Manifesto of Drinkers

We shall reserve the right to drink to oblivion
We shall reserve the right not to explain why we drink to oblivion
We shall reserve the right not to drink
We shall reserve the right to drink, but not to oblivion
We shall reserve oblivion to ourselves
We shall only drink when we wish to
We shall not drink when we wish not to
We shall not have to explain whether we wish to drink or not
We shall drink what we choose
We shall drink from whatever vessel we choose
We shall choose the company with whom we drink
We shall drink where we wish to
We shall not tell somebody that we are drinking if we do not wish to
We shall drink

Ted's Thoughts on Lent-on

(A contribution from Fidge's bear, Ted)

As a small and reflexive bear, I have got to think about what I should give up for Lent. I don’t really know what Lent is, but I have been Lent-on lots of times, so I think it must be about feeling a bit squashed and how I cope with that.

My best friend Fidge, who I live with, said there are 40 days for Lent, so I hope I am not Lent-on for that long, but she was talking about giving things up, which must be missing things, so I am thinking about missing. I was once missing in Rome when I got out of Fidge’s rucksack with my friend Podge, (he’s a tiger, you know), and we didn’t get back in quickly enough,so we got left behind. It was well scary. Podge guarded me from being stolen and sold into a life of slavery. That’s what they do to small bears in Rome.

So my thoughts on missing and being missing is like this, (but they are private, so please don’t tell everyone, as I am shy and retiring and feeling a bit embarrassed at telling people what goes on in my fluffy head). So I have thought about 40 things for me to contemplate when I am being Lent-on, one for each day.

1. I don’t like being missing. I feel unsafe if Fidge doesn’t know where I am, even if she’s not with me. Being missing feels like nobody knowing where I am. When it happened to me it made me feel lonely and scared.
2. What I would miss most in the world if it went missing would be Fidge. I don’t want her to go missing for 40 days. I’d rather be Lent-on.
3. Sometimes Fidge needs to Lean-on me so she knows I’m not missing.
4. Missing Fidge makes me feel like my stuffing is turned upside down and I feel wobbly and not quite right.
5. I miss my friend Podge, and I think I don’t see him enough, but I can’t do anything about it because he lives in a place where they talk funny, (Great Harwood), and neither of us is allowed to drive.
6. Sometimes I assume things about other bears because of what I think they are missing. Like when I see a lonely bear with nobody to love, I might think they are isolating themselves, or very sad, or perhaps not very well, but I may be completely wrong.
7. I don’t like missing dinner, especially if it’s fish pie. I love fish pie.
8. Sometimes I start to miss something before it has gone missing if I know that it is going missing.
9. I might be missing some marbles apparently, and I didn’t even know I had any! I heard someone in the living room say I’d lost them. I am confused by that. I can’t hold marbles. I’d like some to look at, so hopefully we’ll find them again.
10. The biggest thing I have missed the longest is my ear, which fell off many years ago. My other ear has shrunk a bit, I know that Fidge keeps it safe and I trust her with that.
11. When I think about what I need as opposed to what I want, and what would happen if I was missing the things that I need, I think the thing I need most is being loved. I can’t imagine missing that for 40 days.
12. I often confuse missing what I want with what I need.
13. I get resentful if somebody else has something that I feel that I am missing if I think it’s not fair. Of course I often don’t know the reasons that people have things that I am missing.
14. Some of the things I feel are missing in my life I am better off not having.
15. I heard someone call Fidge a ‘little Miss’ once, but I that didn’t make sense because she was there all the time.
16. Sometimes I want to be missing, but don’t because it would hurt people.
17. Time goes more slowly when I am missing Fidge.
18. Sometimes I miss Fidge much more as the time gets closer to me seeing her again.
19. I miss being Lent-on when I am kept ‘safe’ or left at home when Fidge goes away. Sometimes she goes to far away Scottish Islands. I’d love to go, although I do get a bit sea-sick. When she goes a long way, I usually go with her. I have been to Austria, Belgium, Spain, Cheltenham, London, Italy and a lot of other places.
20. I miss some of my nose and fur that’s been loved off, but I know that’s what makes me special, so I don’t mind too much really.
21. I miss my old colour, but now I have a new colour. The new colour is what the old colour was after it has faded, so it is part of the same colour really.
22. I miss my dress when I sunbathe naked, and it makes me feel a bit unsafe, especially if there are German tourists around.
23. Fidge sometimes misses different things to me. Sometimes when I think she is missing something, she is really missing something else without me knowing.
24. I am missing some brains, and sometimes the way to say the right thing, but I try not to worry what other people think about that. Sometimes I worry about it, but I have to accept that I can’t change it.
25. Sometimes I don’t know I am going to miss something until it is gone.
26. After something has gone missing, it changes me.
27. Often I appreciate something much more after I have got it back when it has been missing.
28. Fidge’s socks go missing and sometimes I hide them, but she thinks it’s a sock fairy.
29. I’m missing teeth. Some people think I should have teeth, because I am a bear, but that’s just because they don’t know much about bears.
30. Missing can really really hurt.
31. I have to learn how to deal with my missing. Sometimes what I miss will come back, sometimes it will not and sometimes it will come back but different. I wonder what is happening to things while they are missing, but have no way of knowing.
32. Sometimes I try too hard to get what I think I am missing, which may make me miss it more, but doesn’t usually help me to get it.
33. Most of the things that I miss I cannot do anything about. I am only a small bear with small paws.
34. Just because there are some people I miss for a long time doesn’t make me miss them less.
35. Knowing Podge is safe doesn’t stop me missing him, but it does help me to deal with it, so I like him to let me know how he is every so often.
36. I don’t like being missed out.
37. Sometimes I miss being with other bears, although I am very happy where I live.
38. What we miss about others isn’t always what they miss about us.
39. I was once told I was missing the point, but I didn’t ever have a point that I knew about. That may not stop me missing it I suppose, but it doesn’t make much sense to a small bear. I suppose I may be missing things that people see I am missing even when I do not myself realize that they are missing.
40. I would really miss being Lent-on.

