Panel Beaters

So the BBC is determinedly flying the flag for women’s rights. It is going to outlaw all-male comedy panel shows.

Instead of a boorish line-up of testosterone heavy, self-opinionated satirists we’re going to have some women thrown into the mix. Proper women. Not Lilly Savage or Dame Edna. But real bona fide women. Comediennes.

I’m sure this new stance has nothing at all to do with the recent slash and burn effect of Operation Yewtree on the BBC’s standing as a noble bastion for equality and fairness. This is something that has bugged the BBC for a long time; it’s something they have always wanted to address and by golly they are finally going to do it.

Move over David Mitchell and Dara O’Briain – here come the girls.

And I think this is fine. This is a good move.

Except a few writers / journalists / commentators have asked the question: are women going to be asked to appear on these shows because they are funny or because they are women? If it’s the latter then is gender equality really being served?

But, the thing is, how does one judge “funniness”? How is it determined and measured? Because, to be honest, a lot of the male contestants on these unspecified panel shows don’t strike me as being particularly funny at all. Ross Noble, Johnny Vegas, et al leave me cold. So were they invited to be contestants because they were funny or just because they were men and “big TV names”?

Because aren’t there possibly more male big TV names than female big TV names in the first place simply because showbusiness, like every other industry, is traditionally weighted in favour of unthinkingly promoting male talent over female talent every chance it gets?

My point is, if nobody is asking “are they funny” of the male contestants before inviting them onto a panel show then should it be seen as a deal breaker for a comedienne? Why is the question even being asked? If they are professional comediennes, making money and a career out of performing their own comedy routines, surely that is the only prerequisite answered?

Humour is subjective. There is no way to benchmark it. At the end of the day these shows are simply star vehicles; there are a means of exposure for up-and-coming and established artists. And if women are being under-represented then that is wrong and it needs addressing.

Are they funny?

We viewers at home should have the right and the opportunity to judge for ourselves. All-male panel shows deny everybody that opportunity.

Case rests.

Crank Call Ho Ho Ho

The many vagaries of my job means I am pretty much on call 24/7 365 days a year.

Now this isn't as bad as it sounds as there are a quite a few procedural steps and procedural get-out clauses that for 95% of the time means I am saved from a small-hours walk to my place of work and the onerous task falls to a third party who is paid a hell of a lot more to do this element of the job than I am. I won't go into details for security reasons (i.e. I'd have to kill you all).

So. When the telephone rings late at night I have been systemically programmed to awaken and answer it not matter how tired or how previously unconscious I might have been.

I do not do this, as a rule, with any grace or magnanimity. I do, however, do it being of a conscientious mind and bent.

The telephone rang last night at 12.33am. Given the high winds I feared the worst - a smashed window or a blown open door at my place of employ; a 45 minute round dash out of the warm comfort of my own home and into the freezing cold elements just to close an effing door and silence and reset the alarms.

As it was, it was neither of the above scenarios. Neither was it that even more rare event: a genuine break-in.

No. It was a crank call.

And not even a crank call. A crank text / voice message.

Some joker (and I use than moniker very ironically) had decided to sent a text message to my landline which is then recited to me by a computer.

The message was innocuous but subtly malicious; something along the lines of: "Sorry. My mistake. I did not mean to call you. Boo hoo. Boo hoo. Boo hoo. I hope I did not wake you up. Boo hoo."

The voice messaging service is such that, had I not taken the initial call, the phone would have rung out again and again and again until the message was delivered.

I was not amused. I was awake. Awake and pissed enough to check my phone to see if I recognized the originator's number.

Because the cretin obviously did not realise that along with the message, the computer also logs the telephone number of the twat sending it and gives it out to the recipient.

The number was and is unknown to me, mores the pity.

Now, I have developed 2 theories to describe the night's events.

