Dawn of the Dumb (11 page)

It’s a great excuse, but sadly, you can only use it once. That’s why I’ve decided to market a page-a-day calendar with a creative late-for-work excuse for every day of the year—everything from ‘Cows were blocking the road’ to ‘Aunty put a spade through her foot’.

If you’re a publisher, get in touch. Let’s do this. We’ll make millions. And I’ll use my profits to establish Britain’s first National Excuse Hotline—a 24-hour call centre dedicated to providing the perfect excuse for any situation, round the clock. Want to explain those mysterious entries on your credit-card bill but can’t think how? Give us a call. Police on your back about the disturbed soil in your garden? You know where to come.

And if our excuses backfire, and your marriage collapses, or you wind up in jail, don’t even think about suing us. You won’t win. We’re the National Excuse Hotline, stupid. We know every excuse in the book.

The Instant Suicide Button

[11 November 2005]

H
ow much does it take to break you? To break you to the point of wishing you were dead?

Quite a lot, for most people—a couple of bitter divorces, plus a total career collapse, followed by bankruptcy and a dash of existential woe. Whereas my threshold’s far lower. Simple everyday chores do it for me. During the average washing-up experience I’ll wail about not wanting to live any more at least six times. And I genuinely mean it.

That the slightest personal drawback leaves me huffing like a toddler denied sweets is a good indication of just how cosseted my existence has become. It’s a life of luxury taken for granted.

Not that I live like a king—the same applies to everyone in the West. We spend our lives flopping on the sofa, moaning about the telly—but the sofa’s upholstered with pauper skin and the TV runs on baby blood. Our double-glazed windows block out the sound of lashes and screams from the workhouse next door, while an electrified fence surrounding our garden frazzles any potential intruders to a sizzling carbon turd—which we feed to our dog. Our tiny, pedigree dog. Our dog in a sodding tiara.

To make matters worse, every now and then, we’ll come across something in the paper that reminds us just how much injustice it’s taken to put us where we are, and we’ll get a bit angry and sad, and we’ll roll our eyes and turn to our partners and tut and say ‘Have you seen this? The world’s so unfair’ and then we’ll get distracted by a car advert on the telly that’s got that bloke who was in that thing in it. What was it again? Was it
Holby City?
Pass us a Malteser.

We’re pigs.

Perhaps if we’d all been born with a suicide button on the back of our heads—a ‘death button’ that would kill you instantly and painlessly on a single press—we’d all be a bit more grateful; more aware of our good fortune. Yes, a single press and tee hee hee—it’s dead as a cardboard box you be!

Incidentally, it’s a button with its own fingerprint detection system, so only the owner can use it—it’s not like some prankster can hide behind a hedge and prod it with a long stick as you walk by, then laugh as your corpse lands face-first in doggy-doo. It’s yours and yours alone.

Of course, few would make it past adolescence. What? I’ve got to go to school with this huge spot on my chin? Click. And that’s only the first of a long line of push-button temptations. There’s exam pressures—click—your first heartbreak—click—your mid-twenties breakdown—click—your shitty job—click—turning thirty—click—your first grey hair—click. And so on. But it’s all for the best. It thins out the populace and spreads the comfort around for everyone.

Besides, anyone voluntarily pressing their button is a fool, and the world’s got too many of them. Stroke it, by all means. Flirt with danger. Run your finger round the rim and contemplate choice. But don’t press it. Who cares how big that pile of dishes gets? You’re alive, stupid. And you’re lucky to be here. Now get on with it.

Pray for Stumpy Ralf

[18 November 2005]

W
ho’s the world’s biggest celebrity? Let’s say it’s Ralf Little. Obviously it’s not, but for the sake of argument, imagine a version of Ralf Little that had made some different career choices, and starred in a string of hit movies, and written fifteen best-selling albums, and was better-looking and taller and had a different head and face and voice and outlook and mind. Imagine that Ralf Little.

Right. So Ralf is the world’s biggest celebrity. Wherever he goes, bedazzled plebeian scum congregate to take photos of him with their phone cameras and scream themselves to death. He’s on the cover of
Heat
magazine so often they end up incorporating his face into the logo. In a survey, more people can tell you what Ralf Little got for Christmas than can tell you what ‘milk’ is. He’s insanely bloody famous.

