Some Comments on Commuting

“Let the train take the strain”, runs a slogan the origins of which are probably shrouded in plumes of steam from the locomotives of yesteryear.

“Let the train take the piss” would be its updated and altogether more accurate modern equivalent. Metaphorically speaking, of course,  though in some cases literally – and here we speak of the delightful arrangements provided on certain trains for the relief and alleged comfort of their human cargo.

Whosoever would devise a train timetable must possess Machiavellian levels of cunning, with a touch of insanity thrown in just to add further interest to the proceedings, topped off with an utterly questionable grasp on the concepts of time and space. Thus, a train that is very obviously five minutes late appears to be “on time”. A train that grinds to a halt and ejects its passsengers due to a “fault on board” springs into life the minute the last commuter steps onto the platform and merrily sails onward, presumably to its destination – which but mere minutes ago seemed likely to be the scrapyard.

The design of train carriages themselves is also attributable to the mind of a complete lunatic. For who but a lunatic would imagine that the warmest welcome for any rail user would be the smell of shit wafting delicately from the toilets, usually situated right by the doors? Or that people actually enjoy being forced to face a fellow traveller for the duration of their journey, and for the knees of both parties to become intimately acquainted?

Let us now enumerate the several types of commuter one may expect to encounter when travelling by rail.

1) The Bag

The Bag isn’t actually a commuter, but you might easily mistake it for one – for lo, it has its own seat, and therefore must be a paying customer. The Bag, in truth, is probably the least irritating feature of rail travel, as it doesn’t elbow you in the ribs whilst reading the paper or attempt to engage you in conversation about the corn it has just had removed from its big toe. That being said, The Bag is an impostor. It sits, smug, taking up a seat that would be put to better use cradling your weary buttocks. Attempts to move The Bag are usually met with outrage from its owner. You are perfectly within your rights to hurl The Bag out of the open doors of the carriage at the very next station – and its owner, too, just for good measure.

2) The MUA

MUA is usually an acronym for makeup artist, but in this context it is also an acronym for Massively Uneducated Asshole. The MUA likes nothing better than to spend the entire commute gazing narcissistically at themselves in a hand-held mirror – which as a strategy for avoiding fellow passengers, is probably quite effective. With one hand the MUA holds the mirror; the other hand roots endlessly in a bottomless bag of cosmetic products. As the MUA completes their beauty routine on the train, you hope for a sudden jolt of the carriage to smear their lipstick halfway across their face.

3) The Backpacker

The backpacker, unlike the owner of The Bag, does not wrongfully take up a seat with their burden. However, this doesn’t make them any less of a total waste of time, space, and oxygen. The backpacker will stand amidst the aisle, forming an impenetrable roadblock to anyone wishing to actually get off – and like something from It’s A Knockout or Total Wipeout, will deal blows left and right to anyone who attempts to pass. Deal with this odious f*ckwit the same way you would deal with The Bag.

4) The Caller

Occasionally commuters receive calls when on the train; this cannot be helped. However, what can be helped is the person who, once aboard, will proceed to ring every single person in their contacts list. And why? So that they can announce, repeatedly and at absurd volume, “I’M ON THE TRAIN”.

“Hi, yeah yeah…I’M JUST ON THE TRAIN…yeah…well…hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Oh, yeah sorry, I’m on the train, yeah, just – sorry? Yeah, just got on the train…”

5) The DJ

The DJ steps into the carriage with his Beats by Dre surgically attached to his skull, his body lightly bouncing up and down to the cretinous rhythms that assault the ears of everyone around. The DJ is passionate about music, but unfortunately the music he is passionate about is utter shit and sounds like a bunch of tin cans being kicked down a rubbish chute.

With all the above in mind, the train is still an altogether more pleasant experience than the bus, but this is like comparing an enema to root canal work. Highly unpleasant both, but one only gets on your nerves, whilst the other is a pain in the arse.