1) This was someone who was drunk, infantile and comedically challenged and who on a whim decided to waste their immorally earned money on a random text message to a random telephone number that they picked out of a phone book by flopping their infinitesimally small penis onto the yellowing page flapping in front of them. In short, I (literally) drew the short straw but may have inadvertently helped this small pewling, emotionally backward baby of a human being feel momentarily like they were king of the world. Or at least king of the bus shelter that they were trying to unsuccessfully masturbate into.

2) This is some lowlife scum who knows me, has got hold of my landline number, knows I am on call and therefore will be primed to answer the clarion call of the telephone and decided it would be funny to wake me and potentially my wife and children via a prank call that only highlights how pathetically passive-aggressive and emotionally stunted their entire existence is. Oh and they may have a have a very small penis too and / or saggy tits that droop down to their toenails.

Either way I don't really care.

But I do want recompense.

I am reliably informed that if you dial 141 before dialling someone's telephone number the call goes through anonymously. They won't be able to see your caller ID. This, alas, does not work for text messages but no mind. Normal voice calls are good enough.

The person who woke me so rudely last night has the following number: 07817 449153.

Now, I am not inciting anyone to do anything. Not anything at all. But should, you know, you feel like making a random late night telephone call or feel like signing the above telephone number up to services both dubious and ridiculous, well, who am I to stop you?

This person plainly has a marvellously over-developed sense of humour (alongside a curiously under-developed sense of personal data security) and would, I like to imagine, be well-up for some jolly japes of a likeminded manner.

Do go and fill yer boots, good people.

It is, after all, Christmas and the season of goodwill to all men.

Ho ho ho.

If The Cap Fits...

So having taken the kids to Cadbury World and finding myself channelling a couple of comedy legends (a weird hybrid of Jim Carrey and Eric Morecambe) I thought it would be simply hilarious to pull a face on one of the rides that you simply have to go on while you're there.

No. You really do have to go on them. There is no way to get from one part of the factory to the other except by bizarre toyland tram-car through the disturbing dimensional rift that is Chuckleville.

Being an old hand at Cadbury World I knew there was a camera positioned halfway through the route that takes candid snaps of interlopers as they crawl their way through the alien landscape of chocolate bean land that you then feel morally obliged to buy and hide away in the loft (kidding yourself that this is the only copy and the good people of Cadbury World burn all the negatives).

Wouldn't it be a jolly jape, I thought, if I was gurning like a good 'un at the moment the flash went off and oh how we'd laugh when it came time to pick up the photos?

It having been a number of years since I last played the Comedy Club I was missing the uplifting shot in the arm that is reactive laughter so I thought, what the hell, I'd go for it. It might even cheer up some of the Cadbury staff who looked like they'd been injecting chocolate like a cheap form of botox.

We went on the Chockie Bean public transport system. The camera flash went off. The picture was taken. And we went to collect our photo.

To quote a Danielle Dax album: "Comatose Non-Reaction".

Nothing. Na-da. Not a titter.

"Hmm," I thought to myself, "Either the good staff at Cadbury World are one paracetamol away from suicide or I'm losing me touch."

I'd pulled my best blimmy and put my glasses on upside down and everything. That should have had them rolling in the aisles.

Instead there was not a dickie-bird.

When I got the photo back I could see why.

There was utterly no effing difference in my appearance from when I look "normal" to when I was pulling the face that Jim Carrey would have paid good money to be born with.

I looked exactly the same.

I'm not quite sure what that says about me but I have no doubt at all you'll all be queuing up to tell me.

Stamp

Previous readers (and I am grateful that I can still use the plural) of this blog will know that I suffer a negative knee-jerk reaction when confronted televisually by comedian Ross Noble.

With the help of karmic breathing exercises, Valium and copious amount of chloroform I am now finally able to resist the traditional overpowering urge to launch my foot into the TV screen whenever Ross Noble appears and follow through with an uppercut of Street Fighter proportions. 

Because it isn’t him, it’s me. I am the problem.

