Thunks

Welcome to day 97 of the Coronavirus lockdown. As you can see, in the UK, we are approaching the 100th day, but there is some light at the end of the tunnel. 

From next Saturday, July 4th, the pubs and restaurants are reopening as well as cinemas, hairdressers and a few other things. Also, the “advice” is that we should socially distance by at least one metre, rather than the current two metres. 

The only doubt I have is that, once again, this advice is suitably vague – Boris the Clown doesn’t do precision, which is no surprise if you have ever heard the wittering fool bumble through a speech. 

Anyway, I have no intention of going to the pub yet – or staying closer than two metres from other people (not including Mrs PM of course). Nevertheless, I shall wander around next Saturday to see what is happening. My guess is that we shall see people flocking to the pub and chaos reigning. 

We shall see.

So on a rainy June day, let’s answer some very silly questions (and today they really are sillier than usual) from Sunday Stealing. 

1. If you could be a Muppet, which would you be?

There is no other choice. There is only one muppet out there that I want to be. In the world of Muppets he is my hero, the Muppet that inspired me – the greatest Muppet that has ever had a hand shoved up his arse.

I am talking of course about Animal.

Here he is in his full glory.

2. Why is a chicken crossing the road in the first place??

The chicken is presumably trying to avoid a fox, or a mad white haired man from Kentucky wearing a white suit who is pursuing it with a bag of spices and a deep fat fryer.

3. What's your favourite muscle?

The arse muscle because women seem to like it.

4. Cheerios or Rice Krispies?

When I was in America once, I was staying with a family, one of whom was waiting for me to say “Cheerio”, so that he could crack a joke by replying “No thanks! I prefer Rice Krispies!” 

Oh how I would have guffawed. The sad thing is that the only people who say “Cheerio!” in England are weird aristocrats who use also use words like “terribly”, “gosh”, “old chap” and “toodle-pip”. 

I say none of those words. 

Where were we? Oh yes – Cheerios or Rice Krispies. Well, I don’t usually eat cereals, if I’m honest. I’ve had both and I have to say I don’t like either. 

So my answer is “none of the above”.

5. Is summer ever going to get here?

I think it has arrived already. May was a beautiful month with almost all days being warm and sunny. June is not quite as good with a few thunderstorms and a few days of rain (like today) but it is still warm here and Wednesday and Thursday of last were gloriously hot at 30°C and 32°C respectively – just about the right temperature and the hottest it ever really gets in Manchester.

6. Have you ever had a utility turned off by mistake or some other reason besides weather or nonpayment?

Not that I can recall.

7. What was your "last day" of something?

Tuesday of last week was my last day of work – sadly until Thursday of this coming week when I return. I am supposed to be in Spain at the moment but am stuck here in Manchester instead, because my company is asking us to take our holidays during the lockdown even though we are incarcerated in our own homes. 

8. If you had to be trapped in a TV show for a month, which one would you choose?

I think that it would have to be a science fiction show of some kind, preferably involving time travel. I will go for Dr Who.

9. Did you have any type of class trip, band trip, etc in high school? Where did you go, what did you do?

Yes, too many to remember. There were a lot of day trips to local points of interest, plus a couple of field trips to the school’s Welsh centre in Snowdonia. The latter ones involved being away for a week in this remote centre that could accommodate 24 pupils and two teachers, and usually involved studying local features for geography as well fun and games. 

10. Do your feet smell?

Neither of my feet contain nostrils. So the answer is no.

11. Do you know how to french braid?

I had to look it up. What do you think?

12. Two guys are walking down the street. One drops his hat and reaches down to pick it up, the other kicks him in the ass. Do you laugh?

Yes – of course I do. It’s probably because two guys are paying homage to old school comedians like Laurel and Hardy.

13. You wake up one morning and dogs are meowing and cats are barking - what are fish, elephants and crocodiles doing?

Well since this is a normal day and I haven’t been transported to the planet Tharg, I would imagine that the fish are swimming around looking stupid, the elephants are making an horrendous noise with their trunks and the crocodiles are floating in the water, their eyes peering just above the surface waiting for a stupid person to walk into the water to try to find out what noise they make.

The truth is though, if I saw an elephant or a crocodile when I woke up, I would probably call the police rather than being preoccupied with what they were doing.

