Five Minutes a Day: One (Ritual)

I have entered into a contract with myself: for the next month, I will attempt to write for five minutes a day, each and every day. Here goes.

Day One: Ritual



Instructions:

Remove sleeve.

Pierce film.

Heat at full power for three minutes.

Stir.

Return to microwave and cook for a further three minutes.

Leave to stand for one minute.

Check your phone. No texts.

Serve.

Carry through to the lounge

balancing your drink in the crook of your arm.

Eat alone.

Well, not truly alone.

With the flickering glow of the television for company.

Question whether that actor is whatsisface,

oh, you know the one.

He’s on that other show,

the one with those two other men.

You know.

They drive around in cars.

Check your phone.

Perhaps there was a hold-up at the office?

Continue watching television.

Question whether your attention to the box is entirely voluntary.

Is it me, or are the presenters getting younger and younger?

Check your phone.

Watch, no, feel the hours grinding by.

It’s tangible.

At 11pm, after three episodes of ‘Come Dine With Me’, decide to go to bed.

Stripped of its comforting entrails, the meal’s container now looks rather small and forlorn.

Leave the empty plastic husk where it lies.

You’ll clean it up tomorrow.

Jimmy Carr (Graphic)

Practising digital colouring...

A (seasonal) letter to the bank

Dear Sir,

I am writing to request an extension to my company’s loan.

As a family-owned business with a global distribution network, I hope that an explanation of the unfortunate set of circumstances necessitating this request shall elicit a sympathetic response. The root of the problem is twofold; with the London Riots of August, the actions of the journalists of News International, and the conduct of Jeremy Clarkson, this December I am expected to deliver coal to a record number of clients. Additionally, the price of coal has increased from USD$30 in 2000 to over USD$150 in 2011.

I feel it is important that you are aware that my company has already taken significant cost-cutting measures. My workshops are manned by a largely foreign, non-unionised workforce; they are given no pensions, no sick leave, no tea-breaks, no uniform, and no respite. If the temperature weren’t minus fifty degrees, one might refer to it as a sweat shop.

Despite having clients in over one hundred and ninety countries, we charter no airplanes and ship no containerised freight. Instead, we have been reduced to delivering our goods from the back of a single sleigh, pulled by eight reindeer. There were originally nine, but at this time of the year Comet is engaged in a price war with Currys and Dixons.

I have already asked my friends and family for contributions. I dispatched more than sixty missives, and after receiving a large number of disheartening responses, saying that my intended recipient was fictional, and could I please stop writing to this address, I got a rather promising response from the Tooth Fairy. She explained that she was in the possession of significant sums of money, but a dental sacrifice would be requisite to access the funds. I saw what needed to be done, and I didn’t hesitate. I promptly assembled the elves, explained the predicament, and ordered them to craft me a set of pliers. I asked Mrs Claus if I could borrow some of her methadone. Several hours later, the grisly exchange had been made. For my trouble, we were given the princely sum of £32.

There must have been a clerical error! I may not be a qualified dentist, but Mrs. Claus and I once had the bathroom redecorated, and I suspect that the amount of enamel must surely fetch a higher price. The methadone was starting to wear off, and I was incandescent with rage. I rang the Tooth Fairy up immediately.
“Ooo oo oo-oo ooo!” I exclaimed.
“I can’t understand you, pet.” she replied, and hung up.

I had reached a nadir. My mouth was in agony, and my solicitor, Sue Indiscriminately, informed me that it was inadvisable to claim for an ‘accident at work’ since I was self-employed. “The elation of winning a large financial settlement,” she said, “might be tempered by the fact that you would have to pay it to yourself”.

Opening the paper, I read about Bell Pottinger and the conduct of exam board officials. We were going to need yet more coal!

Due to my dental deficiency, I began to conduct business via email. It seemed pointless to continue answering the phone, when my only option was to regale the caller with an inappropriate, albeit now rather accurate, clanger impression.

I was on the cusp of giving up the business completely when I discovered, sitting in my inbox, an email headed “Request for Urgent Business Relationship.” I had received an email from a Nigerian Prince! What luck! Not only did he “trust my ability and reliability to conduct a transaction of great magnitude”, but he thought I would be an idea “overseas partner into whose account funds would be transferred”. This would be the answer to my financial woes. With the twenty-one million pounds he was offering me, I could afford to buy coal for every participant in the London Riots, every crooked exam board official and still have enough left to furnish the Murdochs! Curiosly, despite sending Mr. Okon the five thousand pounds needed to cover the transfer charges, the money still hasn’t arrived in my account....

And so I turn to you, and the financial institution you represent, to request financial aid.
I strongly advise you to approve my application for credit, lest you wake up this Christmas to a piece of coal.
Possibly.


Yours sincerely,

Mr. S. Claus

Halloween Costumes

This Halloween, I’ve been told that my costume ‘has to be scary’. Seeing that I can’t remember the last time that the thought of a pallid, raven-haired man going for my jugular kept me awake at night, I’ve written a shortlist of genuinely scary costumes...

Early-onset Alzheimer’s
The threat of eviction
Coming across as pretentious
Losing your glasses and mistaking paint thinner for white wine
The concept that the release of the Truman show was actually an elaborate double-bluff, all your friends and colleagues are actors, and your life is being televised for the amusement of others.
Dying alone.

When life gives you lemons.

When life gives you lemons, feign gratitude and be sure to compose a hand-written note of thanks upon receipt; life is very particular about these sorts of things. It might be a good idea to subtly hint to life that citrus fruit, although rich in Vitamin C and a welcome addition to any chef’s arsenal, are not considered a conventional gift.

Explain to life that, nowadays, gifts are often given in the form of vouchers. Many people, unsure of the exact interests of the present’s recipient, choose to delegate the precise choice of present to the beneficiary ; while ‘A popular history of British Seaweeds’, ‘Managing a Dental Practice: The Genghis Khan Way’ or ‘Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoonboxes of Daghestan’ (all genuine titles) may find a loving home on some bookshelves, a book token or Amazon voucher would probably be a safer bet. If you’re going down the voucher route, why not follow it to its logical conclusion and just give money – an everything voucher.

When life inevitably objects, protesting that lemons have inestimable value in preventing scurvy, you should clarify that, while lemons historically helped to abate the spread of the deficiency disease, modern medicine and global food distribution mean that vitamin C deficiency very rarely reaches the chronic levels necessary for the symptoms of scurvy to be exhibited. In any case, a lack of available citrus fruit is often not the root cause of the ailment; sufferers tend to be elderly or alcoholic, subsisting on a diet devoid of fresh fruit and vegetables not because of restricted access but because of culinary ineptitude.

When life exclaims ‘but that’s not fair!’ you can retort, “well, life, you aren’t.”

Lists to complete

Fictional Book Titles
The rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall of lava lamps.

Advertising slogans
'Go to work on a unicycle' (The Unicycle Marketing Board)

Dull double-acts
Sooty and Teller

Do the UK's newspapers report exam results with gender bias?