 

 

The Photograph

Since time immemorial, man has looked to capture the transient, living world through the medium of art. Be it the first cave paintings, the masterpieces of the Great Painters, or a pair of buttocks cunningly fashioned from Play-Doh, nature has been tamed by the mastery of brush and hand.

The development of the photograph – initially marred by the appearance of a big, blurry pink thumb – captured life in a way never before seen, and yet seen every day; not here could be found the flourishes and overblown touches of painting and Play-Doh, but life as it is, in all its imperfections and its beauty.

Here we now recount some of the ways in which the photograph has grasped the very essence of life.

The Thumb
The faint image of the view from Niépce’s window at Le Gras is the earliest known surviving photograph, it is said. This is not so. An even earlier image exists of a vague thumb obscuring what appears to be a small Frenchman with onions strung about his neck. Whether the thumb was indicating approval of this unusual sartorial choice, or purely a matter of accident and cack-handedness, is unclear.

The Blink
It is an established adage amongst practitioners of the photographic arts that the camera adds 10 pounds. The camera also adds other unwanted and distressing attributes, such as the Mouth Half Open, the Awkward Pose, and the The Blink. Falling victim to any one of these misfortunes ensures that you are captured for posterity as a drivelling cretin with all the social grace and poise of a half-chewed potato. The Blink is exacerbated by the sort of sadist who will point a camera in your direction and then fail to take the photograph until several aeons have passed and your eyeballs have dried up from the effort of keeping the lids open. At this point the unwilling subject stands an immobile statue, mentally willing the photographer either to hurry up and take the photo, or to burst into flames, depending on the severity of the situation.

The Rabbit Ears
A favourite amongst those whose sense of humour has quite possibly been half-baked in an oven, left to go cold and bendy, and then partially reheated in a microwave, the Rabbit Ears involves placing two fingers behind the head of a fellow subject to give the impression that they appear to have the ears of a small rodent – or, more accurately, that they appear to be some freak of nature with two fingers growing out of the top of their skull.

Taken in all, the aforementioned essence of life which we have claimed the photograph seizes shows that, at bottom, humanity is a collection of bizarre specimens probably unworthy of record. Stick to nature photography.

Secrets of the Elderly

Your doughty author ventured this afternoon on a walk along the promenade.

The promenade is a Victorian invention designed largely for all that is hideous and malformed about the human race to parade itself in full uncompromising view (it also serves as a handy repository for dog poo, so do take care as you gawp at the collection of freaks on display not to find yourself stepping in a Douglas Hurd). However, the main function of the promenade is to act as a sort of powerful attractor of the elderly. The elderly are drawn to sea-side environs like teenage girls round Edward Cullen. It is here, on the promenade, that it suddenly struck your author that in the affinity between promenades and the elderly lies a secret.

Have you ever noticed the sheer number of commemorative benches along promenades? There they sit, unassuming, bearing such legends as ‘In Memory of Albert Bickerstaff (1932-2009)’. Ostensibly commemorating a loved one in this way implies that, in their memory, other members of the public can take a well-earned sit down and admire the view that Mr Albert Bickerstaff used to come and admire along with his tartan-print thermos of tea and tin-foil-wrapped egg sandwiches. Ah, look at that sun setting over the coast, and can’t you almost smell those eggs (that, in fact, may just be sewage leaking into the sea, but use your imagination, for old Mr Bickerstaff’s sake). But no. For you see, the elderly have a dark secret. Once they have been on the promenade for an entire day – taking up at least two spaces with their Austin Metro – they metamorphose into benches. No shit. There’s enough of that on the promenade already (come to the promenade, for benches and shit. Sit and shit, if you will).

Yes, the elderly spend so much time upon the promenade, and such is their attraction towards it, that they metamorphose into benches. After some time, they will evolve a commemorative plaque marking their former identity. At the promenade you must take the utmost care not to stand in any one spot for too long, lest you should also turn into a wooden public seat – such is the powerful resonance of the spell at work.