14. You are going to your high school reunion. What award are you going to win?

I wouldn’t want to win an award but if I did it would probably the most travelled. And the coolest of course.

15. You find yourself stranded on a deserted island. Soon you find a laptop with a lifelong battery & internet connection, then you find a cave with an endless supply of food and a spring of fresh water. A cruise ship comes along to save you - do you get on it?

Yes – and I take the laptop with me.

16. How many shortcuts do you have on your desktop?

13 – that’s unlucky for some. I’ll have to add another one.

17. I offer you a pie... the most delicious pie you have ever seen. You either have to eat the entire thing in one sitting or allow me to slam it into your face, which do you choose?

I would eat it, of course. 

18. Are you a pen stealer?

I suffer from stationary kleptomania. I walk to people’s desks and walk away with heir stationary. I do not know why. At work, I have a draw full of stolen pens, which I hand out to anybody who needs them. I guess that I am sharing the fruits of my thievery – a kind of Robin Hood figure who steals from those who have too many pens and gives the proceeds to those poor unfortunate wretches who can’t find a pen in the stationary cupboard because a thief like me has stolen them all.

19. A dude from China comes up and offers you German chocolate cake, French fries and a Boston cream pie... what colour is your car?

I remember a question on a philosophy exam that said “There is a planet exactly like Earth but only contains unicorns. Discuss”. I thought that was the craziest question I had read but deep down there are pseudo-intellectuals who might try to make something of it to appear intelligent. 

I shall try to devolve into a pseudo-intellectual to try to answer this particularly stupid question with the craziest pseudo-intellectual answer I can come up with. Regular readers know that I am not keen on Pseudo-intellectuals. Take a deep breath …

Dong Zhongshu attempted to integrate the Yin Yang cosmology into a Confucian ethical framework and this selfless act of benevolent moral harmony clearly affected the “dude” from China. But I had to ask myself in all seriousness; “What is a Chinese dude”? This is a philosophical dilemma as the innate truth of being a “dude” is an American paradigm created by an English maverick whose thoughts drifted away from the European characteristic and more towards the customary new world convention. Consequently, we can understand the quandary the Chinese person had to grapple with and his temptation to completely abandon his Chinese heritage whilst still being ethical, forcing him to choose the Boston cream pie. Yet still he felt the struggle wasn’t over because he had to follow the origins of the English maverick in order to satisfy the deep-seated uncertainty of the impasse. The source had to be European but could not be English. How he resolved this proved arduous but then he recalled the odours of the Black Forest. The only option was a German chocolate cake, inherently European yet not traditionally English. But how could he combine the two frames of reference? What could be European and American yet not English? The French Fry completed the puzzle. The English refer to them as chips, a crude fat monstrosity that although it is made of the same ingredient bears no resemblance to the shape and texture favoured by Europeans and Americans. The circle was now complete, the French Fries bringing everything together whilst still acknowledging the origins of the English maverick. I looked upon the offering from the Chinese man; I recognised the gesture for what it was, the yin the yang, the ethics and the harmony. My reaction was to embrace this paradigm and build upon it to maintain the morality of his gift. I looked at the Chinese dude and went back to basics – to his origins. It was the only thing I could do. I saw his flag in my mind’s eye. I looked at him with a benevolent smile and spoke the words that lifted his heart; “My car is bright red – just like the colour of the flag of your motherland.” He wept and so did I.

I’m sorry about that but the bloody question was ridiculous. By the way, my car is silver.

20. Sometimes you just have to tap your foot to your favourite song - which tv series season finale are you watching?

Another crazy question. But the last season finale I watched was “Gangs of London”.

Pseudo-Intellectual Business

I’ve just discovered a link between two things I love to rant about. Actually I’m kicking myself for not spotting it before. The more I think about it, the more obvious it is.

The link I have made is this: People who use Business Bullshit are in fact a breed of pseudo-intellectual.

Regular readers will know that I love to bait pseudo-intellectuals and expose them for what they are – bullshit merchants who know several big words and like to quote philosophy in order to make themselves  appear better than everybody else. The truth is, of course, that they blind people with their vocabulary because ultimately they don’t actually say anything that makes any sense.

My favourite pseudo-intellectuals are people who stand in front of vomit stains in contemporary art museums and try to impress upon anybody who is willing to lend an ear that the piece of shit in front of them is something more than the shallow mess it actually is.