Missing Sock Theories

Sock Displacement Theories (A Recognised Branch of Sockology)

This is an investigation into the matter of sock displacement, better known as missing sock theories. Amongst other things, the problems caused by sock displacement can include marital disharmony and massive losses to industry as huge numbers of working hours are lost due to people, especially men, being late for work because of looking for their missing socks.

There are a number of issues under investigation. These may be summarised as what makes socks go missing, when they do go missing where do they go, what makes them come back and what can you, as a responsible sock owner, do about the problem.

There are a number of theories concerning why socks go missing. The main ones can be summarised as follows:

Firstly, the missing socks have simply never made it to the washing machine, and are either to be found secreted at the bottom of the laundry basket, under the bed, or in trouser legs.
Secondly, the socks become hidden in other garments in the washing, such as duvet covers, trousers and shirt sleeves.
Thirdly, the socks disappear into a fifth dimension and remain in the washing machine, but cannot be seen, and becoming temporarily invisible to the naked eye
Fourthly, the missing socks dematerialise and telekinetically rematerialise in a large hidden area believed to be several miles outside Milton Keynes. The exact location of the site is not known and can only be guessed at from an ancient map unexpectedly found in the boot of a Mazda MX5 lent to a hairdresser called Lisa in Farnborough in Hampshire in July 2001.
Fifthly, most washing machines contain a carefully designed extra area within the drum that opens up whilst the machine is operating, then closes when the cycle finishes, drawing small items – ie socks, into its confines.
Finally, the sock fairies take them. This theory is particularly prolific in dark outreaches of the West Country such as the beautiful village of Urchfont at the edge of Salisbury Plain, and in parts of Surrey.
Alien Abduction.
(???? Whether to include – Bloody Women Theory – propounded on basis that women simply sweep up the washing without checking whether they have picked up pairs of socks etc. Contrasting to the quickly formed Bloody Men Theory, which is of course that bloody men virtually never put their own washing in the washing machine: Perhaps to be supplemented by the Bloody Dog Theory – that the dog nicks them and eats them when they are really smelly.????)

It is interesting that the issue is rarely an existential one concerning these missing socks – for we are not left wondering whether they still exist, but with the sure certainty that they still do exist and that the question is simply where they have gone to.

Apart from those explanations already proffered as to the whereabouts of missing socks, the main question remains for those who favour the sock fairy theory – for the possibility must exist of sock mountains, just like tooth mountains built by the tooth fairies and biro mountains caused by the pen fairies. There is obviously a particular problem in developed urban areas, especially with blocks of high rise flats, where there simply is no garden available for the socks to be hidden at the bottom of.