The ramifications of this discovery go beyond the promenade. Now we see how pointless are those signs that, on public transport, exhort us, as tired or rain-sodden or hungover as we may be, to give up our seats to the elderly. The elderly need only summon the power to transform themselves at will into a bench, or arm-chair, or wicker-work patio furniture, and rather than demanding a seat they would provide still more accommodation. Selfish bastards.

And so, go about your day taking up seats on public transport with impunity.  Of course, if you see pregnant or physically impaired individual, do give up your seat immediately. But other than that, spread yourself across as many seats as possible. It is your civic duty.

The New Rickrolling

THE ONLINE PUBLIC is being warned against a new, devastating, and potentially life-destroying Internet phenomenon that hacks into video content and links it to material of an unexpected and unsavoury nature. Much like Rickrolling, the unwitting viewer is forced to see atrocities the likes of which decades of therapy won’t undo.

This phenomenon is Bieberbombing.

Across the Internet, videos that appear to contain footage of cats flushing toilets, phallic vegetables, Gears of War 3, and feats including hand-farting the Imperial March from Star Wars are being redirected to the image of the bay-window-toothed gender freak Justin Bieber, or to the aural torture that is Bieber’s rapping in the key of ‘chipmunk having a poo’.

“It was well out of order”, reported London cab-driver Arthur Shoehorn (54). “I was settled down for an evening with the missis when we thought we’d have a gander at last night’s Big Brother, ‘cos we’d only seen it last night. I click on the link thing, and there’s this Justin Bieber, lovely girl I’m sure, but the missis has been struck mutt and Jeff ever since, an’ I can’t see to tie me shoelaces straight of a morning.”

“I was deeply, deeply traumatised”, said college lecturer Kirsty (not her real name). “I had intended to look up footage of Sir Laurence Olivier in Richard III when…when….this thing appeared on the screen…I screamed…I just screamed and screamed until my tonsils fell out and my teeth shattered…sadly I couldn’t afford new teeth on the NHS so I used Scrabble tiles instead”, Kirsty added, smiling and displaying ‘braciola’ for a score of 12.

Other internet users reported similar ill effects. One man from Southport turned entirely into stone, much to the chagrin of his family. His last words were “sounds like a chipmunk having a poo”, adding to the embarrassing nature of his demise.

Bieberbombing claims another victim

In response to this crisis the government is launching a campaign entitled ‘Click with Caution’, partly to advise the public on safety and mostly because alliterative titles for campaigns mean the government doesn’t actually have to do anything besides sit back and look smugly at the pleasing repetition of consonants they have wrought. The campaign advises that if you must click on a video link, take the necessary precautions: encase yourself in a radiation suit within a block of concrete 20 metres in depth, and 500 miles beneath the ocean. Of course, you’ll probably die anyway, and when you reach the Pearly Gates, Bieber will be there.

If you have been affected by any of the issues discussed in this report, please feel free to ring the helpline on 000-000-0001. Or shoot yourself.

Tron: Legacy

Once again, readers of the Rustbucket blog can skip over to the AR to read a review of Tron: Legacy, a film which I have not seen, mostly because it hasn’t been released. Is it December yet?

Every Day The Same Dream: A Review

Today’s post is a review of the short indie game Every Day The Same Dream, and can be found on this blog’s sister site, The Agoraphobic Reviewer.

Whilst you are there, peruse some of the AR’s fine offerings.

Pariah Rustbucket’s Guide to Teenspeak: 1

The intrepid and pioneering spirit that brought you Pariah Rustbucket’s Guide to Modern Art now offers you, at considerable arm’s-length, this Guide to Teenspeak.

We will first of all examine the basic principles of the language, before moving on to some simple but useful phrases that will enable you to converse with confidence and ease in a number of everyday locations and situations, including In the Post-Office, Down the Pub, and At the PC in the Library Whilst Talking Loudly on Your Mobile Phone.