Then some ghasdy accident occurs and Ralf loses a leg. But hey—he’s still Ralf Little! And the way he hops is so cute, people love him all the more. Then a week later, during a garden party, he inadver-tendy hops into a gigantic whirring fan and loses all his other limbs. PRAY FOR STUMPY RALF scream the tabloids. It looks like he’s finished.

But men they wheel him onstage at the Oscars—in a brightly coloured toy truck pulled by Hilary Swank—and everyone leaps up and applauds. The worldwide audience sheds a tear and Ralf’s still completely famous.

But on the way home from the ceremony, Ralf’s limo somersaults into a tanker full of concentrated acid. He’s almost completely dissolved. All that’s left is a single lip that, miraculously, is still alive. So now Ralf Little consists of nothing but a lip. Surely his career is finally over?

Not necessarily. A single lip could maintain a decent profile. He could do cameos. He could slither down a window in the next Ben Stiller movie. Or play a small pink slug that befriends Dakota Fanning. He could even star in his own action blockbuster—a new
Die Hard
. Just dangle him from a bit of fishing wire at face height, shoot his scenes as normal and fill in the rest of his body later using CGI. Easy.

Failing that, his agent could glue him onto an orange, draw some eyes over the top, ram the orange onto a pencil, and hey presto—he’s a puppet. Book him onto a hip, ironic, late-night American talkshow where all he has to do is sit there while the host smirks at him and he’d soon rekindle his following.

And then they could market him as a doll! Or even just as a lip—a single plastic lip that you stick onto an orange yourself (or an egg, or a tennis ball, or your own knee—whatever, it’s your plastic lip). Suddenly he’s the new Mr Potato Head! Phoenix from the flames!

It seems the only way his career can falter now is if someone were to deliberately and maliciously slice him in half with a Stanley knife. And unfortunately, that’s exactly what happens, on his birthday, following a backstage row with his PA. So Ralf now comprises twin chunks of cold, chapped lip. At which point the public finally desert him. And why? Because they’re fickle.

A two-minute howl of despair

[25 November 2005]

O
n the first anniversary of
⁹
/
₁₁
I accidentally stood in a pub bellowing into a mobile phone throughout the two-minute silence. Now, I’m not in the habit of shouting into my phone like a cunt, but this was a heated argument—plus it was a huge metropolitan pub, full of noise and clatter as I entered: I was SPEAKING VERY LOUDLY to be heard above the din. Suddenly everyone else fell silent, while I continued my fevered yabbering at maximum volume, scattering swearwords like rice at a wedding.

It took a while to realise what was going on, and oh oh oh, the contempt on their faces. I couldn’t have been less popular if I’d danced in dressed as Bin Laden, hopped on the bar and unveiled my scrotum (something I inadvertently did on the second anniversary, but that’s another story). It felt like a huge spotlight had swung round to single me out as the Scummiest Bag in Existence.

Furthermore, my telephonic opponent took my sudden hush as a mark of defeat, so I had to endure him crowing ‘See? Haven’t got an answer for
that
, have you?’ in my ear while I withered in the glare of a hundred sickened faces.

Still. Two minutes silence. Scarcely a week pops by without us being asked to bow our heads and remember; to mutely contemplate sacrifice, or tragedy, or the grisly misfortune of others. It makes us feel slightly better—hey, we’ve done our bit, yeah?—but it’s otherwise useless. The tragedies continue and the world becomes a sicker joke by the day—and the best you can do is stare at your shoes and shut up for a while? No wonder you feel helpless.

I mean, you switch on the news and here’s what you see: rhetoric, death and white phosphorus. You see a furious, ignoble arsehole claiming the divine right to blow himself and innocent civilians to pieces, and then you see a grinning presidential meerkat incapable of opening a door. You see bombing and lying and lying and bombing and it comes from both sides and there’s no end to it. And you think ‘What can I do?’ but there’s no answer. And the tension and nausea rises in your gut, because all you know is
something’s coming
and
you are powerless
.

