To don't list.

I bet you've been wondering what I've been up to these past few days. I'll tell ya. Not compiling a "To Don't" list. I really must get around to writing a list of things I really must get around to never doing. I thought of writing a book called "100 things not to do before you die." But then I simply changed my mind. Why? Becaue I'm too damn lazy and, frankly, I'm not sure I could keep it down to only 100.

So far I haven't thought of a single thing to not do so I'm going to look around me and find inspiration in my surroundings. Not entirely unbelievably I'm in Nero's again. No work this week, so it's lying on the sofa singing "I got plenty of nothiiiiiiing....and nothing's plenty for me," practising cricket in the park, having a picnic and doing things with my noooo computer.

Anyway. Casting my eyes around the coffee shop and noting what my fellow human beings are up to, I present to you, a start on my "To Don't" list. Now let me see...... what's that horrible noise?....ahhh yes....
1) Don't talk nonsense loudly in an American accent and without leaving any pauses for your friend to get a goddam word in edgeways like a daft bint or something.
2) Don't be an annoying 6 year old kid with specs, pissing about, flapping your hands and being a general absolute bellend next to a grumpy 48 year old bloke writing a "To Don't" list.
3) Don't join a social network. No one's actually doing that here I just thought of it and put it down. And before you go getting all, you now, internetty, this is my "To don't" list. If you don't like it write your own.
4) Don't walk out of coffee shops assuming you are the only person on the planet and you don't have to look where you're going, when, in reality, you are in one of the most crowded areas of one of the most crowded cities in the world. If the altercation I have just witnessed is anything to go by, sometimes you'll bump into some other cretin, who is also assuming they are the only person on the planet so they don't have to ...blah blah blah, so on and so forth.
5) Don't be female. I have great respect for women. I mean how do they fit in all the things they have to do every day. Talk, take boody ages to choose a sandwich then, when they are about to pay for it, go back and change it for the same flavour sandwich but just a different one (Anna!), turn the simple act of paying for comestibles into a Sissyphean, accessory- assault course involving  being completely unprepared to pay for your coffee, despite having had to pay for your coffee many times before and then having to embark on this exhausting rigmorole.

Unzipping the handbag, searching its Tardisian bowels for your stupid purse, finding the stupid purse, unzipping the pocket devoted to notes, changing your mind, zipping it back up, unzipping the pocket devoted to coins, fishing out a really lot of loose change, starting to assemble exactly the correct amount from this motley collection of coppers, Euros, a hairclip, crumbs and a hair bungee (or whatever they're called - the elastic rings with stray hairs trapped in its rapidly-perishing rubber embrace), getting to within 2 pence of the correct total then realising you haven't got the right amount, pouring it all back into the pocket, zipping it back up, unzipping the first pocket and fishing out a tenner, handing that to the barista, accepting the change, putting the fiver back into that pocket, zipping it up, unzipping the change pocket, pouring the change into that, zipping it back up, throwing the stupid purse back into the handbag version of an event horizon, without a thought of starting a system where it always goes into the same place so it's easier to find next time, picking up the coffee, remembering that you haven't had your "free coffee" card stamped, putting the coffee back down, unzipping the handbag, searching it's cavernous interior for the stupid fucking purse, unzipping the purse, unzipping the pocket you have reserved for "everything under the fucking sun," locating the card, handing it over, getting it stamped, putting it back into the compartment reserved for "everything under the fucking sun except, you know, coins, notes and other stuff," hoying it back into the handbag version of a tear in the very fabric of time itself, re-pick up the coffee and depart.

6) If you're a planner in an advertising agency, don't use the term "Glocal" as a way of getting round having to ask the creatives to write yet another global ad, then on being asked how this is different to "Global," smile and explain patiently that everyone knows global ads are crap so the client doesn't want a global ad. They want a local ad that also appeals to everyone else on the globe. I shit you not.


By way of changing the subject and calming down a bit. Here is some DIY I did.

This is a wooden bathmat I made myself by buying a square of decking and sawing off two of the wooden slats. As you can see the space between the bath and the wall is too narrow for a conventional bathmat so I had to improvise. These are the instructions.
1. Buy a wooden square of decking £8
2. Saw the slats off.
3. Be pretty bloody pleased with yourself.