Since much of today’s communication is conducted through such channels as e-mail, instant messaging and text, this guide is not limited to verbal exchanges. In fact, to use Teenspeak like a native, it’s best to avoid any form of verbal communication wherever possible, even if you’re in the same room as your intended audience.

1. High Rising Intonation

High Rising Intonation, or HRI, is the essence of Teenspeak. You must master this skill before moving on to other sections of this Guide. The effect of HRI is such that every statement sounds like a question, with the voice rising on the last syllable. It is important to confine this to the last syllable. The rest of the statement must be relatively flat in tone, and only at the very end of the utterance must it suddenly take off like a demented seagull. Note that appending ‘Yeah?’ to the end of your sentence is acceptable, but it is not HRI per se. No matter which word your sentence terminates in, it must be the aural equivalent of Roger Moore’s quizzically-raised eyebrow. The general effect is to create a sense of uncertainty, nausea and vertigo in the mind of your audience.

2. ‘Random’

Back in the days when people knew how to use a dictionary and hold a pencil, the word ‘random’ meant ‘made, done, or happening without method or conscious decision’. Now, the power of this word is incomprehensible and almost unlimited. It may be used in one of two ways:

Example A: The adjective

Teen 1: Hey, d’you wanna go to the cinema tonight or what?

Teen 2: Yeah, cool, what’s on?

Teen 1: Just some random film about how people want to save the Earth from destruction.

Note: the word ‘random’ can preface something quite specific and not lose any of its power. I mean, like, WTF??!!?? (see WTF, OMG, LOL).

Example B: The noun

A further instance of the proliferation of the word ‘random’ within Teenspeak is its promotion from an adjective to a noun. As in, ‘I went into the MacDonalds and this random just starts telling me his whole life story’. The use of the word ‘random’ in this way is intended to suggest that the speaker’s life is so full of crazy shit happenings that they can’t leave their doorstep without disturbing the very fabric of time and space.

Other useful phrases might include: ‘I like really random stuff’ and ‘OMG that’s like, totally random’.

3. WTF, OMG, LOL

Again, these are words with mystical power. Originally they were abbreviated versions of the phrases Oh My God, What The F*ck and Laugh Out Loud, but these meanings are quickly becoming lost in the mists of time. At present, only OMG can be used in verbal communication, where it must be said as slowly and emphatically as possible. For example: ‘O…..M…..G! Did you see Big Brother last night, it was, like, totally random?’ However, it is only a matter of time before the same holds true of WTF and LOL.

LOL (or lol) is also an exception, in that it can be used in a number of ways.

Example A: To indicate laughter, even when laughter has already been indicated.

‘Hahahahahaha lol!!!!!!!!’

In Example B, LOL multiplies itself in a process that we shall call bacterial hilarity.

‘Hahahaha lololol!!!!111!!1

It is not certain whether the implication is ‘laugh out loud out loud out loud’, or ‘laugh out laugh out laugh out loud’. Either way, it’s the drivellings of a moron.

OMG, WTF and LOL can be combined in any way that takes your fancy: the more, the merrier. Remember to decorate your sentences with as many question marks and exclamation marks as possible.

For example: ‘OMG WTF???!?!?!?! Lolol’.

4. Spell everything phonetically

Only losers can spell, right? And what’s the point of spelling, lol. Everiwun nos wot u meen, dont thei? Eevn if I rite leik this, an mix teh lettrs up, an evn miss out sum ov teh lettrs, u can stil reed it, an I dunno how to spel anywai hahahaha lol.

Make sure that you replace the letter ‘s’ with ‘z’ wherever possible. If the word ends in ‘ay’, replace this with ‘ai’, or even better, ‘aii’. If there are vowels in your name, double them. It looks cool and like, mysterious (misteerius). So aniwaii what I meen to saii is that the moar yuu add too ur wordz liek then the bettr it is innit?