I totally get and accept that.

He’s a nice bloke. He’s an ordinary bloke made good and it’s great that he’s made a name for himself. And everyone says what a nice chap he is. And a lot of people find him funny and warm and just nicely hilarious and off-the-wall without being offensive.

But his style of delivery winds me up something chronic and after just 30 seconds of one of his crazy Geordie monologues I have bitten my own teeth down to the gums and am chewing on my own tongue in frustration that I cannot do violence unto the true object of my wrath.

As I said, it’s not Ross’s fault. It’s nothing he’s done. It’s a genetico-biologico-social thing to do with me. He just doesn’t tick any of my comedy boxes whilst ticking all of my irritability boxes.

He makes me go grrrr!

There, I’ve said it.

Sorry Ross, I don’t find you funny. I’m sure you couldn’t give a hoot ‘cos lots of other people plainly do.

But your DVD did make me laugh out loud the other day...

...though not for any reason you can take credit for.

I’m assuming that the mystery shop assistant who applied the price tag and I are of a like mind.

5 Celebs I'd Like To Smack In The Mouth

This is the meme blogging was invented for. This is the meme that needs no invitation to participate. Since my first encounter with this meme on Friday over at Very Bored In Catalunya, I have since seen it spread like virtual smallpox through the blogging community. I knew it would only be a matter of time before I'd get infected and would need to scratch myself free of it online.

I was tempted to tone down the sentiments of the title. 5 Celebrities I'd Like To Punch / Hit / Twat sounded... well. A bit too violent. A bit too close to the tick boxes on the Government's anti terrorism laws. But 5 Celebrities I Don't Like Very Much sounded a bit weak. A bit wishy-washy. And at the end of the day a downright lie. 'Cos the celebrities I've named below do actually make me want to hit them. Repeatedly. And with an assortment of tools ranging from a tee iron to a Moulinex hand blender.

Sadly, coming to this party late some of the best celebs have already been named. So if you're wondering why Ricky Gervais isn't on my list it's because he's doing the rounds elsewhere. But just for the record: yes The Office was genius. So was Extras. But Ricky, your ego has bloated to the point where you are now just a cheap 'n' nasty, ungrateful, puerile little starfucker. You're an embarrassment.

Right. On with my official top 5 celebrities that make me gnash my teeth into rock salt.

Number 1) Eamonn Holmes.

I have been known to turn the telly off / over or just walk out of the room when this man appears on it. Eamonn is such a big cock that if someone one day was to bump him off the police would refer to it as spermicide. He oils himself over every show that he presents like a BP slick. His well of sparmy, self righteous, opinionated outpourings is totally uncappable. What annoys me most is the careful way he modulates his brogue so that he always appears right-on and "aren't you with me, boys and girls at home?" even when he is mouthing the most trite, absurd, chauvenist claptrap ever to infect UK daytime telly. How his wife doesn't stove his Frankenstein head in with a boom mic is beyond me. That woman needs a medal. Or a gun. Or a padded cell. Possibly all three.

Number 2) Glllian McKeith.

I have always maintained that this woman is a nasty piece of work. Recently she made a complete fool out of herself by appearing on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here and screaming at absolutely everything. Comedy central. But she then appeared on daytime TV to try and defend her appalling performance. I have phobias, she wailed, phobias about insects, dirty water, mud, fish, oxygen, plimsoles, Australian accents, clean hair, body fat and I just didn't know anything at all about the show before I agreed to go on it because I live in an ivory tower made out of pure Actimel, please pity me, for I was brave... Bollocks. This woman has humiliated countless men and women on her so-called "health shows" before Channel 4 pulled the plug on them (round about the same time it was revealed that her so-called medical qualifications had been printed in the Church of Elvis Presley in Las Vegas). She forced morbidly obese people to stand in baths full of lard, forced them to confront a week's worth of food all in one go just to shame them into adopting her celery and nettle smoothies. These poor people who genuinely needed counselling before Gillian got her skeletal hands on them were reduced to sobbing wrecks. Sorry Gillian, but when encouraging people to adopt a healthier lifestyle I fail to see how destroying their self esteem can be of any benefit. And here is the argument to end all arguments. Gillian McKeith and Nigella Lawson are of a similar age. Who looks the healthiest to you? Enough said.

