Relaxation in the work place.

For various cabalistic and esoteric reasons, since I started my PhD, certain members of staff have taken it upon themselves to bombard my email account with an excremental torrent of nonsense.

"The filters on the roof are currently undergoing their bi-annual service. Would all PhD students kindly refrain from venting poisonous gases into the atmosphere?"

What!? I'm particularly baffled by the request to 'kindly refrain' from this bizarre activity, because to do so grudginly would not really be in the spirit of things.

"Out of respect for our non-Christian friends Pancake Day will now be refered to a Non-denominational, Fried Batter Day."

The other day I received one such missive informing me of a 'Relaxation Workshop for Staff'. I sensed the immediate onslaught of new-age bollocks.

"UCS is running a series of relaxation workshops for University staff. No previous experience is necessary. You are advised to wear loose, comfortable clothing. The emphasis will be on recognising the mind-body link so each session
will focus on both mental and physical relaxation techniques. Sessions
will include stretching, breathing, relaxation and guided visualisation."

I can just imagine a room full of slightly nervous academics trying not to giggle as a dread-locked, Earth-mother type bullies them into manipulating their auras or stimulating their chakras or some such pointless, parasitic drivel. My own favoured method of relaxation is to return home, eat a bowl of noodles and indulge in a strenuous bout of self-abuse, but I am aware that the group applications of 'The Duffy Method' are limited to a small number of private clubs in Soho.

As a more realistic alternative I am running my own 'Relaxation in the Workplace' workshop. It costs twenty quid and runs for four hours, consisting of 9 twenty minute
lectures. and a break for lunch.

high-tar smoking.
covert office/lab lechery (incorporating internet pornography).
poorly thought-out workplace flirtation.
scratching the inside of ones ear with a biro.
wikipedia vandalisation.

lunch: four cans of "tennents super strength" followed by twenty minutes of
crying in the stationary cupboard.

low-stakes internet gambling.
office/lab prescription drug abuse.
looking out of the office window and weeping.
cathartic machine-gun workplace massacre.

I'm taking bookings now and I assure you there will not be the slightest bit of 'guided visualisation'.

Gillian 'Fucking' McKeith.

Those of you that know me will be aware of the fact that I am a bitter and unfulfilled little troll of a man. When not picking at the great cosmic scab of theoretical physics I like nothing better than hassling the celebrity parasites currently squeezing the life out of this country.

Of all of these media threadworms the turd-chomping, meddling ratbag Dr (ha ha) Gillian McKeith is by far the most loathsome. In my opinion, she is a charlatan of the most dangerous kind.
One of her outrageous claims is that eating lots of chlorophyll 'will oxygenate the blood'. Lies! My PhD is based on the study of the photo-physics of these compounds and any scientist would know that photosystem 2 produces oxygen by reducing water in the presence of light. Imagining for a minute that these infinitely complex structures survive being digested and are then strangely ignored by our own immune system, there is still no source of sun-light inside the body. Even if she does believe that the sun shines out of her obsessively maintained arse.

Anyway, enough of the science. I believe that it is the God-given right of every human on this toilet Earth to be unhealthy. If I decide to eat nothing but 'Sherbet Dip-Dabs' for a month then I shall do so without guilt. If, on the slightest whim, I choose to smoke crack until my head explodes then no Scotch coprophile is going to stop me.

So I decided to send her a query that would really stretch her dubious abilities.

Dear Dr McKeith,

I am writing to you regarding a most troubling dietary/nutritional problem. For the last few months I have been plagued by a buttock-clenchingly terrifying nightmare.
I find myself crawling through a dark, organic-looking tunnel. I am up to my delicate ankles in sludge and a foul miasma fills the air. I hear the sound of childish laughter all around, teasing me, toying with me. I walk for what seems like hours and suddenly I am confronted by a ghostly lady. She is nude, with full pendulous breasts and weighty buttocks lit by a sickly, bacterial glow. As she opens here mouth to speak a giant millipede emerges and crawls along the fetid floor toward me. The lady promptly draws a gun from out of her curly, greasy hair and forces me to copulate with this giant arthropod.
I wake screaming.
My bookie Ted told me to eat nothing but 'Dairylea' for a week, the purpose of which was to raise the level of my nightmares to fever-pitch, thereby allowing me to confront my chitinous rapist and resolve the issue once and for all.
I now feel rather sick. Please advise.

yours

Christopher Duffy

She didn't reply. I am assuming that a life spent rooting around in poo has left Dr McKeith bereft of basic manners. For shame Gillian.

Office Tedium.

The previous evening my friends and I were discussing a most rewarding topic, viz. if one were to go "chicken oriental" in the work-place, shooting indiscriminatly at your colleages in a cathartic explosion of nihilistic fury, what song would be playing through your headphones?
During the terrible act itself, we decided (within a worryingly short time) on "What's a matter you? (Shaddap a your face!)," by Joe Dolce. We felt that the upbeat pastiche of Italian-American domestic life would provide the orgy of slaying with a certain rhythm, the blasts of the shot-gun nicely timed to match the repeated "hey!"
For the immediate aftermath, when you gaze at the smoldering carnage around you before reaching into your pocket with blood-caked hands and taking out the crumpled photograph of your
long-lost sweetheart, giving it one last kiss before turning the gun on yourself, we opted for Ultravox's "Vienna".


(One last sob.)
The feeling has gone only you and I.
(look at the photo of your lost love and realise that when she promised to love you forever she actually meant just under two years.)
It means nothing to me.
(place the gun in your mouth and mourn for all that you have lost)
This means nothing to me.
(BLAM!)
Oh Vienna!