A Kettle Made Entirely Of Caramac

Regular readers of my Twitter, of whom there are very nearly one hundred, i.e. 99, will already have seen the above picture, which I posted yesterday. But my confusion continues to grow. I hope that by articulating my confusion I will be able to put the matter to rest and can resume thinking about gnats, ginger beer and unlikely soup.

I’ll state it, in bald terms, and then let’s see where we go. It’s a temping agency which has been forced to close its doors because of a staff shortage.

I’ll write that again: a temping agency which has been forced to close its doors because of a staff shortage.

No, it’s still not working. Maybe if I show the picture again?

No, it’s no better. A company whose very purpose is to find people to fill temporary vacancies is forced to close because it has a temporary vacancy. Can you imagine the sense of failure there when this cropped up? A dirty great cloud of ennui. It’d be like the whole of the remaining staff were forced to wear parkas in the warm weather, but parkas made of gloom.

“Seriously, Brian,” one of them would no doubt ask, “What are we here for? Really, what are we here for? We’re like firefighters standing outside the fire station as it burns to the ground. Smug bastard fetishists unsatisfied in Piers Morgan’s house. Chavs, Brian, chavs, with the price of a sausage roll in their pocket, starving to death in the middle of Greggs. We are, in short, utter failures.”

“We are, to be fair,” Brian the manager would say. “Ah, well, I’d better go and print off a sign to stick on the door. I shall use Comic Sans to underline our hopelessness.”

I’m still confused. In a way I’m just as much a failure as them, but in all the other ways I’m not.

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Agony

Dear Aunty Graham,
I’m a hairy-eyebrowed frizzy-headed virgin from Blackburn (the Scottish one, not the one in Lancashire). The local boys throw eggs at my house and call me mean names like “Hairy-eyebrowed frizzy-headed virgin” and “Poo-face.” How can I stop myself being a figure of fun?
Yours,
SB

Dear SB,
Hmm, tricky. You do actually sound a bit of a fright, to be honest. I imagine you’re probably also socially awkward and a bit gauche. Virgins with, shall we say, unconventional looks often are.
Do you have any talents?
Yours,
Aunty Graham

Dear Aunty Graham,
I can peel an orange in my pocket and eat a Mars Bar in two bites. Is that the sort of thing you’re looking for? And I like to sing. In fact, I have the voice of an angel. But a spud-faced angel with weird hair.
Yours,
SB

Dear SB,
Ah, now that we can work with (not the orange or Mars Bar things). What you need to do is get yourself on Britain’s Got Talent. Turn up at the auditions, look rubbish, really rubbish, so the judges will be sneery, even big-hearted Amanda Holden. Then sing quite well. That’s what’ll get you through. Essentially, your selling point is “talented freak” – like a unicycling dog. If it goes a bit too well and they start to take you too seriously, go mad at the end. Thrust your crotch about a bit. If necessary, flirt with Piers Morgan.
Yours,
Aunty Graham

Dear Aunty Graham,
I am NOT flirting with that arsehole. I’m a virgin, not a moron with a dickhead fetish.
Yours,
SB

Dear SB,
Just hold your nose and do it. Let me know how you get on.
Yours,
Aunty Graham.

She never wrote back. I blame myself. I think I’d better get out of the agony aunt game.

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Busy

Goodness, I’ve been busy. Do you know how busy I’ve been? I’ll tell you, I’ve been busier than the following COMBINED!!!!

• A sniffer dog at Creamfields;
• The man who picks up all the coins from the stage after a Jimmy Carr gig;
• The bloke who stands in front of Osama Bin Laden holding his coat and umbrella wide open to obscure him from American spy satellites when Osama’s got the runs;
• The chap who Piers Morgan employs to tell him he’s a cock every time he acts like a cock;
• A peanut collector at an all-you-can-eat peanut buffet.

So, as you can see, I’ve been quite busy. So busy that I’ve been completely unable to direct you to this website, which collects passive-aggressive notes like the one in my previous post. Thankfully, that’s all over now.

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