Number 3) Richard Madeley.

The Tim Nice But Dim of daytime telly. Though I suspect the Nice part is possibly not true. Richard is that creature commonly known as the "embarrassing dad". He tries to maintain his cool. He tries to maintain his street cred. He never acts his age. And like Eamonn above he always presents his verbal hiccups as being the height of reasonability, innit, and totally metrosexual new man-ish and I is in touch with me feminine side, innit, cos Judy won't let me anywhere near hers now the HRT is beginning to fail. Judy annoys me too but less so; precisely because she has a cross to bear in the shape of Richard. I have seen her cast plainly murderous glances his way on live telly. Looks that say, "for God's sake Richard, stop being a complete and utter dick and just shut the eff up before I knife you in the gizzard with a whale bone from my corset." But she never does. She holds back. And thus we all suffer. All of us. And that is damned annoying.

Number 4) Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

A man whom the devil surely created out of an old welly, a smidgen of old bathroom tile grout and the face of a monkfish. Hugh extols the virtues of the 'back to nature' lifestyle. The good life. Grow your own. The fact that Hugh has undoubtedly grown his own and is now looking for people to insert them into is something that gives me nightmares. Farmers and smallholders should be grubby. I know this. But the grubbiness that Hugh exudes is unhealthy. There is something deeply unsavoury about this man. His piggy little eyes blaze with a furious belief in his own superiority. I don't buy all that "I'm chummy with the locals" on his damned River Cottage shows. I bet he tries to Lord it over all of them with his smarmy city ways and his rare breed sheep. My only hope is that the locals are building a big Wicker Man in which Hugh and his sheep can be ritually sacrificed purely for my televisual entertainment. That is a show I'd gladly watch.

Number 5) Ross Noble.

Yeah. A bit left field this one. Normally I'm OK with comedians. Even if I don't find them particularly funny they don't tend to annoy me to the point of explosive hemorrhoids. But Ross does. Because he won't shut up. I've seen him on TV countless times - Jonathan Ross, QI, Have I Got News For You - and he does the same thing every time. I'll jus kip talkin' like til I come oot with summat funny and that meks yus all laff even if that means I kip talkin' absoloot bollux fer aboot half a frigging hour. On and on and on. I mean Johnny Vegas is bad enough but Ross Noble can run a marathon of mediocrity with his tongue just to reach a lame, exhausted punchline at the finish point. That isn't humour. That isn't wit. Wit is to the point and sharp. A quick jab to the ribs and out again. Not month after month of beating someone with a tripe casserole until they fake their laughter just to get you to shut up and go away. Ross, you'd be funny if it wasn't for your personality and the way you tell your jokes. The only cure is to let someone else do it for you. Honest.

OK guys, now it's over to you. I won't name names to pass this meme onto. Merely feel free to help yourselves and have a ball.

I know I have.

Touch My Body

At least once during the average working day I will heed the call of the chocolate. Usually around the mid afternoon point I will get the urge to consume a quantity of cocoa based confectionary. My hit usually takes the shape of either a Yorkie or a Dairy Milk bar. My supplier is just around the corner, barely 50 yards away, and exists in the shape of a little downtown newsagent. His proximity means I can sneak out, score some choc and be back at my office desk before anyone even knows I am gone.

I have the procedure down pat.

And by and large it works well. Except when the normal shop assistant has the afternoon off and is replaced by Jabba The Hut. I don’t know what Mr Hut’s problem is (apart from a low metabolic rate, an underactive thyroid gland and man-boobs that could envelope Katie Price) but he plainly doesn’t have the energy or the enthusiasm to “customer face” effectively.

