OK, I know it isn’t pretty but I am excited by the latest addition to my study. Alex the electrician spent the morning putting up this wonderful bank of electrical sockets next to my desk so that I never have to suffer from tangly wires or the muddle that causes any more….never ever again.
I have spent a little bit of my life every day now for a couple of years unravelling cables whenever I wanted to plug something new into my now impressively hi tech office – well, I still have paper and pencils but I also have eighteen pieces of equipment that all need somewhere to put their plugs.
I am just sitting here purring at the moment – I never knew sockets could be so beautiful.
When I was a school boy I had a teacher who invented something called The Anti-Muddle League and he did me the great honour of making me a founding member – maybe also the only member. Sadly this gentleman, Mr. Pratt, has long been deceased so I feel that I should wear his mantle with pride.
He used to say that any one in The Anti Muddle League had a duty to stop those irritatingly incompetent things that come our way every day.
Why do people wait half an hour for a bus and yet only get their money out when they actually board it – thus holding up every one else waiting, cash in hand, behind them?
The Anti Muddle League would stop this.
I could go on but I hope you get the idea.
I have been an electricity cable muddler for much too long but, as from today, I am born again.
So instead of that photograph of me with the late comic actor Kenneth Williams, I now have, yes, I have to say it again, a wonderful bank of electrical sockets.
Mr Pratt, may you rest in peace, oh Anti Muddle League founder, would approve of two of my friends, Kayla and Claudia who have set up an impressive arts project called Mundane Appreciation ( http://mundaneappreciation.tumblr.com/ ) which celebrates the mundane pleasures in life.
The fabulously mundane Kayla and Claudia They have made a number of “events” where we can remember once more how pleasant it is to put all our paper clips into a special paper clip box or to sharpen that beloved pencil to a perfect point, to make a perfect pot of tea or to vacuum clean a rug with a shiny bright red vacuum cleaner.
I thought of them today, just as I thought of Mr Pratt – I have not only got rid of a muddle but I have recognised my need for mundane pleasures too.
Let’s hear it for the electrical socket! I have five spare sockets too – any suggestions for what I could plug in there?
Cripes! I glad i don't pay your electricity bill Wolfie…….
Well Mercredi, often pieces of computer equipment have in-built transformers which reduce the amount of current needed to run things, so, in fact, it isn't that expensive just fun – or so I am told.
Anti-muddle -I love it. Like people who wait in the cash point queue and then have to (a) find their card and (b) spend five minutes on every screen as they've not worked out what they want.
My real horror at the moment is people who stop as they get off escalators and either look around or chat, causing logjam behind them.
Claudio, your membership form is in the post.