Another breed is the hipster who dresses like a nerd just to be different and “writes random poetry to express himself”, poetry that is truly awful and meaningless, I hasten to add.

It’s no real leap of logic to discover that a new breed of pseudo-intellectual lives in the upper echelons of high management and bombards his staff with weird business argon that nobody understands, and that his peers pretend to understand.

I am disappointed with myself because this type of pseudo-intellectual has been with me my entire working life. I have found myself in meetings with people from various companies, all trying to impress upon everybody else how important and intelligent they are,  while speaking utter jibberish to bamboozle us all.

In their eyes, their peers are thinking “Wow! This guy really knows what he is talking about. We must do business with him.”

The truth is rather sad. People actually think “What in the name of all that is Holy is this ballbag talking about? It makes no bloody sense.”

Such verbal diarrhoea is responsible for many a rant from yours truly but, more importantly, inspired Scott Adams, then a disgruntled employee, to create the now massively famous Dilbert cartoon series.

At this point, I have to add that some of my work colleagues have said in the past that I bear a striking resemblance to Dilbert – judge for yourself.

Dilbert

Plastic Mancunian

I have never met Scott Adams so their theory is nonsense.

Anyway, here are a couple of typical Dilbert cartoons that illustrate the point.

The idea of setting up a buzzword bingo card has appealed to me for years but the problem is that business bullshit is an evolving beast with new terms popping out of the bull with alarming frequency.  This means that lowly employees like me would have to keep on top of these new terms and this is a full time job that I don’t have time to pursue.

Here are a few new ones:

“I want to jump on your radar!”

“Thought leaders”

“Idea sherpa”

“Punch a puppy”

“Thought shower”

These are terms that make me want to cringe with embarrassment.

Many years ago, there was a comedy show called Drop the Dead Donkey in the UK that had a character called Gus Hedges who basically used bullshit to communicate with his staff. Some of the terms he used were laughable – and now over 20 years later, the terms he used actually sound more believable.

Here are some of his best lines:

“We've got to downsize our sloppiness overload, Joy. Am I making myself clear?”

“There is just something I'd like to pop into your percolator, see if it comes out brown.”

“I'm setting you free. Free to roam the high seas of enterprise as the buccaneers of our broadcasting future.”

“I'm in major cellular rejuvenation mode, fast-tracking my way to eternal biological viability.”

“I think we have a slight togetherness shortfall here.”

“You see, when it comes to sexual interfacing with the female gender group, I've always been caution-orientated due to ongoing problems of an adaptive nature regarding the gooiness factor on the physical front.”

“Jill, could you come for a brief scuba in my think tank?”

“We're merely running our bulletins through the cappuccino machine of innovation, see if it comes out frothy.”

“Just a thought I wanted to pop into your fishbowl to see if it blows bubbles.”

“Problems are just the pregnant mothers of solutions.”

The good thing about Gus Hedges is that he is totally fictional. Sadly, there thousands upon  thousands of pseudo-intellectual managers who seem to have adopted him as a role model. Some pseudo–intellectuals like to quote philosophers; other like to quote Gus Hedges.

To conclude, I found a business bullshit generator that may act as inspiration for any pseudo-intellectuals desperate to climb the corporate ladder with no talent other than their use of meaningless vocabulary.

Here’s a couple I generated:

Synergistically streamline enterprise-wide collaboration and idea-sharing

Compellingly envisioneer standardized "outside the box" thinking

Uniquely reinvent sticky vortals

Have a go yourself – follow this link.

The Hipster

I quite like eccentric people, particularly those who are genuinely intelligent and slightly odd. You know the kind of person I mean; somebody who is so intelligent that they don’t have time for things like fashion, style, mainstream hobbies and conventional culture.

My kind of genius

Sadly, there is a particular breed of pseudo-intellectual that tries to emulate these eccentric geniuses by being odd just for the sake of it. These people are known as hipsters. I’m sure you have heard of them.

During my life, I have encountered many flawed geniuses who simply don’t have the time or patience to worry about their dress sense, hairstyles and don’t feel the need to become a normal social animal, choosing instead to immerse themselves completely in the subjects that fascinate them.  

