Saturday 23 February 2013


#6 Flipping burgers

Ok let's think of the best way of explaining this. The reason burgers need flipping, even though part of them is done, is so that they can get fully cooked all over. Pancakes are the same. Ideally you flip them before they start to burn. If they're already burned then you really need to flip them. Have you ever tried to flip something and ended up losing it? If you don't move your arm enough, the burger hardly moves. If you move it too much, you'll either lose the burger or flip it right back round onto the burnt side. If you never flipped it at all, what would happen? The burger would still cook on the top side eventually when the heat reached it and maybe you could eat it if you really wanted to but the under side would be completely charred. You need to turn the burger, so you grab the pan, give it a flick and the burger magically spins, lands happily and before you know it, it's done. Bigger burgers are harder to flip and if you've got a lot of burgers in the pan, it can take a while to flip them all. It's still completely possible though and it only takes a second. If you want to make it easier to flip your burger, you can use a tool such as a spatula or you can get a friend to help you.

When this weekend arrived, I really just wanted to chill out but the reason I felt like I needed to make a few notes, even though I was done with work, was so that I could fully remember all the stuff I'd learned during the week. Have you ever tried to work at the weekend and just got stressed out? If you don't do enough, you feel like you've hardly learned anything. If you work too much, you either end up flipping out or all of a sudden you're right back round to Monday, feeling burnt out. If you never did any overtime at all, maybe you'd remember what you'd learned eventually when you revisited it, or maybe you could pick it up at a later date if you really wanted to but your ability to persevere would remain completely untested. I needed to change the situation, so I grabbed some thick colourful markers, drew a few pictures and wrote out technical terms accompanied by obscene or funny notes. Magic. Before I knew it, I was done. Yeah I know this is a tiny example. Bigger situations are harder to flip and if you've got multiple issues, it can take longer.

Perhaps the greatest thing about flipping a situation is that it just takes a second. It might take a bit longer to learn how to do it, to find the right tool or person to help but once you're ready, you can literally change the way you feel about something in a heartbeat. With practice, I expect it's possible, although harder in some cases, to do it with anything.



Sunday 17 February 2013


#5 Online dating reply

This lady vows not to:
1) Nag you to do pointless things on a Sunday
 (or any day for that matter)
2) Moan at you for leaving the toilet seat up
3) Get annoyed with you when you want to spend time with your friends
or 4) Ask for advice when I don't really want to know your opinion...

No this isn't right.

Usually the more attractive girls make no effort in writing a profile and simply leave a large list of DON'Ts on their page, threatening aggressively to bin messages from all but the most exclusive and deserving candidates, who must have immaculate spelling and grammar. I never really understood the emphasis placed on such things by females looking for a suitor. Of course, as a bear of relatively modest accomplishment in other fields, you might permit me to remark with the slightest tone of tongue-in-cheek smugness that this has never been an issue.

How refreshing to find a list of what you can do for "us" men (I use that word in the loosest sense and wouldn't presume to consider myself an appropriate choice for a response out of the many messages you have surely received). Please let me comment on the most entertaining and welcome vows that you are willing to make at such an early stage. Please don't think that I intentionally set out to critique your points although inadvertently I seem to have done so. Perhaps you will appreciate my thoughts or at least that they prove that I didn't just want to read your profile but to understand it.

1) The term "pointless" is highly subjective, especially since it could probably be argued that everything has a point. 
2) I'm impressed that you would never moan about the toilet seat although I'm sure it wouldn't be too much to ask. I personally always leave it down. 
3) It's reasonable to want to spend time with one's friends on occasion so I'm glad that you're highlighting that. Of course it should never be implied that a person would rather hang out with their friends, merely that they sometimes feel duty-bound to do so, an admirably sociable quality that one would be pleased to find in their suitor. 
4) Why would you ask for advice when you didn't really want to know my opinion? I would suggest that this could be replaced with a wider vow not to feign inferiority under any circumstance, with a possible exception being the necessity to deceive an unwanted third party presence. Note that I said "necessity". My mother would not count. I think I'm just joking by this point.

So you're from Bromley huh?
x

Saturday 2 February 2013


#4 Someone's leaving presentation

At some sorry fella's leaving presentation yesterday
His boss gathered us around and said she had some words to say
With a tiny little leaving gift to send him on his way
Now the audience is clapping like they've seen some kind of play

Well the last time that I watched an actor practising his trade
All the dialogue was fluid and the props were all well-made
What a contrast to the presentation shamble just displayed
Every time we have to go though this ridiculous charade

How do you suppose I tell someone professionally higher
That the poem that she wrote this chap was absolutely dire
It was factually correct and I'm not calling her a liar
But I'd rather hear a strangled cat if I were to retire

Now I wouldn't say that poetry is important. It's not
It's advisable in life to use the talents that you've got
But the meaning and the sentiment will likely be forgot
When the quality of what you write amounts to not a lot