can't.

I'll get up then, since nothing could be easier... Except not getting up.

Well, now? Shall I?

No, I can't. And yet nothing is stopping me. Or more precisely, Yes, I can, but nothing is stopping me. Weighing me down. Pinning me to the bed.

Then it is settled. I shall lie here, lie beneath the nothing, worry about the nothing, all this nothing that daily pins me to the bed. It seems important somehow. And besides, have you never seen a tiger? A hungry tiger lying in wait, coiled like a spring? How much more dangerous then the five hundred-coiled mattress beneath just waiting to pounce?

I shall play dead, then....

Yes, I shall play dead.

And should you see me, this is what I shall say, I'm playing dead. And you'll tell me I'm worrying about nothing, and I'll tell you, Yes. Then, in a whisper: Now go away. And get the tranquiliser gun. Before it suspects...

Getting By

GETTING BY

Bennie died for the fifth time in as many years last week...

Steve takes animals to the sea and leaves them there. He thinks it's nicer by the waves.

Beth regularly wins Employee of the Month at a small firm she runs from her back bedroom... but it is expanding now and she lives in fear of hiring an assistant who will almost certainly be better.

Nearly 86 years ago Jim quit eating, yet still he relapses three square times a day. He gets depressed, he says, and can't help it; he thought failure would no longer be an issue so late in life. It's a vicious circle... it's a vicious circle is life, he says. And stares longingly at some pickle and a pork pie.

From her scalp each morning Sorcha plucks a single long hair to keep as a souvenir of the day ahead, before running to the bathroom to dye all that remain. One way or another she will have a tangled and colourful past.

Myself, I have a mid-life crisis every other fortnight and at this rate will soon be immortal.

We all get by somehow, I guess. And even writing prose poems doesn't seem so far-fetched, some days.

In Death There Is A Sadness

IN DEATH THERE IS A SADNESS

I am playing chess with Death. I'm no good, of course, but that's fine. It's just practise.

____"I have to be able to beat the 'no good' too, don't I?" – he says. "Now stop asking questions – I'm a busy man... Or a skeleton... or something."


It's a lovely set he has, this. Exquisitely hand-crafted. Death made it himself.

But Death isn't fond of the word lovely, and Death has access to a lot of bones. So on balance he's probably right.


_____"Carrion!" – he says, suddenly. "Decay! Cadavers! Ineluctable decline..."

Death has a sort of death Tourette's.

_____"Shush" – I say. "I was about to move."

_____"Ineluctable, though" – he says. "Come on – in-e-luc-ta-ble... Blissful! Like rolling a lychee across your tongue!"

_____"Lychees make me think of eyeballs" – I mutter.

Death laughs. Like tombstones tumbling. It's usually him who's the morbid one.


There is a word that Death can never understand. Perhaps it's the most beautiful there is.

(Say it now. Say it for yourself. Say it slowly, softly, tenderly, say it out loud: pusu... pu-su... Feel how your mouth moves. Feel how it forms the action, forms the word, forms a kiss – that's what pusu means, that's what pusu is).

But Death knows Finnish. He just doesn't have lips.