I’ve just come out of THE BEST meeting with a client, in which we were pitching some of our digital services to him. Upon asking him if he had ‘Google Analytics’ he responded ‘No, it’s just the way I’m sitting’. Isn’t that brilliant? I spent the rest of the meeting laughing at it… (slight exaggeration, but shut up it’s for dramatic effect ).
I just thought it was really quick of him to come up with that on the spot – it created a good atmosphere for the rest of the pitch, I can’t stand it when everything is all ‘fake nice’. My friend at work and I tend to hurl abuse at each other on a daily basis, we find it’s just the natural way our friendship has developed, rather than using what we call ‘corporate nicety b*llocks’. The point is, within the realms of this month’s theme: CREATE, I just wanted to point out how easy it is to create the atmosphere or ambiance you want just by acting in a certain way. Obviously that’s not revolutionary in any way, shape or form, but it is a nice thing to consider – the fact that it’s super easy to just create an ambiance based on the way you feel. I guess that explains why murderers are always angry, they just can’t stand the idea of someone else being alive just because they’ve had a crap day, and let’s be honest I’m sure we’ve all woken up feeling a bit murdery in the morning, every now and again.
In the very same meeting, this client used the word ‘lubricant’, when I’m pretty sure he meant to say ‘lucrative’, which again had me stifling laughter. They are definitely two words you don’t want to mix up, lest ye find yourself meddling in what’s commonly known as ‘the world’s oldest profession’. Another fun thing is when words fall together to make a rude phrase. My favourite example was a warning message for commuters on the London Underground that said ‘Warning: Passengers standing too close to the platform may get sucked off’. It’s fun, try it at home! The word game part I mean, not the… yeah…
I’ll be honest with you, I’m struggling with something, and it sort of runs along the thematic lines of ‘create’. To be completely candid, I’m not sure how many people actually read these, and I guess I’m having issues with what to create for it going forward, as I’m feeling like I’ve run the well dry… my life’s pretty boring as it is, and I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that most of the situations I talk about are exaggerated to some extent. So, my quandary lies in how to evolve: what can I create that’s going to be different, entertaining, and worth reading? (This is the part where I say that nothing I write is worth reading anyway, but as I say, the barrel of self-depreciation has been well and truly tapped out.) I’ve just realised how much I seem to like irrigation and water based metaphors, I wonder where that comes from? I’m sure there’s something Freudian in there somewhere – perhaps one day in the distant future a tribe of apocalypse survivors will unearth my Soapbox articles and see them as Holy Scripture, swearing to live their lives abiding by the ‘Laws of Farnham’. Ah, I’m being unrealistic, that probably won’t happen – but there’s nothing wrong with the odd delusion of grandeur, it’s a nice contrast to the way I usually regard myself. What’s the opposite of grandeur I wonder? I’ve just looked at antonyms for it and the top words it came up with were ‘Ugliness and Unimportance’, so yeah, sounds about right – here we are back at slagging myself off – the grandeur was fun while it lasted.
Anyway, let’s wrap this up, here’s what I’m proposing: I’ve reached a point where fiction has become quite an integral part of these little snippets of my life… don’t get me wrong, it’s all true, but exaggeration is crucial when you’re trying to make people laugh, I don’t think anyone can disagree with that. Anyway, I’ve quite enjoyed recounting the events of my little life month by month and adding a bit of drama to, let’s face it, make me seem cooler. So, how about this… I delve into the world of fiction good and proper and share with you a story from inside my head? It’s something I came up with a few years back, but so far the characters and world they live in have resided in Limbo as I’ve had no output onto which I could breathe life into them. Here’s the rub: If you are reading this, and if you enjoy it, would you like to hear a story that’s completely and utterly a creation of my dumb brain, or would you rather I just continued trying to fictionalise the events of my everyday life? If you ever want to know what I’m up to I think it’s safe to assume that, going forward, I’m eating, sleeping, or taking photos of my cats.
I’m going to start a Twitter Poll to find out if people want me to delve into this new venture and see where that goes, or if people would rather I continued as is. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it… right? Then again, there’s a thousand lazy sayings to advocate trying something new, so what’s there to be scared of? (I’m a little bit talking to myself here).
LOOK! A CALL TO ACTION!
My Twitter handle is @Zelnarf, and I’ll pin a tweet to the top of my page when this is released so if you are an avid Soapbox reader and care about me at all, you can go to my twitter page and vote, sort of like how Emperors did during Roman gladiator times, only with less death and bloodshed. In fact, I’ll do you one better: this decision won’t affect your life in any way whatsoever.
