WHITES ONLY

Most days, collecting the post is a dismal event. There is the usual avalanche of shit from the Inland Revenue, a flyer or ten from Graham the local Tory candidate, and reminders from the DVLA/bank. Quite frankly, the postman may as well vomit through the letterbox. But this morning was different. This morning, the hallway was filled with a transcendent white light. I shielded my eyes. I approached with caution, like Moses in front of the Burning Bush. There it was ... On MY mat ... In MY house ... The White Company catalogue.

Just to clarify, I have never bought anything from The White Company as I am not in the habit of paying £55 for a White T-shirt, or sleeping on crisp White 600-thread-count percale sheets. All I can think is that some kind, philanthropic soul from The White Company - intent on disseminating Happiness - hacked into NHS confidential records, traced the details of all those who have ever suffered from depression, and thought, “I know what would make these sad people feel better! The White Company catalogue!” 

I made myself a mug of coffee. I flicked through the pages. I saw pictures of beautiful blonde women (exclusively White!!!), dressed head-to-toe in White, moving effortlessly from White sofa to White beach. But then, I remembered a couple of other things about White. So I listed them. 

1. White is not flattering. Unless you are a size zero, wearing White will make you look like a humongous maggot. 
2. Unless you also have a sun-kissed complexion acquired whilst a) quaffing Pimms besides a freshwater infinity pool on the Seychelles, or b) power-boating around Richard Branson’s Necker Isle, wearing White will not cut it. If, like me, your skin has the ghastly washed-out appearance of a prole, a White linen tunic will make look neither gorgeous nor Grecian; instead, you will lose all definition and appear as though you have a) no edges, b) no nipples, and c) no genitals.   
3. White gets filthy. This is obvious to most of us, except for Chrissie, the founder of White Company, who claims that White is an easy and practical colour. (Initially you feel sorry for Chrissie. She might be a big posh freak NOW, but on the White Company’s website, she tells the poignant story of her early struggle to overcome injustice, social exclusion, and worst of all, mediocrity. “It all began in 1993 … At the time, the few white items I could find and afford were somehow all such cheap designs and of average or poor quality ... and all the gorgeous, high quality ones I loved were only to be found in the designer departments...” How could anyone go through such a dehumanising experience day-in day-out and come out the other end unscathed, you ask yourself? Huh? Huh? And if there’s a God, how could he allow such things?  “Chrisse”, you wanna say, “Are you sure you’re allright now daaarling?”) Of course, later, when you’ve had a chance to read the catalogue, your attitude will harden, and you’ll find yourself thinking, “Take me off your fucking database, you fetishistic horse-faced maniac.”
4. Wearing White means that you need to invest in a new bra and new knickers.     
5. Gwyneth Paltrow wears White.  

PS: You will notice that, throughout this list, I have capitalised White. This is not because I don’t understand the difference between nouns and proper names. I do. This is because The White Company capitalises the word White, presumably as an acknowledgment of the fact that White is less a colour, more a religion, a philosophy, a Way of Life... 

Fascist twats.  

TECHNICAL MELTDOWN

Or. When Machines Turn Against You

I can’t be bothered to introduce this lot. They are all vile.

Printers – somewhere in California, there’s a place called The Museum Of Shit That Never Works. A whole wing of the museum is dedicated to printers and houses a model of every single printer ever made. This is because all printers are bastards. All they do is sit there, blocking out sunlight because they’re so farkin outsized, and whining on and on in a totally uptight way about being jammed, or out of paper, or out of ink, or toner, and then flashing their green asshole of a light at you. But the absolute worst thing about printers is when they pretend to be working. At least when they’re not working you can just paper tray them in the face and move on. But when they fuck about with your emotions, when they peddle Hope, when they start churning out paper, and your hand is outstretched pitifully, only then do you realise how treacherous they truly are. Because even before your touch the rim of the ‘printed’ page, in your guts you know it will be blank. You know, too, with even more certainty, that the second page will be concertinaed into a fan, that the third page will comprise three lines of satanic runes masquerading as HTML, and that the fourth, fifth, and sixth pages will be something you wrote when you were fifteen, on an Amstrad computer that no longer even exists. In desperation, you will phone your other half for technical advice, you will sob a little out of sheer frustration, and then, within a few seconds, you won’t be able to help yourself, you big, pathetic cow, you will be weeping into the receiver and blubbering about wanting to do something else with your life, anything but THIS, and he will finish with you because, quite frankly, it’s the last straw. And then you will lose your job because you failed to deliver the papers. And all because of the printer. The cunt. 

Catchas – What could be easier than typing out two little words on a spotty grey and white background in order to prove you’re not a robot? Huh? Huh? Huh? Well, let me tell you. Smashing the atom. That’s what. Or, sequencing the entire human genome. Or, unravelling the mysteries of the universe. Or, understanding the mind of God. Or, harnessing the sun’s power to meet the energy requirements of humanity for the rest of eternity. Or, getting Little Miss Gwyneth Paltrow’s perfect offspring to drink a mug of motherfucking Cup-A-Soup. That’s what. The other day, after about a billion attempts at typing the words - and having to suck out the insides of a whole Cadbury’s crème egg between each attempt just to stay calm and focused - I tried the audio version. Except, of course, nobody told me that the audio version is a download from Hell. This is what I got: “Oh please, mother, make it stop, it’s hurting. I’m gonna die up here. No. Keep away!” Well, something like that except it was backwards, and double-speed. *urinates on the carpet, traumatised *

Passwords – Passwords are okay if you’re allowed to choose anything. But some sites dictate that you must choose a password that contains exactly 8.5 characters of enigmatic but highly personalised letters, numbers, exclamation marks, hieroglyphics, animal drawings, juvenilia, and rare punctuation marks not used since Chaucerian times, all of which must be memorable, and case sensitive. Not only this, but if you forget your password - or if you forgot to keep a record of it in Excel, or whatever, you geriatric left-brained imbecile - you will only be resent a password to your email inbox if you complete a catcha test to prove you’re not a robot.  Mwahahaha … mwahahaha… mwahahahahahaha…  

Welcome to the dark side of Progress. 

PS: OK. Those are some lines from the Exorcist and weren’t in the catcha audio version. But I still maintain that there was a strong demonic influence. Either that or I was high on crème egg.  

PPS: I managed to get myself nominated for The Mads Awards thingies. If you feel like nominating me,   I'll let you suck out one of my eggs. I've got loads left, and they're in pretty good nick. Apparently. Ta.