2004-12-23 - 5:00 p.m.

You! Humans!

You are mere ants!

You are humants!

You slouch on the tube, blank-faced, checking your watches; you twitter on the radio with your ritual timechecks; you hunch in your offices and canteens, the clocks on your walls ticking remorselessly, gazing down like impassive sentinels holding you in thrall to their tyranny of seconds, minutes and hours.

Yet all around you exist cycles of life. Natural, organic clocks that invite you to measure life as it is really lived.

See this vase of flowers?

First, pronounce it 'varz', not 'vayce'. Good. Now see the stems, strong and firm, standing in cold crystal water? How long will it take for them to become browning, softened stalks, slumping in liquid that smells like a courier's gusset?

What about this kebab spit?

How long will it take for the Stella-dulled appetites of a queue of bladdered, lurching townies to reduce that glistening joint of horsemeat, woodpulp and catfood binding agent to a naked revolving skewer? Hmm?



These are the means to measure life.

Which brings me to the passing of Agent Orange:

Goodbye old friend, your crockery/cutlery lathering days are done. I have measured my kitchentime by the depletion of your sticky level these past weeks and months, but nary a fork nor a side plate more will exult in your gooey citric climax.

It is a moment of great sadness and significance to accept that a bottle of washing-up liquid that has frankly been running on empty for weeks has finally yielded its last. I know it looks like there�s a bit left at the bottom, but that�s a trick of the light. Well, there�s a trace, but such are the tantalizing effects of friction and viscosity that, should that bottle be inverted for eternity, that trickle of cleansing goo would never reach the tip but remain in adhesive limbo on the inner, like so much forlorn spermatazoa shipwrecked between the Scylla and Charybdis of the vaginal walls.

Man, this banana peel is good stuff.

No amount of shaking, teasing, scraping or industrial suction can prolong your function, loyal kitchen yeoman, and so like all non-bio-degradable matter, I commit your voided form to the bin.

And that can only mean one thing.

Ship it in, motherlover. Look at the vibrant azure promise ready to fountain forth from his virgin nib! Bountiful elixir! The cathartic fizz of baking soda is so close I can almost fuck it.

Let�s wash up!

READER!
You are invited to place your bets on when the new bottle of washing-up liquid will breathe its last. Hints:
1. I live alone. I realise this is the most self-evident piece of information since 'the sun is hot', but there you have it.
2. For breakfast I have a cup of tea and a yoghurt. This involved the dirtying of: teaspooon: 1, mug: 1.
3. I lunch at home perhaps three days a week.
4. I dine at home perhaps five nights a week.
5. I never cook anything in the oven that will subsequently require me to clean it.
6. I do not incorporate the use of washing-up liquid in self-abuse practices. Although...check out the come-to-bed-label on that baby.

PLACE YOUR BETS!

Profilage - Previosity - Nextitude