Let us move on then to what causes the missing socks to re-emerge. The main trigger or replacement events, as sock theorists refer to them, are as follows:

a) the remaining sock going missing
b) the remaining sock fading by at least 25%
c) the remaining sock being filled up with catnip and chucked to the cat
d) the remaining sock being thrown away
e) the style of sock going completely out of fashion
f) the fairies getting fed up with the smell
g) the washing machine malfunctioning
h) the person who owned the missing sock leaving the household
i) the passage of a period of not less than three weeks

How then is one to overcome the problem of socks disappearing? There are several ways of displacement avoidance, much depending upon which of the original displacement theories you most favour:

a) Only wear odd socks – although this can have fashion implications
b) Don’t wear any socks
c) Tie or chain your socks together – remember though that this may make walking uncomfortable
d) Put your socks into one of those dinky little net bags when you wash them, then if one sock is going to disappear, there is a likelihood of all of them going at once
e) Wear long trousers so that the colour and style of socks does not draw attention, whether matching or no
f) Always buy all socks the same so that the missing offenders can not be identified
g) Never throw out or use for household cleaning or pet entertaining purposes your odd socks
h) Never remove your socks

Of course the whole subject of sock displacement theory generally only raises issues for those people who feel compelled to think of socks as necessarily coupled entities. If our society could come to terms with the phenomena of singleness, and be prepared to consider just the single sock in its own right, such investigation would be unnecessary. The psychological impacts of sock displacement are only just beginning to be fully understood.

Academic studies of the works of Freud, Kant, Heidegger and Marx are still being interpreted in the hope that these may shed some light upon our plight.

It has, though, to be accepted that it is inherent in the nature of a sock to want to go ‘walkabout’, but it is also true that much as Arnold Schwarzenegger in that great film Terminator, they also usually tend to have the attitude: ‘I’ll be back’ and in that hope we may rest.

Those persons interested in other artistic issues are invited to view the blog at http://arts-desire.blogspot.com/

Copyright Fiona K Taylor 2009
Script and lyrics written by Fiona K Taylor.

Guide to Organising Meetings

Guide to organising meetings

People within the institution need training in respect of how to organise meetings. This guide has therefore been prepared to help those in positions of responsibility within the institution to follow the appropriate procedures for organising meetings, to identify the need to organise meetings and to improve the efficiency of the institution. There will be a meeting arranged to discuss this.

PROCEDURE FOR ORGANISING A MEETING

1. Decide upon the meeting to be arranged
2. Book the room with the person responsible for taking room bookings, who will be located somewhere other than where the meeting is to take place
3. Notify the people required to attend the meeting that the meeting is to take place and that they are required to attend
4. Ensure that other people seeking to hold a different meeting at the same time in the same place but with different people present do not do so
5. Attend the meeting
6. Go down the pub

IDENTIFYING PEOPLE WHO NEED TO ORGANISE MEETING

There are many reasons for organising meetings. It is important to consider at the outset the difference between the need for a meeting and the need to organise a meeting.
It is an unavoidable frustration of life that certain people feel compelled to organise meetings. These are the sort of people who will come up with very complex arguments to justify to others why a meeting is required, so that they can go on to organise it. These people tend to fall into one of several categories:
1. There is the common or garden ‘meeting organiser’, (hereinafter referred to as a ‘meeter’), who wants to organise meetings due to their own social inadequacy by virtue of the fact that unless they compel people to meet with them, they would spend their time alone. Often these people cannot cope with one to one conversations.
2. There is the meglo-meeter who needs to arrange meeting to demonstrate their perceived power over others.
3. There is the social hedo- meeter who wants any excuse to get groups of people together, (usually whom they like), to have a good time.
4. There is the manago-meeter who through a combination of education and mistake believes that meetings are a good way of disseminating information/ boosting morale/ saving time/ combining ‘forces’, (sort of two brains are better than one stuff for people who need the assistance of a second brain to progress in life...).
5. The efficio-meeter who understands that occasionally a meeting may be a necessary evil.