In Part 2 of Pariah Rustbucket’s Guide to Teenspeak, we will see how to put these basic principles into action.

Pariah Rustbucket’s Christmas Cheer

Christmas is almost upon us: that time of festivities, goodwill, and a little dash of magic. Or, more realistically, arguments, over-indulgence, and a little dash of wind. But, before you start setting the kitchen on fire, going to the local 24-hour petrol station for twenty packets of Hula Hoops and Peperami as the closest substitute to the aborted Christmas Dinner, arguing over the last After Eight in the box, and if it’s acceptable to consume After Eights at quarter to five in the afternoon, having to tell wide-eyed younger members of the family that Grandpa’s chronic flatulence is ‘reindeer on the roof’, taking another family member to hospital for injuries sustained whilst attempting to crack walnuts, arguing about who did the washing-up on Christmas Day 1983, and finally sobbing into the pair of humorous musical socks you received that now lend to your distress an inappropriately jaunty yet somehow amusing musical accompaniment, read this handy survival guide to the Christmas holidays.

1. Gift Ideas

Stuck for original gift ideas? Here’s an idea: don’t buy any. Better still, keep all of the Christmas presents you received the previous year unopened and unused. When Christmas comes round again, as it tends to do on an annual basis, re-wrap all of the gifts and return them to whoever bought you the items in the first place. Trust me: it’ll be the last thing they’ll expect. The look of surprise on their faces will be priceless – and after all, isn’t that what Christmas is all about?

2. Christmas Dinner

Now, a lot of time and effort can be put into Christmas dinner. It is at the heart of the day, taking hours to prepare and minutes to consume. Why bother, when those valuable hours could otherwise be spent arguing and watching ‘Celebrity Strictly Come X-Factor Dancing Through the Keyhole in the Jungle with Derek Acorah and Big Brother’? Instead, save yourself time and energy by following the Rustbucket Christmas Menu.

Now, the  key components of any Christmas Dinner are meat, potatoes, vegetables, and a boozy pudding. So, you will need:

The aforementioned 20 packets of Hula Hoops and Peperami

An Oxo Vegetable Stock Cube

Some raisins

A match

Whisky

For the Christmas Dinner: Firstly, place the Hula Hoops on a plate, carefully arranging them in a concentric circle from the inside to the circumference. Then, smash them with your fist. Open the Peperami and discard the plastic wrapping (or, alternatively, you can use this later to make fashionable stockings for your daughter’s/niece’s/younger sister’s Bratz doll). Put the Peperami on top of the smashed Hula Hoops. Crumble the Oxo stock cube over the top. Add hot (not boiling) water. Serve.

Optional Extra: Take a swig of the whisky.

For the Dessert: For a simple but highly effective dessert, and an excellent centrepiece for the table, heap the raisins on a plate (they don’t have to be perfectly arranged; a haphazard arrangement adds to the charm of this pudding). Douse them in the whisky, then set light to them. Sure, you’ll have no eyebrows left, but it’ll add the perfect finishing touch to any meal.

3. Christmas Crackers

What Christmas would be complete without Christmas crackers? Now, these are the paper-and-cardboard things that go ‘bang!’, not the things that you eat. True, some crackers may taste a little like cardboard, but if they go ‘bang!’, you’re in trouble. It’s a universal rule that Christmas crackers must always contain the following gifts: a plastic moustache; a small plastic magnifying glass through which you can’t actually see anything at all, never mind magnified; a metal puzzle that no-one can solve, and may in fact just be a mistake that they threw in anyway; a plastic ring; basically, small and useless pieces of plastic. These are accompanied by a paper hat that YOU MUST WEAR, and a side-splitting joke along the lines of:

Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?

