Red Carpet Treatment

As we can see with those attending this week's G20 summit, whenever Heads of State or other important dignitaries pay a visit, people always roll out lengths of red carpet for them, hence the term "the red carpet treatment". The idea is that VIPs can cross from point A to point B without having to soil their shoes on the pavement or risk stepping in a turd. Furthermore, if they're pissed at the time, it probably makes it easier for them to walk in a straight line.

But red carpets, it seems, are regarded as very personal things, like toothbrushes, hair combs, and vibrators. That's to say, if you have one, you're normally loath to share it with anyone else. I know this because I once stepped on President Mitterand's outside the Ritz (his red carpet, not his vibrator), and was immediately chased away by a large man in sunglasses.

The concept of an individual red carpet seems to me to be a tremendous waste of material, however, especially if the dignitary in question can't park his car properly. He might end up at an angle, for example, five feet or more from the kerb. Maybe standard issue red carpet comes supplied with an extra ten feet or so to allow for this kind of thing. Whatever, there ought to be a more efficient solution.

An obvious one, of course, is simply to glue a couple of red carpet tiles to the dignitaries' shoes for the duration of the event. Unfortunately, there are a few drawbacks to this. Because red carpet tiles are readily available in any DIY store, anyone could glue them to his feet and pretend to be someone exalted. Then, before you knew it, you'd have complete nobodies walking into, say, new art galleries or supermarkets and declaring them open. Or worse, a red carpet tile-equipped nobody could travel to Moscow and conclude a nuclear disarmament treaty with Vladimir Putin, thus leaving the UK effectively defenceless in the face of a renascent, increasingly bellicose Russia.

In my opinion, top hotels, theatres, ministries, and so on, ought to supply individual stiffened loops of red carpet, about 16 feet or so in circumference. Then, on State occasions, doormen could wheel them out to the dignitaries' cars and invite them to step inside and start walking. Thus the VIPs could go any distance they desired, confident that there would always be red carpet beneath their feet. Navigation might be a problem, as the VIPs wouldn't be able to see where they were going. However, it could be overcome by the doormen giving directions: "Left a bit, Your Majesty. Mind the lamp post. That's it. Over the kerb, now. Watch out for the dog turd on your far left." And so on.

Or the VIPs' security personnel could steer them instead. The only really serious dangers would come if you had several hundred dignitaries arriving somewhere simultaneously for a state function. Then it would probably become necessary to establish some sort of traffic control system, where you'd give kings' and queens' red carpet loops right of way over those of prime ministers and foreign secretaries.

On the other hand, it could cause a bit of trouble. For instance, a king might assume he had automatic right of way over a president. For his part, the president might think that, seeing as he's an elected representative of the people rather than being a mere hereditary head of state, his loop of red carpet should be given precedence. Another European war could result, infinitely more terrible than the First and Second.

Bubbles

As I wandered through Waitrose this morning, I noted products such as soda water syphons and those plastic Sodastream machines whose function is to put carbonated bubbles into water and juices. They're very popular. The idea is that when you eventually drink the stuff, you experience a refreshing fizz. All well and good - provided you're into fizzy drinks.

However, there must be thousands of people who aren't - people who crave a beverage unsullied by even a single bubble. Yet, fizzy drinks outnumber still drinks on the supermarket shelves by a factor of at least 10:1. Indeed, many drinks - Coca Cola, Sprite, Perrier, and so on - can only be bought with bubbles already added. Which is a bummer if you like the flavour but are determinedly anti-bubble.

Why, then, don't manufacturers supply machines that work like Sodastreams in reverse and extract bubbles from fizzy drinks to render them still?

I suppose one of the problems lies in the fact that fizzy drink manufacturers don't actually say how many bubbles each beverage contains, or indeed if the bubble count is even consistent from can to can. So you might guesstimate a can of Coca Cola as having, say, 10,256 bubbles and hit the "Extract" button. But on drinking the end result, you could find that it in fact had 10,550 bubbles. Therefore the remaining 294 bubbles would hit you hard. Worse still, you could guess at 20,000 bubbles, when actually the drink only had 5,000. I imagine that trying to extract bubbles that weren't there would have some effect at the molecular level and cause the drink to go critical, devastating wide areas of the countryside.