For example, a university professor with wild uncontrolled hair whose fashion sense was born (and remains) in the 1960’s or the computer nerd who spends every waking hour on his computer devising amazing software for fun and, when he’s not fully engrossed in that will plunge into hours of science fiction and become an absolute expert on everything relating to Doctor Who, Star Trek and Lord of the Rings.

I like these people.

My kind of genius

Over the years, people like this have started to get more respect and others are seeing the light, choosing to embrace them rather than mock them.

Hipsters are latching onto this and trying to portray themselves as – well – weird – but in a cool, fashionable and trendy way. I know for a fact that they are pseudo-intellectuals because, unlike flawed geniuses, the only things that come out of their mouths is a blend of philosophy and bullshit.

Hipsters go one step further – they purposely go out to make themselves stand out as eccentric. They actually fail miserably though because the genius will not spend a fortune on his weird attire and has no desire whatsoever to attract people to them because of their unconventional dress sense.

A hipster is the kind of person who will go to a pub and be positively thrilled that his fish and chips is served in a bucket or his full English breakfast comes on a shovel.

Hipster Breakfast

Hipster coffee

Hipsters look down on people like me who like conventional things like sport and rock music, although they will be interested in my travel exploits, particularly to the more exotic places I’ve had the good fortune to visit.

You see, the hipster tries to portray himself as a cool, open-minded intellectual who is fascinated by everything and anything, as long as it is avant-garde.

A hipster will dress in, frankly, weird clothes – the weirder the better.  

His musical taste is bizarre. Your typical hipster will buy a record full of Peruvian pop songs (even though he doesn’t understand Spanish). Note – it has to be a record that he can play on his 1970’s record player because a CD is too modern and mainstream.

The hipster will also like to portray himself as an intelligent creative genius who will try his hand at absolutely anything from writing bizarre poetry to playing weird instruments. He is the kind of person who will buy a penny farthing and voluntarily go to underground theatres to watch strange meaningless plays. His house will be full of bric-a-brac that he “found on his travels” but in reality cost a small fortune from Camden Market. He will also not understand anything he owns, says or creates, but will boast about it all using philosophical evidence to back his long descriptive words, which will make no sense to truly intelligent people, impressing only those who are trying to be hipsters themselves - pseudo-hipsters if you like.

The hipster will want to travel where his heart takes him, choosing to visit strange countries with nothing but four hipster T-shirts, a pair of sandals and a pair of garish crazy shorts. He will acquire strange tattoos that he claims came from local people who rarely see tourists because, of course, a hipster simply cannot go to a place where conventional people go! Oh no! That wouldn’t be cool.

Travel Hipster

You see, hipsters are a paradox. They like to portray themselves as outsiders and social pariahs but the only reason they do so is to be cool and popular socially. They love to bore you with tales of their exploits.

Here are some things you may hear a hipster say.

“You’ve never heard of Emilio Lugazi’s authentic Chilean classical jazz masterpiece “Soy la evolución del mono y la máquina”? It is exquisite!”

“Oh this tattoo? It means “I am eternal light!” in Thai. It is the work of a 92 year old elder in a remote village near to Chiang Mai. She did it for nothing because she liked a poem I wrote for her.”

“I’ll have the Messy Combo Vegetarian Burger with Melon Fries and Mustard Mayonnaise please. No, it’s fine if it comes on a roof slate. It’s more authentic that way.”

“Here’s a novel I wrote last week. It’s about a woman on a journey of self-discovery in the caves of Izca. I wrote it on a typewriter in Cossack’s Coffee shop. It’s called “The Imagination Cube”. I don’t want to sell it; I needed to write it for my own self-discovery.”

Finally, if you still don’t recognise a hipster – here are a few photos I have found on the web.

Finally, if you want to annoy a hipster, all you have to do is imply that they are now mainstream. For example, if you ever see a hipster typing poems on a 1960's typewriter in Starbucks while drinking his latte out of an avocado skin, just say, within his earshot:

"Wow! Writing your own poetry in Starbucks. That's so mainstream. There's a guy in an independent coffee shop on the High Street, who's just parked his penny farthing outside and is tattooing his arse with original poetry while singing traditional Uruguayan opera. And what a beard he has - five feet long, and dyed in the colours of the Brazilian flag. What a cool guy!"

He will freak out, I promise you.