TECHNIQUES FOR COPING WITH COMPULSIVE MEETING ORGANISERS, (‘MEETERS’)

If you happen to work with somebody who feels the need to organise meetings there are several different techniques available for coping with this. One is of course to avoid attending them and their meetings completely, (see the publication Avoiding Meetings and Staying Employed for Art Lecturers). It is important to remember a few basic principles:

1. These are sad people
2. They probably don’t realise that they have a problem
3. It may not be a treatable condition
4. It may be a contagious condition
5. One tends to find that people who like being on committees especially feel the need to organise meetings. Avoid them like the plague, (see the Desiderata - ‘Avoid loud, vexatious and downright irritating people, especially those who feel the need to organise meetings’).
If you find that you are having to work with a compulsive meeting organiser, try to stay calm, speak to them slowly, appear to agree with them and always carry your diary, (filled with spaces that do not leave slots of time of more than an hour at any one time - even if you have to make up fictitious engagements).
Certain tactics may be used to try to discourage avid ‘meeters’, such as pointing out the inefficiency of holding most meeting, (see later details of efficiency of meetings). If, however, you have to put up with working with a ‘meeter’ all the time the best options are drink or leave!

GUIDANCE UPON ORGANISING MEETINGS

There are some basic considerations which need to be borne in mind when efficiently organising meetings. These are based upon the same premise as that for the investigation of criminal offences, much like a murder enquiry really:

1. Who
i) who is to be invited to the meeting
ii) who do you actually want to attend the meeting
iii) who is to arrange the meeting
iv) who must be contacted to book the meeting
v) who must be told about the meeting as a matter of etiquette
vi) who is to be in charge of the meeting
vii) who is to decide what happens at the meeting
viii) who is to record the outcome of the meeting
ix) who is to be informed or affected by the meeting
x) who will make the actual decisions at the meeting
xi) who should think they are making the decisions at the meeting
xii) who would it be better not to tell about the meeting
xiii) who will say what you want them to say at the meeting
xiv) who needs to be watched/ restrained/ controlled during the meeting
xv) who might try to subvert the meeting
xvi) who must take what action after the meeting

2. What
i) what is the meeting for
ii) what is the meeting supposed to give the impression to others of being for
iii) what do you want the meeting to decide
iv) what are the implications of getting the meeting wrong
iii) what is going to happen after the meeting.

3. Where
i) where is the meeting to be held
ii) where was the last meeting held, (if there was one - bearing in mind people may expect the next meeting to be held in the same place)
iii) where is the next meeting to be held
iv) where would you really rather be other than at a meeting

4. When
i) when is the meeting to take place
ii) when is the next meeting to take place
iii) when do the decisions reached at the meeting have to be actioned
iv) when can you escape from the meeting

5. Why
i) why is a meeting necessary
ii) why are you, (as opposed to anybody else), organising the meeting
(NB this will be because of one of the following:-
a) you are a ‘meeter’,
b) you are a ‘mug’
c) you are a sad bastard
d) you have no choice either because it is urgent or important
e) you think you are important)
iii) why are you not using the mode of communication that you are using to inform people of the meeting to convey the information that you want to convey during the course of the meeting, (if this is a meeting to disseminate information)
iv) why are you wasting people’s time
v) why are you not talking to people one to one
vi) why does it take a lot of people to reach a decision one person could make or has already made on a previous occasion
vii) why do you need to read this guidance

6. How
i) how is the meeting to be organised
ii) how are the decisions reached at the meeting to be communicated
iii) how can you avoid having to arrange the next meeting
iv) how are you going to avoid attending the next meeting
v) how are you going to convince the people who are at the meeting to decide what you want them to decide or to listen to what you want them to hear
vi) how are you going to convince people that they are making the decisions they want to make whilst you persuade them to make the decisions you want them to make
vii) how are you going to subvert the meeting
viii) how do you stop people talking drivel/ wittering on for hours/ boring you rigid at meetings
ix) how do you persuade a ‘meeter’ not to hold a meeting
x) how do you keep your job if this gets out

EFFICIENCY OF MEETINGS

If a lecturer is paid on average, say £26,000 per annum, that amounts to an average of £125 per day. If a lecturer is assumed to do an eight hour day, it costs £15.63 per hour for that lecturer to be engaged in meetings. If, say, ten lecturers on that salary are engaged in a two hour meeting that costs say £312.50, not taking account of the disruption caused. If in a college say 30 lecturers on salaries of £26,000 pa were each required to attend two meetings of two hours per week, that would cost a college £1875 per week or £97,500 p.a.

