When you think of Christmas what immediately comes to mind? Decorations? Presents? Singing carols on the doorstops of strangers for fun to bring back the festive cheer to everyone?
Yeah, me too.
What doesn’t come to mind is any of this.
When looking for a Christmas tree a few weeks ago, I found these monstrosities dotted around a garden centre.
Why are they all playing the saxophone? Why do they all look like they’ve been drugged at the office Christmas party? When did they all have time to learn how to play an instrument? Why would anyone pay £19.99 for a single saxophone-playing Christmas toy?
I don’t know, but what I do know is that if you’re looking to make your house a little more festive then this is not the way to do it. Once you start mixing jazz and Christmas then you’re staring down the barrel of a Kenny G album.
You don’t know how busy I am. I am literally the busiest I’ve ever been. When you two both have jobs and kids then you’ll know how busy one person can be; super busy cubed.
Anyway, I decided to leave all of that behind and go for lunch with my good friend, Tad Kensington. I hadn’t seen him for a while and I required some advice about work. I need to have more of a presence in the office, I need to stand out in a good way for once rather than having all that attention for giving everyone insulting and disgusting nicknames. In my defence, I paid for all those name tags myself, and when HR told me they weren’t going to reimburse me, throwing that table through the window was clearly “justified” despite what the judge said.
Tad Kensington knows a lot about “presence” and making a name for yourself. Over a very brief one hour lunch he gave me enough tidbits to set me up for life. I made a promise that I wouldn’t divulge everything, not just anyone can be Tad Kensington after all, however I don’t think he’d mind me passing on a few pearls of wisdom to those less fortunate.
Let me enlighten you. Let me show you the way:
Eat a banana whilst pissing at a urinal. It shows you have control and that you mean business.
Always keep an inch of coffee in the bottom of your cup and throw it on your rival whenever you see them. Hot or cold, it’s still humiliating.
Business cards are for wimps. Get your details printed on sharks and hand them out. Nobody will forget the guy with business sharks.
If you can’t be the tallest man in the room then be the widest.
Wear another pair of trousers underneath your regular trousers. Nobody will know except you, and that’s where the magic begins.
End every sentence with an ellipsis so no-one can interrupt you.
Set fire to a £5.00 note every day to remind yourself that burning money is stupid.
Ensure you only eat meals with capital letters, and do so loudly.
Ask maintenence to build a fake stud wall in your office so you can amaze people by punching your way through it at the end of the day. That’s a game changer.
If you can’t hear what people are seeing then you’ll never taste it.
I’ve practically guaranteed myself a promotion at work and I can’t wait to hear how you’re all thriving in your respective workplaces based on this guidance.
I know you’re all excited for next week and I could hardly contain myself so I’m writing the post early. Wilmot’s week is dedicated to the adoration, worship and general appreciation of the great Gary Wilmot. It’s a chance to really kick back and enjoy yourself and all of the joy that Wilmot has brought to the world. The best part is that it happens completely at random meaning you have to stay alert (and download the app) to ensure you don’t miss out on any of the celebrations. Sure, it’s next week yet it could also be the week after that, the start of next month or around your birthday. Wilmot’s week takes no prisoners. It’s completely unhinged.
Recently I have been pondering what wor Gaz could do next with his startling career. He’s already an accomplished singer, presenter, actor and entertainer; what’s left? Open a restaurant, one themed around terracotta jug western hoedowns or rats that look like footballers? No, that would be silly. We need something sleek and modern. We need a Gary Wilmot video game.
It can’t be something cheap like a mobile game. It has to go all the way, multi platform and nothing but the best. I want to see Ps5. I want full scale Steam trailers showing all the exquisite gameplay on offer.
I was hoping it’d be a disgustingly violent first person shooter however i was told by his manager that this wasn’t the kind of image they were hoping to portray to the general public. We’ll therefore keep it nice and cosy, set it in a warehouse and have Gary as some kind of, I don’t know, eccentric warehouse manager. He can have a tea cosy on his head instead of a hat. Then when you finish the level he’ll tip his head to one side, whistle and say, “It’s time for a brew!” That’ll make all the grandma’s chuckle with delight.