In Orwell’s 1984, the citizens vented frustration in the state-sponsored Two-Minute Hate’. I’m proposing something slightly different: a citizen-led two-minute howl of despair. We set a time and date, and we pass it on—we fire a simple email at everyone we know.

‘Feeling trapped in the middle of a fight you didn’t pick? Mad as hell? Not going to take it any more? Well hip hip hooray- it’s venting time. At the allotted date/hour, stop what you’re doing, put down your tools, step into the street and join us, the sane remainders of the human race, as we howl inarticulately at the skies.’

Futile noise beats futile silence, people, so howl till your throat burns—howl yourself dizzy. Millions of us, simultaneously, howling round the world. Who knows: maybe it’ll prompt the man in the moon to float down and save us. It’s worth a shot—for crying out loud.

Things Robbie Williams hasn’t done

[9 December 2005]

R
ubbish singer Robbie Williams has won ‘substantial damages’ in a libel action against the
People
newspaper, which had alleged he was ‘pretending’ to be heterosexual, that he ‘engaged in casual and sordid homosexual encounters with strangers’, and was ‘about to deceive the public’ over his sexuality in an autobiography. Pretty strong stuff, considering it turned out not to be true.

Now I’m no Robbie Williams fan—I’d rather shatter my jaw on a concrete bollard than sit through one of his videos—but I’m worried this legal action might lead to a reduction in the number of gossipy articles written about him, thereby creating a dangerous vacuum at the centre of modern tabloid culture.

In the absence of regular double-page spreads about Williams’ latest notional high-jinks, the red-tops might start printing other things, such as step-by-step photo guides instructing their readers how to wield pitchforks, form mobs and overthrow democracy.

Civilised society? I give it three weeks.

Only two things can save us. First, David Walliams needs to plug the gap by cranking up his colourful social life yet further, to the point of having sex with hollowed-out potatoes in public. And second, rather than printing stories that claim to be true yet turn out to be false, the celebrity press should start printing stories that claim to be false and remain that way.

After all, ultimately no one cares whether any of them
actually
get up to this shit. That secretary flipping through
Heat
in her lunch break knows full well she’s not reading vital information—just something dimly glitzy that’ll take her mind off slashing her wrists and spraying blood in the faces of her co-workers for 10 seconds. That’s all she wants. They can print what they want—even a row of numbers will do, so long as it’s broken up now and then with the names of a few celebrities.

With this in mind, I’d like to dedicate the rest of this week’s column to a list of things Robbie Williams would absolutely, positively
never
say or do. Read it in your lunch break. OK? Let’s go:

Robbie Williams would never shoot a man just to watch him die. Robbie Williams would never wrap a mouse’s head in blotting paper and crush it with his heel. Robbie Williams would never threaten to gore a sales assistant to death with his antlers.

Robbie Williams would never jump on to Philip Schofield’s back and demand to be flown to the nearest star-gate. Robbie Williams would never suddenly turn into a two-dimensional diagram of himself printed on the inside of a ball bearing which continually rolls out of your field of vision the second you realise it’s there.

Robbie Williams would never deliberately break a dairymaid’s heart with a sarcastic puppet show. Robbie Williams would never attack a hill with his feet, hands and forehead. Robbie Williams would never change his name to Baron Plop-Plop and fly across Devon in an undersized Sopwith Camel with a hole in the bottom so he could stick his bum out and poo on people trying to enjoy picnics below. Robbie Williams would never seal himself inside an immense iron drum for fifteen years with only a bee and a puddle for company.

Robbie Williams would never drink chalk, steer clouds, bite France or breathe deckchairs. And nor would Tom Cruise.

God: massive bastard

[16 December 2005]

I
f you’re looking for proof that God doesn’t exist, don’t bother investigating the big stuff, like earthquakes or famines or the tsunami. Start small. Right now I’ve got a sore throat and as far as I’m concerned that’s evidence enough.

The constant awareness is the worst part. Usually I walk around blissfully ignorant of my throat. I never think ‘Ooh, aren’t I lucky to have a throat?’ or anything like that. But right now I’m obsessed with it. It’s like the early days of a love affair, when the other person is all you can think about, except here the ‘other person’ is played by my own throat, and there’s no sex involved because that would be impossible and probably just make it even more sore.