He refuses to move out from behind the till.

And when I say “behind the till” I really mean behind the till. He wedges himself in there so tightly that the cash drawer must create an S-bend in his colon every time he rings up a sale and his back must bear the imprint of shelf after shelf of Benson & Hedges.

Worst of all is when it comes time to pay for a purchase. I select my bar of choice. I drop it onto the counter to indicate that, yes, this is the bar that I want to get orally intimate with and I hold out my loose change (being mathematically astute enough to work out in advance how much money I must hand over to him to avoid accusations of theft). At this point the normal shop assistant – if she were present – would stretch out her hand also. We would bridge the counter with our arms and meet half way above it whereupon I would place the money easily into her hand.

Not so, Mr Hut.

His hand stays more or less adhered to his gut but as a small concession forms a small palmy plateau into which I am expected to drop my hard earned wonga. I have to practically bend myself double over the counter to achieve this. Anybody passing by would think I was making a pass at the big moody brute. He then compounds this act of rudeness – for that is what it is – by scooping my change out of the till and again offering it to me in the same agoraphobic manner. I have to reach over, one leg out like a snooker player playing a bridge shot and try and retrieve my rightful change at full stretch. As I do so my hand grasps unwholesomely close to his cardiganned moobs.

It’s infuriating.

I have been tempted to throw my money at him or even to drop it onto my side of the counter... but I suspect it and he will merely sit there glowering at me until I rescind and push it closer to him.

I could go elsewhere for my chocolate treat, I suppose, but nowhere else is as close or as convenient. My afternoon sneak-outs would be in danger of being rumbled (if I haven’t already rumbled them myself with this blog of course).

And I daresay some of you might suggest I just give up the afternoon chocolate scam altogether – much the easiest solution... and better for my health and my wallet.

But really! Give up chocolate?

Are you effing crazy?

Come on, people. Serious, workable suggestions only, please.

Just A Laugh

Having been on the nasty end of a stupid prank recently the news that Jonathan Ross and the bandy-legged Russell Brand are currently immersed up to their designer hips in hot water has struck a chord with me far more than perhaps it normally would.

Apparently, on Brand’s Radio 2 show, the pair left “sexually offensive” phone messages to old thesp, Andrew Sachs, claiming that Brand had slept with the actor’s granddaughter, Georgina Baillie (23), and that Sachs might kill himself upon hearing the news.

Hmm. As pranks go it’s pretty pathetic and the kind of thing that any half-baked sixth former could come up with in their wet-dreamed sleep.

Now I’ve done my own fair share of ringing up pubs and asking for “Mike Hunt” in my time but public humiliation on a national scale is something that – even in my selfish “the world owes me” teens – I would have steered well clear of. Forget the swing of a moral compass, surely your own common sense would tell you that this was a bad idea?

Sachs has taken it badly. His granddaughter has taken it worse and who can blame her? Personally I’d rather people think I’d shagged Jonathan Ross than Russell Brand but the poor girl has had little say in the matter.

What is interesting is that the prank was pre-recorded and approved by the show’s producers. The BBC initially defended it… but now that the media tsunami is hitting their sun loungers they are grovelling apologies in every shade of yellow imaginable.

There are calls for Ross and Brand to be removed from air.

I feel surprisingly ambivalent about it.

Should the pair be sacked? I don’t think so. As much as I dislike Brand (and have waxed vile about his shenanigans before) both of them have been very quick to publicly and vociferously apologize to the public and to Sachs and to his granddaughter for the joke.

Personal accountability goes a long way towards forgiveness in my book.

The gag was ill thought out and the producers – or somebody – should have had the brains to say no. “Sorry lads, this one is (a) just not funny and (b) is just going to result in a lot of adverse feedback – lets just stick to making adolescent innuendoes about the birds we fancy from the telly…”

The producers are just as – if not more – culpable. Maybe they are the ones who should be sacked?