A. Because there were maintenance works on the pavement and being practically-minded he didn’t want to fall into them, though if he’d fallen into them he probably would have sued the local Council for negligence, even though the works were clearly signposted and he would really have had to go out of his way to manage to fall into them, but then this joke would have gone on for a bit longer than it would otherwise have done and there is only limited space on this piece of paper, and as it happened everything was okay and the Chicken went on to have a nice day and got home to wherever it is that Chickens call home and had some seed cake for tea.

4. Christmas Entertainment

You have a house full of guests, but how do you keep them all entertained, from the youngest to the oldest? The answer: bugger them. They came round to your house, you prepared the Christmas Dinner (see # 2 above), displayed unparalleled generosity in returning their own presents to them (see #1 above): they should entertain you. The best way to achieve this is to throw them all outside into the garden (if you don’t have a garden, the street will do) and watch them shiver wretchedly outside whilst you scoff the remainder of the After Eights.

Merry Christmas!

Pariah Rustbucket.

Further Complaints

To: The MD, Dupli-Kit Copying

Subject: Malfunctioning Photocopier

Dear Sir,

A few days ago, I had occasion to do some photocopying. I should point out that this was for my place of work, as I rarely approach a photocopier for leisure. There are people who will approach a photocopier for leisure, but these people are generally drunk, and imagine that Xeroxing their buttocks is Just the Thing.

Buttocks aside, I entered my passcode into the machine, loaded the original document, selected the number of copies (100, 000, 000 – it was just some light copying; nothing for the environmentalists to complain about) and awaited the appearance of my freshly-duplicated tree-fodder. All went smoothly, for about five seconds. At this point, I received an error message: ‘Clear jam in Tray 4’. Now, I admit I hadn’t had any breakfast, and the idea of jam was not unappealing. Aside from the fact that the machine had appeared to stop copying my document – and really, you can expect things to break if you’re going to put jam into them – I opened Tray 4 in anticipation of said fruity snack. You can imagine my profound disappointment on discovering that Tray 4 contained nothing but paper.

May I suggest that, in future, you do not mislead your customers in this way? Might I furthermore put forward the proposal that you send the toast-rack attachment that should clearly be a working feature of this machine?

Permit me to still further insinuate that the instructions for clearing the jam, in case of its rightful inclusion, need to be greatly simplified. Having to Open Door B, Turn Knob C, Lift Lever D, Calibrate Spring P, Lift Ratchet J, Crank Handle K, and Augment Cartridge G is the last thing anybody wants on a Monday morning. God knows Mondays are a trial enough without being faced with every letter of the damn alphabet.

Such was my frustration with the machine by this point that I threw it out of Window A, whereupon it smashed to pieces. Therefore I would be grateful if you would send a replacement as soon as possible, with the aforementioned features.

Yours,

P. Rustbucket.

To: Microsoft

Subject: Windows

Dear Sir,

I recently purchased your product online – something of a gamble, as I’ve never heard of your tinpot company before. How you have managed to stay afloat in the world of glazing with a name like that is beyond me. The last thing you want from a window is for it to be tiny and malleable, as your name would imply. In my experience, windows are large and fairly solid structures, in spite of their transparent appearance. But I digress.

It came as something of a surprise when, a few days later, I received a disc through the post. Now, my first thought was that the disc was intended to temporarily cover the gaping hole in my wall where the window should be, until such time as a qualified glazier could call with the necessary tools for the job. However, it was too small, and indeed round, whereas the hole in my wall is fairly square. It also had a hole in the centre, which afforded no protection against the elements.

Having put this and that together, ‘this’ being my brain and ‘that’ being some thoughts, which I can occasionally have, it occurred to me to place the disc into my PC. I’ve seen them do that on the television. Anyhow, I was shortly told that Windows was installing (I would also like to complain about this grammatical error: ‘windows’ is a plural, and so ‘Windows are being installed’ is the correct phrase). ‘At last’, I thought, ‘an end to draughts and having to pretend that I can see through walls’, which I admit, I can’t. Since I am well aware that windows are somewhat bizarrely made of sand, I have also tried filling the gaps with sand, but it just fell out. But, I digress again. It would seem that my reservations about your company were entirely correct, as I am still without the required glass articles.