To make it as accessible as possible it should be a puzzle game. Everyone loves puzzle games, right? The same as everyone loves detective TV programmes set on boats featuring washed-up pop stars? So wor Gaz has to help you sort out items in a warehouse. We’ll get a custom made soundtrack from the Papples and soon we’ll be hoovering up the awards.
It will take some doing, the hours will be long and arduous but stick with me and we’ll really make a difference. Now all that’s left to do is a quick check to make sure nobody else has…
I think I deserve credit for not diving into this straight away after unleashing this hotch potch of box-ticking nostalgia bait. I waited a whole *checks* four months before phoning it in again. You’re welcome.
I also deserve a hearty pat on the back for writing a ‘quick post to earn a bean’ post nine days before the end of the month. I’m breaking all the rules of convention. What a trendsetter I am. You’re also welcome (God, this is exhausting).
We need some kind of awards ceremony to celebrate how great I am not just at being me but also being me in written form.
Anyway, enough of that. Let’s dive back into 2014 Ian to see what was going through his mind:
An apple a day keeps the cold-calling telemarketing away
Giant butt sea castle
Torch eyes tours
Dyslexic spelling error sky writer message
Nuclear fallout – beetles and lens solution
Learning to write with toothpaste is silly
Sugar cube igloo
Snake shoelaces. Worm shoelaces?
Bulldog clips rep is misguided (?)
Fruit tennis
Return of the icing sugar squirrels (this one still makes me laugh)
Napkins have feelings too, you know
Bog roll binoculars
Public trampolines
New type of screwdriver
The rest of the ideas from this page were so good they were used in the Twitter feed because they’re all crossed out.
Continuing our ‘peek-behind-the-curtain’ theme, this week we let you in on our discussions as to whether the podcast needs a slogan. After 25 episodes we finally named the podcast and 15 episodes later, in this 40th and final episode of series 4, we actually use it for the first time. In this episode we…
You’ll all be thrilled to know that this is the last one I have before we can retire this charade masquerading as a proper post. We all have stuff we like to whip out (waaaaaay!) as a cheap post from time to time to fill the quota and tick the boxes. I still have plenty of guff to fill your screens, and your time with, so divant fret, pet, if you’re worried about the lack of meaningful content.
Surely in our roles as gods of the Internet, for existing so long in this digital hellscape, we practically invented meaningful content (or whatever passes for it these days).
Anyway, enough preaching. Guess the expiry date of this bottle of ketchup.
Here’s a little hint too; it’s nowhere near as old as any of the other entries.
I woke up on Thursday with a specific purpose. I didn’t know that purpose until I got to work later on that morning.
I was sat next to wor Geoff, who’s always got something interesting to say. We were chatting about interesting jobs and he mentioned bananas.
“Bananas? What do you mean?” I asked. It turns out that on his breaks wor Geoff likes to browse the Internet and goes down rabbit holes of various topics depending on how he’s feeling that day. He mentions that apparently there is a job called an authorised banana weigher. I scoff at such a prospect but a little Google later and I find the details on gov.uk website. There IS a job where you are a person who is officially authorised to weigh bananas. I excitedly scan through the page looking for the details on how to become one and reach a list. In order to become one you have to:
have no record of infringement or repeated infringements of customs and tax legislation
provide assurance that weighing operations will be performed correctly
have access to appropriate and maintained weighing equipment
maintain accurate records so customs can carry out controls
give customs advanced notice of all weighing operations
It’s beautiful. I can do all of this. All I need is some proper weighing scales and I am golden. I’m about to click on the link to fill the form in, well on my way to being an official banana weigher, and my eyes drift back over the list. I’ve missed one. There’s a fairly important one that I must have glazed over.
be involved in the import, carriage, storage or handling of fresh bananas
Boo! Booooo! How am I gonna start importing banana? I’ve got no contacts in the banana industry. I can’t fill in a form and start walking around in big shoes, I have to *actually* do something outside of my comfort zone.
Crestfallen, I close the page and return to my job. The excitement has gone. I will never be fully authorised to weigh my bananas, your bananas or anyone’s bloody bananas.
The internet is full of junk these days, articles promoted into your social media feeds and “related content” links in your news articles. And you want to read it all, of course you do, it looks fascinating. But you’re a busy Executive Gentleman with a busy executive lifestyle, and you don’t have time for all that.
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