A slap on the wrist, though ineffective and hardly a deterrent to Ross and Brand and not likely to satisfy Sach’s sense of justice is at the end of the day the only sensible course of action. Sacking them will solve nothing. Some other channel will only snap them up and make gold with the furore that they bring along with them.

The deed is done. They’ve owned up and apologized. Time to forget it and move on. It is the only wise way forward.

Hidden messages?

Who? Me?

Addendum

I apologise for the lengthy nature of my previous post as I don't usually indulge in great long tirades that last for days at a time but the event that sparked it was a little out of the ordinary. Thank you to those kind and supportive bloggers who have read it and responded so positively. It has, I must admit, kept my hand firmly on the rudder when the otherwise choppy seas were beginning to persuade me to drop this blogging malarkey once and for all.

Right now I'm taking in a big gulp of sea air and I ain't going nowhere.

There have been further developments though. The mystery hoaxer has stained my phone once more with another text this morning that simply reads: "Hi Steve, just to let you know that you have been blogged."

I'm assuming this means the anonymous jokester has composed his own blog post in response to mine. It also seems to suggest that, whoever they are, they think I read their blog regularly and will find it.

Well sorry to disappoint you, "old chum", but I've no idea where or what you're blog is until you have the decency to tell me. I wonder if you'll have the courage to own up and identify yourself rather than keep plaguing me with unwanted texts. Because to tell you the truth I'd really not rather hear from you again.

The worst of it is that by not owning up this little scrote is trying to encourage the finger of suspicion to fall on absolutely everyone - Is it a fellow blogger? Is it a friend? Is it a work colleague?

As tactics go they are cowardly and nasty and have nothing to recommend them.

Maybe this person has published an apology on their blog? I don't know until I am able to read it. Maybe they've merely ranted at my lack of humour over their jolly little jape? If so I'd rather, to be honest, just not bother at all.

I'm now having to consider changing my mobile number which is a pain and an expense I can ill afford right now. The whole situation is grotesque and comes at the end of what has been a very difficult time for my family.

I've tried ringing this person's number several times now to see if I can at last put an identity to the idiot and bring this situation to an end but the phone is either switched off or rings out forever.

Whoever you are, you're a coward.

But that's for you to live and deal with.

As for me, I have a lovely family and some wonderful friends. I've wasted enough of my life on you, mystery hoaxer, as it is.

Either own up or disappear.

No Friend Of Mine

There’s somebody out there reading this blog who thinks they are my friend.

They know my name, my mobile telephone number and, more significantly, where I work.

Yesterday afternoon they thought it would be funny to send me a text message purporting to be from the Chief Executive of the Authority that employs me. It invited me to attend a meeting with the Chief Exec to discuss “blogging tactics used by me against” the authority that employs me.

Serious stuff. The stuff that, if proven, can lose people their jobs.

My first reaction was shock. I don’t think I’ve ever written anything on this blog that would count as “cyber terrorism” or “cyber sabotage”. I was on my way to University at the time to attend a lecture and so the feeling of displacement compounded my sense of confusion. There was no way I could sit calmly through a lecture with this hanging over me so I caught the bus straight back into town and to work.

So – a waste of bus fare and an important lecture lost to me forever.

Maybe at this point this mystery person who thinks they are my friend is chuckling away to him/herself (though I rather fancy it’s a him). Disruption caused. Panic initiated. Target hit.

I returned to work and the first thing I did was to ring my wife who was lovely and calming and supportive. But nevertheless the worry was very real. This could see me out of a job with two young children right before Christmas and with the country sliding into recession. Worst case scenario, perhaps, but it had to be faced.

Are you laughing openly now, mystery friend? Now that you know that your little joke ruined not only my afternoon but that of my wife? It must be hilarious to put someone through that sense of dread while you sit smugly at home in your armchair, proud of yourself. Such a consummate joker you are. Jeremy Beadle must be spinning in his box with sheer jealousy.

