The Idler

Living Memento

It’s all very well celebrating being idle if you’re Louis Theroux or some other member of the Groucho mafia and get paid healthy sums for idling with the great, good and kitsch.

For those of us who have yet to escape the provinces life is necessarily idle and it is hell. I would happily avoid paid work if there was anything else to do. Instead, work and social life merge into a lethargic fog.

I spent three months in a timber-yard office outside Chorley where my biggest challenge was seeing how long I could get away with playing minesweeper or sleeping on the desk before I was given some more photocopying. This is not idleness as lifestyle choice. It is like living inside Memento. I have no memory of the past year and occasionally find myself stuffing paper into envelopes and wondering how I got there.

My only sources of amusement are refusing to make anyone else a cup of coffee and the warm glow that can be gained by sending queries on the short journey from in-tray to bin.

Paul Turner
pturnerj@hotmail.com