If say thirty students attend a meeting for half an hour when they would otherwise have been working, that is 15 hours of college work or the equivalent of nearly half a week’s work that is not done.

Could a meeting that costs say £312 to hold be avoided by one person being employed to make decisions; or the decisions of those who have already made the decisions but are holding a meeting to ratify the decisions, just being implemented without a meeting.

NOTICE OF MEETINGS

Notice of meetings may be communicated by
i) standard notice, such as on the notice board
ii) word of mouth
iii) announcement at a meeting held to plan the next meeting
iv) organised communication to specified representatives who themselves notify others of the meeting
v) e-mail
vi) fax
vii) telephone
viii) memo/letter
Such notice must be given in sufficient time for all necessary parties to receive adequate notification of the meeting.

Bit of Poetry to Change the Tone

I’d like to introduce you to me mate (X)

I’d like to introduce you to me mate
She loves to learn new words, like “Osculate”
Sagatiously she joins in conversation
As words become ideas by sublimation

And suddenly you get that bad sensation
When thrown a look of her disapprobation
She’ll masticate upon the words in mind
(You’d best not spell that wrong or she’ll go blind)
She’ll languidly allow a thought to flow
Then use the words she’s learnt to let you know
That you’re in trouble

She peregrinates with language spent in play
A quite delicious way to spend the day!
An epithet she’ll readily apply
Veridical, subliminal and dry

She’ll rarely be obsequious, not her role
Nor will she be mendacious on the whole
Solicitude for accuracy shows
As eloquently she explores her prose
Diaphanous and unctuous she is not
She’ll throw at you the sweetest word she’s got
Obtuse she may be, if she’s in the mood
But somehow from her lips it isn’t rude
Usually

And so it is I love the gorgeous way
That she and I can share our words in play
If you know what I mean


Subtle Palpable Enticement

Subtle palpable enticement
Of eye to eye to mouth to I
As smile whispers across your edge of lips
Contained in mischief
But whispered back to cheek and taughtened chin

Spark of light shows deep-welled pupils play
Lessons well learnt
In smoky amber moments of otherness

You chase my peripatetic thoughts
As searching for the sense in all these senses
I take myself away to closer be
Unfairly leave you tantalised alone
Yet closer than you know

Apt melodies envelope our slow dance
Of mind with melt-down mind
With gentle touch to back to lead me on
We tiptoe round the risk
As I to eye to mouth to eye
Explore


Consumed

The subtle touch as fingers
iced along my spine
hirsute prickle rises to the encounter
breath drawn sharp contracts within my lungs

Connected by the thread of angel’s hair
its febrile stretch electric
You consume me

My senses tightly focus
On your all
Epithileal tingle as current runs between your skin and mine
I breathe your heady scent with hidden raw
I hear your whisper just behind my thought
And taste the maybe juices on my tongue
Sweet bitter slightly salted I presume
My eyes are trapped within your browning gaze
I start to tremble

Your laugh begins to melt my weary heart
Your voice engaged in syzergy with mine
Your smile feels like the smell of fresh-cut grass
On summer days

I have to look away before you see
The power you’re exerting over me
I’m falling oh so gently into you


Osculated

The candle-light reflected in your eyes
en-sparkled me
stars leaping out to sing
sweet harmony
as huskily your story drew me in

you leaned
towards me
smiled
and said you’d show
me how
you had been kissed

I froze in couldn’t move in head explode
your lips so softly gently captured mine
sensation as I felt myself implode
our mouths combined

I melted then
incapable of no
your playful under breath of laugh as knowing
you were in control
you let me go

You Must Have Lots of Cats (and other comments by checkout operators)

It seems to be open season for checkout assistants to comment on the items that I am choosing to purchase in Sainsburys. Perhaps they view it as making polite conversation. A short survey has established that on about 1 in 4 of my visits, observation is made about the amount of cat food that I buy. (I cannot help but wonder what other cat owners do. Perhaps most people with two cats buy wholesale...). So I have taken to responding to the observation that "You must have a lot of cats" with a genial smile and one of the following comments:

"No actually I don't have any cats. It's the only thing we can find that the baby will eat".
"It's not for the cats. I found out that my husband has been cheating on me, so I have been using it to make his meals for three weeks now".
"Actually I've been feeding it to the tadpoles. They're carnivorous you know, and it stops them eating each other". [As it happens the latter is not far removed from the truth...]