I had a couple of hours before the proposed meeting. Ample time to calm down a little and think it all through. Things weren’t quite right, you see. Things were – the more I thought about it – decidedly fishy. The Chief Exec hadn’t spelt his own name correctly. The originating mobile number didn’t match that on the work’s contact list. The grammar and punctuation was appalling, little better than that of a child (I know you’re not a child, friend, but this is meant to be insulting). And why would the Chief Exec use something as crass as a text when he could ring or send an email?

Of course, it is human nature to rationalize things. Although I was filled with doubts and suspicions – and these were gathering pace – they were not enough to completely eradicate the feeling that I still had to take the summons seriously and attend. Maybe he was a bad texter? Maybe the contact list was out of date? Maybe by sending a text he was making an effort to keep things “informal”?

At the appointed time I went to the Authority HQ and reported to the reception desk.

Friend, you are no doubt thinking at this point, “Success!” You got me there, mouth dry, ready for a showdown with the big boss that could see me potentially out of a job. Would I erase my blog? Would I remove the offending posts? No. I’d already talked this over with Karen. I believe in the things I have written here. I’m committed to them. I believe in them and my opinions. Let the worst happen but my writing stays.

This eleventh hour, friend, is the hour when you could have redeemed yourself a little. This was the moment when you could have rung and launched into your “Ha! Fooled you!” speech. I would have sworn at you. Called you an irresponsible little turd and worse. But that would have been the end of it.

But you didn’t ring. You let it all go ahead.

Do you consider it bravery, this allowing the joke to run on to its natural conclusion? Do you think in some way it proves that you too have the courage of your convictions?

Thankfully I had enough about me and enough suspicions to not drop myself in the poo. I pleaded ignorance as to the reason for the meeting, explaining that I’d just had a weird text summoning me here at this time. They confirmed my suspicions very quickly. The Chief Exec had not sent any text (he wouldn’t send texts anyway) and was in fact in Coventry this afternoon. I explained my suspicions that I’d been the victim of a hoax. They were very supportive. It’s amazing how supportive real friends and even casual acquaintances can be.

Did I still have the number that sent me the text?

I was tempted to give it. So tempted. But in the end I said that I’d foolishly deleted it. Better to nip this in the bud right here, I thought. Too many questions and I could be under close scrutiny for real...

So you got away with it, friend. But I did that for me – not for you.

Of course, now all is calm again I can see that I had nothing really to worry about. Blogging is not illegal. I haven’t written anything I believe that is damaging to my employers. Indeed I have never named them or the people I work with. And as Karen later pointed out, this is England not Zimbabwe. I am allowed to have and voice an opinion. It is not a sackable offence.

I’m proud that when it came down to it my opinion meant more to me than my job. But perhaps this is more foolishness on my part – a backward priority – but then there’s a lot of that about, isn’t there? It’s rather akin to putting an opinion or an idea – or a joke even – before a friendship. People do it.

I returned to work after apologizing to the receptionists for wasting their time. The few work colleagues I’d confided in were pleased to see me back and more pleased to hear how it had all panned out. The census of opinion was the same. Who would do such a thing? As jokes go it wasn’t even funny and given the current economic climate it was actually very nasty. Did I have any idea of who it could be who was behind it?

Oh yes, I said. I had a few ideas. A few inklings.

Has your laughter now finally abated, friend? Are you rubbing your hands with glee and carving another notch into the arm of your chair?

You’re probably outraged that I’m making such a big deal of this. You’re probably thinking me a drama queen and asking why I don’t see the funny side. Well, that’s easy to answer, friend: there isn’t one.

Most of all, you are probably thinking that you are still my friend.

But you’d be wrong.

I don’t have time, energy or the inclination to keep friends like you.

This is truly where the joke ends.

See you. Wouldn’t want to be you.