Small Rotating Device

"So this is the Small Rotating Device, on the window ledge, is it? Remarkable. I have seen many Small Rotating Devices in my life. After all, I am - as you well know - the Professor of Small Rotating Devices at Evesham University. But, never, never, in all my long - and dare I say it, distinguished - career have I ever seen such a fascinating Small Rotating Device. You must be so proud. I would love to have it for my collection of Small Rotating Devices. However, judging from the expression on your face whatever amount of money I offer would only be an insult."

"Not necessarily."

"Oh?"

"Yes."

"Okay, then. I'll give you 5p for this wonderful Small Rotating Device."

"Done!"

"Thank you. Of course, it is far more than I would normally pay for a Small Rotating Device, but for a piece such as this… well, the sky is the limit."

"Would you like a bag to put it in?"

"Yes, please."

"There you are."

"Thank you. One more thing?"

"Yes?"

"I don't suppose there is any chance of a shag, is there?"

"Perhaps…."

"Oh, please?"

"Oh, go on then."

"Thank you."

"Oh, I see. So, do you want it here, now, then?"

"Er… well. As you see…."

"Ah. In that case, I'll fetch my trowel."

"Excellent. But… please…."

"What?"

"Please, hurry or I may have to release the badger."

Passed and Gone

There could have been a time. There could have been a moment. There could have been a story that grew from such a moment. We stood close together as though we were conspiring to create something between us, as though we were planning how our lives could grow from that moment.

It was possible then for us to take the moment and pull from it a story that would take us on from that moment together. We had the chance to turn our backs on our lonely lives and set off together looking for something new, something built, created and grown between us. Both of us could turn and see, off towards the horizon of that moment, a chance for a new world, ready to be created, as we stepped together away from the ashes of our old lives.

We knew that the moment was waiting for us, we knew it would only take one look, where your eyes raised to meet mine, and it would only take a shared smile for the moment to be sealed and set in motion with a kiss.

You, though, you looked down, away, and mumbled something, looking back towards where your old life lay like some comfortable coat you could shrug on against this cold wind of uncertainty that made you shiver as your eyes searched for a route back to that life.

I knew then that our moment had passed and gone.

All We Hope, Desire and Creosote

Sometimes it is as though the very hippopotamuses of all we hope, desire and – sometimes – creosote are left languishing in the in-tray, while we busy ourselves with applying sellotape to the exposed rudest parts of a clerical assistant in the nearby shrubbery.

At least, that is usually what happens here on normal workday lunchtimes. I’m sure your workplace, no doubt operates a similar sort of lunch time and tea break policy, although, I would not be too surprised with economic circumstances the way they are if the hippopotamus is sometimes omitted, especially with the price of creosote these days.

Anyway, it is often the case that someone in the workplace is designated to make sure that any outstanding un-creosoted hippopotami are placed in the creosoting rota, ready for such times as the necessity for a fully-creosoted hippopotamus in the workplace becomes overwhelming.

However, with some workplaces moving their operations to the so-called ‘cloud’, it may become necessary for some workplaces, especially those involved in the insurance business, having to create some sort of virtual hippopotamus. Or, at least, some method of virtually creosoting the workplace hippopotami as necessary. That is unless they want to lose even more business to places like China, India and Brazil who already have the office space ready for a ratio of up to seven fully-creosoted hippopotami for every ten workers. A ratio that businesses in this country can – these days – only dream of due to the excess of workplace rules and regulations that so often stifle innovation and change.

Therefore, if they need to complete a complete rethink of their creosoting operations and their employee-hippopotamus ratios will need a complete bottom up and top-down re-think*.

 

*This should – quite obviously – be undertaken a safe distance away from any languishing workplace hippopotami for the obvious health and safety reasons.

Monday Poem: Forgotten Dreams

Forgotten Dreams

These beautiful things, delicate and small
Are made for turning to catch the light and eye
These are like dreams, and dropped so easily
On the still warm pillow as you awake,
Then left forgotten as the morning’s sun
Fades them away into forgetfulness
As you walk off to meet your bright new day
You hoping it will become a new lover,
Or be another memorable day
To stack up against those thin times when time
Itself seems to turn against you and haunt
You with its taunts of what it might have been.