In my opinion, therefore, fizzy drink manufacturers ought to be required by law to state exactly how many bubbles their products contain. Then extraction machines would become viable. And of course, the bubbles you extracted could be combined together to form one massive, fuck-off bubble which could be re-inserted into a fizzy drink to make it really refreshing. So refreshing, indeed, that people might start overdosing on the stuff.

But at least Coke then really would be "the real thing". Or, at least, a reasonable simulacrum of same.

Transformation

If someone claims that, far from being, say, an ordinary run-of-the-mill plumber, electrician, or stockbroker, he is in fact Hitler, Napoleon, or Jesus, invariably, he will be locked up. But if you say that, though you may look like a man, you are in fact, inwardly, a woman, you're permitted to have a sex-change operation, usually on the NHS.

This is an iniquitous situation. Common sense tells us that a man who yearns to have his dick cut off, go on a course of hormone therapy, get silicon implants, wear dresses, and call himself Yvonne is equally as mentally ill as someone who wants to wear a tricorn hat and invade Russia. So why are the two treated differently?

In my opinion, this discrimination should end. And for the better. In future, anyone who believes that he is actually Jesus Christ should be given the requisite cosmetic surgery to enable him to look like our Lord. On the NHS, too. This way, when, eventually, he tries walking on water, raising the dead, or performing an ascension into Heaven, he'll soon discover that he isn't actually divine at all. Result: an instant cure. Of course, he'll still look like Jesus, but that will be his permanent punishment for acting like such a fucking arsehole in the first place. Likewise with all the rest of the self-deluding individuals.

There are a couple of downsides here, though. For instance, if two surgically transformed mental patients who believe themselves to be, respectively, Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington, manage to surround themselves with a few thousand surgically transformed mental patients who believe themselves to be, respectively, early 19th century French cuirassiers and early 19th century British infantry, inevitably, there's going to be some sort of ruck. However, as long as they can confine their dispute to somewhere that doesn't matter, such as Belgium, it needn't be too much of a problem. The Low Countries could do with being ravaged by another military campaign, anyway. Bunch of cunts.

Double Glazing

Yesterday I found another mobile phone in the pub, obviously mislaid by its owner. The thing was on full charge and its service hadn’t yet been disabled so, as always on these occasions, I took the opportunity to dial random numbers and attempted to sell people double-glazing.

I’m actually quite good at this because, having no overheads whatsoever (and, obviously, no double-glazing) I’m easily able to undercut the competition. Typically, for example, I can charge just £1,000, inclusive of labour, to replace all the windows in a house, front and back, with ultra-modern uPVC ones, incorporating internal-beading and Pilkington’s energy-saving OptiWhite Glass. Eat your fucking heart out, Everest. All I ask is that customers take out their own windows first of all, at their own expense, at which point I say I’ll come round and fit the replacements. During the course of the afternoon, I made at least half a dozen confirmed “sales” and perhaps another ten or so “maybes.” And aren’t they going to feel like total cunts when I don’t turn up and they’re left with big, gaping holes in the walls of their homes?

It’s a pity, really, that such mobile phone technology wasn’t available to besieging armies in ancient times. One thinks, for instance, of the 66 – 70AD siege of Jerusalem where the army of Titus was forced to employ three entire legions over four years in an attempt to take the city. However, had Titus just used my stratagem on day one, phoned Simon Bar Giora, and offered to fit, at cost, new, energy efficient aluminium framed windows throughout Jerusalem, the Zealots would no doubt have knocked holes in their own walls to accommodate them, thus affording instant access to the Romans. Then they could have quickly and easily subdued the place – in just a day, maybe - without destroying the Temple. Thus we’d be spared Tisha B’Av, and you’d be free to shag Jewish women on the 29th of July this year.

Not that I necessarily want to shag any Jewish women on the 29th of July, but I’d at least like it available as an option should I feel the urge on that date. And, as an added bonus, having experienced my superior cocksmanship, I’m sure they’d be more receptive to my attempts to sell them double-glazing, so it would be a win-win situation, as they say. Indeed, fuck it, I’m that good, I could probably sell them single-glazing.