I await your response, with details of a mutually convenient appointment to fit said windows. May I also suggest that you change your company’s name. It might help.

Yours,

P. Rustbucket.

Procrastination

The OED defines ‘procrastinate’ as follows: ‘To postpone until another day; to put off, to defer, delay’.

Bollocks to the dictionary. Procrastination is an art, and moreover, the art of deferring a task whilst apparently still engaged in its completion AND simultaneously justifying the reasons for delaying it in the first place. If you can explain why you’re looking at a website dedicated to humorously-shaped vegetables when you should be dealing with a backlog of e-mails querying the nature of the word ‘product’ in your updated version of the corporate mission statement, then you have raised procrastination to its highest form. However, for those whose levels of procrastination have not yet reached this acme, here are three key points to follow. If you’re looking at this blog, you have made the first step towards embracing the art. Well done.

i) Maintain continuity

There must be some link, however spurious, between your activity of choice and the deferred task. With a little ingenuity, anything is possible. Say, as in our previous example, you are looking at a website dedicated to humorous vegetables when you should be dealing with the backlog of queries relating to the word ‘product’. Firstly, the fact that you had several queries led to the need to clarify the exact dictionary definition of the word. (NOTE: Dictionaries are excellent tools of procrastination. If your supervisor wishes to know why you’re looking up the words ‘bum’, ‘poo’ and ‘shit’, you need only quote the poststructuralist argument that each word in the language is inextricably linked to, and gains meaning from, its surrounding context. So, it can be argued that the words ‘bum’, ‘poo’ and ‘shit’ are in some way related to the word ‘product’, and, in the case of some companies, this is probably true).

NOTE: Notes are excellent tools of procrastination.

You looked up the word ‘product’, which is defined as ‘a saleable or marketable commodity’, or ‘something produced by a natural or artificial process’. Now, this doesn’t really help matters. This is where the humorously-shaped vegetables come in. You can now argue that the humorously-shaped vegetable represents the interface (NOTE: jargon is an excellent tool of procrastination) between the natural and artifical modes of production, and that you were simply looking up illustrations for the next PowerPoint presentation. Your supervisor will praise you for your lateral thinking, leaving you to laugh yourself silly at turnips in the shape of nadgers.

ii) Use jargon

As repellent as it may seem, the kind of verbal diarrhoea favoured by HR managers, leadership training courses and corporate communications is your friend. The art of procrastination would be dead without it. Firing off an e-mail telling your supervisor that you will complete the task by 9am tomorrow morning, and that the file will be on his desk, does not fall into this category. You won’t have the task completed by 9am tomorrow morning, as you’re too busy looking at all those humorous vegetables. But, you need to give every impression that you will do so, whilst also buying time for more valuable procrastination. If you fire off an e-mail containing indecipherable phrases and buzz-words, the chances are that you will be asked to clarify its content (WARNING: there is often a fine line between procrastination and making more work for yourself, so exercise caution).  Use words like ‘configuring’,  ‘calibrating’ and ‘actualise’. Affix ‘ise’ and ‘ment’ to every other word. If you can use both, so much the better. In fact, go the whole nine yards and say ‘configurisement’. All being well, your boss will simply accept that the task is in hand without further questioning.

iii) Drink a lot of coffee

Ostensibly the fuel of the labouring classes, coffee is the beverage of choice for any procrastinator. Not only does it guarantee that you have to make repeated visits to the canteen or coffee shop on the premise that you can’t function without it, what goes in must also come out. This ensures that once you’ve factored in toilet breaks, coffee breaks and the humorous vegetables, your working day amounts to around half an hour. Congratulations.