Those Days of Naked Table Tennis

Oh, those were the days and we were young then, playing nude table tennis until the dawn’s early light crawled its way over the distant hills, as you whacked my ping-pong balls back and forth with the dimpled paddle of your love across nets that caught and held all we could desire. Nor will I ever forget those forfeits when I lost, I will never be able to look as blackcurrant jam in the same way in the future, or be able to lick a protractor in mixed company ever again without remembering that campsite games room of yesteryear.

Now, though, you are long gone, lost in the mists of those long rainy Welsh summers of our young love, the nets of our table tennis-related dalliances long since packed up and put away in those cobwebbed boxes. My ping-pong balls, too, themselves now dented and dusty no longer bounce with the youthful vigour they once did, instead lying lost under the sideboard of what could so easily have been had we but world enough and time.

You, my young love, with your seemingly limitless supply of blackcurrant jam - especially considering the size of that tiny two-person tent – and your deep and abiding interest in the erotic possibilities of geometry, where have you gone now that we are no longer young. Do you still walk those Welsh hillsides and cliff tops remembering those days of naked table tennis too?

Working Times Directives and the Undead

Ah, but remember your precious tin of blessed golden syrup may not necessarily protect you against all the devils, demons, estate agents, lawyers and other unholy manifestations of evil that the masses ranks of the ungodly may hurl at you, at least until it is time for a tea-break anyway.

Even the minions of evil (including the undead, zombies and other allied trades of the ex-living) are to be, it seems, covered by the latest European Union Working Time Directives. so that even the hordes of the undead, or the evil-working minions of the devil* himself are entitled to fixed breaks during their working day (or night – whichever is applicable) as well as weekends (or other mutually-agreed days off) as well as statutory holidays (including bank holidays - and for those manifestations of the unholy - religious holy days).

As for such things, ornaments and devices used to ward off evil, the undead and so on, including religious symbols, and the tin of holy blessed golden syrup mentioned above, these may constitute workplace hazards for these various creatures. Therefore, such objects may be banned from the workplace, especially if they are used to prevent these creatures of evil performing their allotted tasks as set out in their workplace contracts. Obviously, this means that, for example, anyone attempting to annihilate zombies and other such hordes of the undead while in the place of work of such entities such as a graveyard, or during the normal working hours of the ungodly, could face legal action, up to and including imprisonment for violating the rights of any such hordes of devilry.

 

*N.B. Please note that this particular devil may not be applicable to all religions and/or all subsets of any particular religion. Please see the small print at the rear of your holy book of choice to see whether your particular religion supports manifestations and/or embodiments of evil.

Placing A Swiss Roll On The Exposed Flanks Of A Chiropodist

You may well have applied the butter to the underside of your mandolin in accordance with the latest EU directives, but have you ever stopped to consider what becomes of the broken-elbowed?

However, I can see by the way that you have re-aligned your avocados, that this is something you have not - up until this moment - considered.

Now, you may feel you are fully conversant with the most economically way to apply exotic unguents to a professional mathematician whilst placing a Swiss roll on the exposed flanks of a chiropodist, but that will not be much help for you at times like these, and very little help at all in times totally unlike these.

So, then I can see you are agog to learn just why I feel this is a matter of such import that it cannot wait until you have finished disrobing your mathematically-inclined paramour in readiness for your adventures with the calculator and protractor later on this evening, as far as the TV schedules allow, that is.

But, I would humbly suggest that you put the graph paper back in the drawer for the time being. For, as – as I tried to point out before you eased yourself into your leather fetish mathematician’s outfit – the protractors are both well past their lubricate-by dates by a matter of months, and should – therefore – be set free in the nearest shopping mall forthwith. Therefore – it also follows that - the chiropodist should henceforth be no longer be professionally compromised by being made adjacent to any form of cake until well after the Whitsun bank holiday period as set forth in the EU directives alluded to above.