Cereal

Yesterday evening in Waitrose I was buying oats, one of the constituent elements of my world-beating muesli. While doing so, I took the opportunity to peruse the other, competing breakfast cereals that are now available. The different brands and varieties are indeed many. But why, I asked myself, is one's choice of packet size so restricted?

Take, for example, Frosties. These are currently sold in only three sizes: large, medium, and individual. But in the latter case, one is obliged to purchase, not just an individual serving of Frosties, but a whole box, or so-called “Variety Pack”, containing little boxettes of Ricicles, Cocopops, and so forth, as well - each sufficient for just a single bowl.

Ridiculous.

If you’re a Frosties Man, you’re a Frosties Man, and nothing else will do. Far better, I think, to sell Extended Family Packs of Frosties, about the size of freight containers. Just one of these could keep you in breakasts for a whole year. As an added bonus, you'd only have to collect the one packet top in order to qualify for your free bathroom towel. (Or maybe collect five, and get a free bathroom.) Similarly, whereas a medium packet of Frosties only has one little plastic Tony The Tiger inside, an Extended Family Pack could accommodate a whole, genuine tiger. It might protest a little, of course, if you poured it into a bowl, doused it with whole fat milk, and then unknowingly bit into its tail, but at least the overall breakfast experience would become a tad more exciting.

At the other end of the spectrum, I feel more variety in size should be offered, too. Bulimic fashion models, for example, often find it a lot of hassle having to throw up an entire serving of Frosties every morning. For them, Kellogs should sell sachets, each containing just a single, individual Frostie. Someone like Kate Moss could swallow one of these and puke it out into the lavatory in a near simultaneous action, pausing only to snort another line of cocaine from the porcelain.

Then there are particle physicists. For them, Kellogs could sell Frosties that only actually exist at a sub-atomic level. These could then be put into particle accelerators and bombarded with deuterium to create anti-Frosties. When a sufficient mass of anti-Frostie met a similar mass of Frostie, energy equivalent to the birth of the universe would be created, thus freeing Mankind from its dependence on fossil fuels.

It therefore makes sense to have a wide variety of packet sizes.

Brick Wall

You often hear people use the expression “It’s like banging your head against a brick wall.” The implication, of course, is that the activity you’re engaging in is futile and getting you nowhere, and so should be abandoned. Surely, though, this depends.

If, for example, your intention is to concuss yourself, then banging your head against a brick wall is actually a pretty efficient way of doing it, and therefore you should be applauded for your efforts and for your use of the expression. (Indeed, in this case, if you are trying to self-concuss but are getting nowhere with it, a better expression would be “It’s like head-butting a blancmange” or “It’s like banging someone else’s head against a brick wall.”)

Another problem I can foresee is that not all brick walls are equal. My own are fairly substantial and so if you did bang your head against them, you probably wouldn’t get anywhere, thus validating the expression. My neighbour, however, has a crap brick wall with bits missing and large gaps where the cement should be. If you banged your head against that you’d no doubt be through it in less than two minutes. Co-incidentally, my neighbour is also a homosexual. Perhaps, then, there’s some correlation between having a crap wall and going cottaging in public lavatories.

I definitely believe so. One reads, for instance, of Joshua and the Israelites besieging the walls of Jericho. Those walls were so crap that all the Israelites had to do was circle them seven times and blow a trumpet and then they fell down. The Bible, of course, doesn’t say that the inhabitants of Jericho were arse bandits, but it surely can’t be mere co-incidence that the Arabic for Jericho is ariiha, which means “fragrant.” QED, I think.

If your walls are crap, you are gay. So if we say “It’s like banging your head against a homosexual’s brick wall,” it means that the whole enterprise is very worthwhile. (Except, I suppose, if you’re gay and it’s your wall.)

