Strivers and Skivers: 2
SKIVERS
GOD: As Paul Lafargue noted, Jehovah gave the world the ultimate example of slack: he worked for six days and then rested for all eternity.
THE KAKAPO: When confronted by a predator, this fat parrot employs the unusual defence technique of sitting still and waiting.
SOMINEX: Over-the counter sleeping pills, available in the States. Let you sleep anywhere, any time.
FATHER CHRISTMAS: Surely he has the ultimate slacker’s job - one night’s frenetic work a year, bringing joy to children from all over the world, followed by 364 days to recover. Apparently he also has a huge army of helpers.
MONDAYING: The latest verb to enter the idler dictionary. Usage: as in, “What are you doing?” “Oh, I’m just Mondaying around.” Meaning: to turn your hand at a number of tasks in a desulatory and disengaged manner; to perform a task while haunted by the knowledge that this task is symptomatic of the paltry state of your existence - use with particular reference to office work.
MALE LIONS: Spend more than three quarters of the day sleeping - waking only to eat the food the females have brought them, shake their beautiful mains and find a new place to sleep. And they’re still the kings of the jungle. An example to us all.
BEING STOOD UP: Arrive five minutes late, discover your date hasn’t showed up, decide to have a coffee. Have a fag. Catch the eye of other restless drinkers, each of whom is waiting for their own personal Godot. Exchange “eyebrow” humour with them as regards the lack of the opposite sex’s punctuality. Drink more coffee. Three-quarters of an hour later, it’s over. You go to the toilet and let your self esteem go in a long caffeinated piss.
STRIVERS
THE DEVIL: Lucifer overreached himself and was cast into a fiery pit. Guilty of ambition. Does, however, get all the best lines.
MUST HAVE AND MUST SEE: The idler tells you straight from the hip - there’s nothing you “must have” and “must see”. Anyone who tells you otherwise, or tries to work this sorry little bundle of projected media inclusiveness and ultimative consumer desirabilty, is quite simply an agent of The Devil.
THE GLASS OF WATER: This disease began on Have I Got News For You and Question Time wherby anyone who said anything deemed by the audience to be funny smugly sipped from a glass of water as applause rained on them. The glass of water means, “Fuck me, aren’t I funnier and cleverer than you”. Frighteningly however, the disease has spread to over-zealous Countdown contestants and B-list celebrities like the Messiah of mediocrity himself Bobby Davro, on through the Keyhole. (pause…sip from glass of water)
NOISE POLLUTION OFFICERS: Ah… the arch hypocrites. More than delighted to break up your party at 11pm on the dot; “We’ve had complaints from neighbours [next door is a retirement home for deaf swingers] and passing traffic [you live in a cul-de-sac].” They all catch fast cabs home to 200 watt sound systems in their bedrooms, wherupon they “drop it heavy” till 6am in the interests of research.”
THE CELSTIAL CHURCH OF ANNOYING BASTARDS, FINCHLEY ROAD: A bunch of effluent evangelists who accost you when most vulnerable (ie popping down the newsagents for fags) and though you politely decline their offer of a cheap pamphlet they accuse you of being; “Lonely so lonely!!!” before crowding round and offering you out for Jesus.
BACK PAIN: Does it never go away?
THE BOTTOM OF THESE COLUMNS: No matter what we do, they still will not line up neatly.
SKIVERS
GOD: As Paul Lafargue noted, Jehovah gave the world the ultimate example of slack: he worked for six days and then rested for all eternity.
THE KAKAPO: When confronted by a predator, this fat parrot employs the unusual defence technique of sitting still and waiting.
SOMINEX: Over-the counter sleeping pills, available in the States. Let you sleep anywhere, any time.
FATHER CHRISTMAS: Surely he has the ultimate slacker’s job - one night’s frenetic work a year, bringing joy to children from all over the world, followed by 364 days to recover. Apparently he also has a huge army of helpers.
MONDAYING: The latest verb to enter the idler dictionary. Usage: as in, “What are you doing?” “Oh, I’m just Mondaying around.” Meaning: to turn your hand at a number of tasks in a desulatory and disengaged manner; to perform a task while haunted by the knowledge that this task is symptomatic of the paltry state of your existence - use with particular reference to office work.
MALE LIONS: Spend more than three quarters of the day sleeping - waking only to eat the food the females have brought them, shake their beautiful mains and find a new place to sleep. And they’re still the kings of the jungle. An example to us all.
BEING STOOD UP: Arrive five minutes late, discover your date hasn’t showed up, decide to have a coffee. Have a fag. Catch the eye of other restless drinkers, each of whom is waiting for their own personal Godot. Exchange “eyebrow” humour with them as regards the lack of the opposite sex’s punctuality. Drink more coffee. Three-quarters of an hour later, it’s over. You go to the toilet and let your self esteem go in a long caffeinated piss.
STRIVERS
THE DEVIL: Lucifer overreached himself and was cast into a fiery pit. Guilty of ambition. Does, however, get all the best lines.
MUST HAVE AND MUST SEE: The idler tells you straight from the hip - there’s nothing you “must have” and “must see”. Anyone who tells you otherwise, or tries to work this sorry little bundle of projected media inclusiveness and ultimative consumer desirabilty, is quite simply an agent of The Devil.
THE GLASS OF WATER: This disease began on Have I Got News For You and Question Time wherby anyone who said anything deemed by the audience to be funny smugly sipped from a glass of water as applause rained on them. The glass of water means, “Fuck me, aren’t I funnier and cleverer than you”. Frighteningly however, the disease has spread to over-zealous Countdown contestants and B-list celebrities like the Messiah of mediocrity himself Bobby Davro, on through the Keyhole. (pause…sip from glass of water)
NOISE POLLUTION OFFICERS: Ah… the arch hypocrites. More than delighted to break up your party at 11pm on the dot; “We’ve had complaints from neighbours [next door is a retirement home for deaf swingers] and passing traffic [you live in a cul-de-sac].” They all catch fast cabs home to 200 watt sound systems in their bedrooms, wherupon they “drop it heavy” till 6am in the interests of research.”
THE CELSTIAL CHURCH OF ANNOYING BASTARDS, FINCHLEY ROAD: A bunch of effluent evangelists who accost you when most vulnerable (ie popping down the newsagents for fags) and though you politely decline their offer of a cheap pamphlet they accuse you of being; “Lonely so lonely!!!” before crowding round and offering you out for Jesus.
BACK PAIN: Does it never go away?
THE BOTTOM OF THESE COLUMNS: No matter what we do, they still will not line up neatly.
"The answer to how to live is to stop thinking about it. And just to live. But you're doing that anyway. However you intellectualise it, you still just live."