Not Made for Water

Lap swimming has to be the most boring sport around. There’s absolutely nothing to see when you’ve got your head underwater. I’ve tried reading a book and it doesn’t work. You keep having to swap hands to turn the pages, and it gets far too fiddly. They should release some fish into the pool just to give you something to look at. Or some treasure from a Spanish galleon – that would be cool. Or they could throw a shark into the pool. This would not only make you swim faster, but it would make swimming much more entertaining for spectators.

Humans look bad underwater. We are not built for swimming. We are not graceful. We are clumsy and odd, and are arms and legs flap about too much. We are like fish with special needs. It’s no wonder the sharks attack us – they must think we are taking the piss.

Hotels

I’ve been spending quite a lot of time in business hotels recently. They put things in your room like soap and tea-bags. They never give you anything decent. When you’re in a hotel room you are bored out of your mind – you need a Playstation or some profiteroles or some dancing horses with profiteroles. But instead you get a shower cap so your hair doesn’t get wet when you are trying to slash your wrists in the bath. They sometimes give you two shower caps just in case you grow an extra head out of boredom.

And the sheets are always tucked in so hard you need a pizza-cutter to go to bed. I think the maids do it on purpose, trying to keep you on top of the sheets so they don’t have to do any work the next day.

Fridays

Many offices have a culture of dressing down on Fridays, but some people have absolutely no idea. I saw a businessman at the train station last Friday wearing running shoes and a Hawaiian shirt. It’s supposed to be Casual Friday not Cockhead Friday. Was he really expecting fun and games to spontaneously break out at that day’s board meeting? He probably had a hula-hoop in his briefcase on the off-chance. The only times when Hawaiian shirts are acceptable are if you are making a guest appearance on the TV show Lost, and when you are a private detective trying to blend in at a speed dating evening for university lecturers.