I certainly won't be going to Sainsburys to purchase contraceptives...

Telesales

In consideration of the irritation of telesales, and responses thereto, the following
came to mind…

When asked is that “Miss/Mrs” etc say:

no, they don’t live here any more; (may affect your banking though)
they can’t answer the phone,
they have impaired hearing
I’m not allowed to talk to strangers
Can I have your home number first please as you have mine so that I can call you when YOU get home from work
Sorry, that won’t be possible - this phone only takes outgoing calls
You’ve got the wrong number, please call… (and give them the number for another of the junk mail things/sales)
I’m not supposed to talk to people while I’m taking my medication
May I borrow a spoon (always fun to confuse ‘em)
But I never ordered a take-away
I’m sorry, I don’t speak English. (Just keep repeating it if they try and continue. )
You’ve got the wrong number

Before they start their “spiel”, explain that your charging rate is £200 per hour, you accept their offer to consult you so could you have their billing address please before you start and you are timing the call from…

“Que?” often works.

Explain that you don’t have whatever corresponds to what they are trying to sell, so eg

Double glazing – I don’t have any windows (had a few stunned silences to this one)
New kitchen – don’t have a kitchen
Doors – property doesn’t have doors
Bank – don’t believe in money, so decided not to use it any more. Or considering changing bank to one that does not ring you at home at inconvenient times.
Wall protection - …get the gist
Phones – I have a phobia about them and can’t use them

Or – I’ve just paid for that to be done actually

And always add “and please take me off your mailing list”.

Or - This is the fifth time I’ve been called about this and it constitutes harassment. What is your full name and address please so that I can advise the police? (It took this for me to stop the RAC calling me after I ceased my membership – they threatened me with one breakdown too many). They usually hang up.

Sorry, it’s not convenient. “When would be a good time?”… there isn’t a good time, we run our business from home and you are blocking the line, so if you’ll excuse me. – or just “never”.

Of course, you may choose to talk to them about something as irrelevant as what they are talking to you about, or trying to sell them something can be fun if you are really bored. Get obscure – ask what colour socks they are wearing, what do they think about congestion charging, are they interested in the transpersonal approach to artistic practice… “just before we discuss that, did you see the eclipse last night”… When they try and draw the conversation back to sales, you can comment that “I can tell you don’t really want to talk to me. You don’t like me do you?” or other such joy. Then add that you should warn them this call is being recorded for training purposes, as you are presently working for their main competitor. Actually starting the call with, “this call is being recorded for training purposes” tends to unsettle most of them… especially if you add that this is a police station! Or “I’m just going to put you on loud speaker so that everyone can hear you”.

Then you can always put the phone next to the speaker and play your favourite rendition of Greensleeves on full blast – get your own back.

Or very simply say, “I’m just going to have to put you on hold” …
Or “actually you’ve come through to the massage parlour.”

Clip board carriers – also a nuisance.

If they are doing market research, they are not allowed to survey other market researchers, so often the words, “sorry – market researcher” effects a speedy release.

I tend to favour the miserable approach – eg if trying to sign up to protect animals, children, etc: “sorry, I can’t stand… cats, dogs, children, geriatrics, pens…”.

“I’m on benefit” gets you out of most financial surveys.

Or you can try the Trevor Eve in ‘Waking the Dead’ approach “sorry, I think you’ve mistaken me somebody who gives a shit”.
Or the sympathetic approach “I’m already a member – keep up the good work”
Or the scary approach, “I have a contagious disease, so you may prefer me not to handle that”.
Or simply “actually I bat for the other side”
“Sorry, I can’t write my name” tends to go down well. Signing somebody else’s name is funnier, (but not if it is legally binding or may be tantamount to fraud or trying to pervert the course of justice).
Unfortunately this contrary approach has started creeping into other areas of my life, for example, when shopping last week the checkout assistance commented that I must have a lot of cats. Rather than explain that they are faddy eaters and may or may not eat half the food, I just smiled sweetly and explained, “actually it’s for the baby. She’s been off her food, but we’ve found she likes the cat’s food”. You should have seen the look on the face of the woman behind me! Art as approach I say!!