Confectionery

In my opinion, cars should be made edible, their bodies and engines constructed out of a mixture of chocolate, marzipan, nougat, and icing. If nothing else, this would put an end to the scourge of so-called "weekend drivers" - those FUCKING CUNTS who crawl along at 20mph, when everyone else wants to put their foot down. They'd know that if they did drive too slowly, there'd be the risk of hungry pedestrians coming up and taking a bite out of their bonnet or eating their wing mirror.

Of course, edible cars displayed in showrooms would have to be printed with a "Drive By" date in order to guarantee freshness. And I imagine they wouldn't last as long as metal cars, unless you parked them in a big fridge every evening instead of a garage. Even then, three months would be your maximum. Not that this would be a problem. Chocolate and marzipan are comparatively inexpensive compared to metal, so you could replace the whole thing quite cheaply, having first of all dined out on it, if you wished.

This freshness aspect would probably put an end to the second hand car trade, however. There's no way you could pass off a stale car as being new, and it wouldn't matter how many careful owners it had had. If any shady salesman tried the "Look at this pristine condition Volvo, John. Fresh as the day it was baked - just one previous lady owner" patter, you'd be able to take a close look and see the maggots crawling out. The smell would probably be enough to put you off.

Edible cars would be a lot cheaper to repair, too, if small accidents took place. For instance, if you had a scrape, you'd simply take the car to a baker to be re-iced. Or you could even do it yourself. And high-speed road accidents would no longer be fatal. The consequence of what would in effect be two lumps of chocolate and marzipan colliding would probably be a new confectionery creation rather than a wreck.

There would be the risk, though, that really fat people might eat their cars and then claim on the insurance forms that they'd been stolen in order to get a free replacement. To prevent this, anyone with a waist in excess of 34 inches should be stomach-pumped when he submits his claims form, and the contents examined, just to be on the safe side.

Pagan

Yesterday afternoon I went for a walk by the river. It was a pleasant enough day, therefore I managed quite a few miles. Towards the end, tired by my exertions, I began to fancy a beer. Fortunately (or so I thought) a pub came into a view. A very pleasant one, too, judging by the exterior: hanging baskets, oak beams, leaded pane windows, and the rest. This being so I entered in order to assuage my thirst, certain that the interior, and all therein, would be of a commensurate standard.

I had been deceived. First off, the barmaid was an ugly fucking cow, completely out of keeping with the style and elegance of the building. Consequently, it was exactly as if I’d gone into what looked, from the exterior, to be, say, a picturesque 17th century Anglican church only to discover, on the inside, an altar constructed from a pyramid of human skulls manned by an Aztec priest, ready to rip the still-beating-heart from my chest. Not what I was expecting.

In my opinion, the brewery, McMullen’s, shouldn’t be encouraging the equivalent of pagan sacrifices. (Not on a Sunday, anyway.) At least pagans were honest about it. If you went to 15th century Mexico and climbed up one of their stepped pyramids, you knew exactly what you were going to get at the top. They didn’t post a sign outside saying “Free beer” or “Gorgeous dancing girls!!!” No, you could tell by the blood dripping from within, and the screams, exactly what was on offer. So, by the same token, if the exterior of the pub looks good, its barmaids ought to look good, as well. Or if they’re puke-inducingly ugly, then the pub should also look like a dump.

And another thing: When I started drinking my beer, some stupid cunt came up to me and tried to engage me in conversation. Why? I go into pubs to drink, not to talk. If I do want a fucking conversation, then I’ll take someone in with me. That way I can guarantee both the quality and content of that conversation. I do not wish to discuss the weather, football, or road congestion problems on the A10 into Hertford with some arsehole whose IQ is clearly at least 60 points lower than my own, thank you very much.

All in all, then, a not very satisfactory day. It’s just a good job I’m not an American or German high school student, otherwise I’d now want to go into class with an automatic weapon and start “taking out” the staff and pupils.

The City of God

Many people hereabouts have their newspapers delivered by a so-called “paper boy”. I’ve never understood why. It costs you more and there’s no guarantee as to exactly when, or if at all, the bugger will turn up. Whereas if you just walk down to the newsagent (it’s only five minutes away) you only pay the cover price for the newspaper and you get it at the time that you want it.

That said, I suppose, for those who do have their papers delivered, there is a certain serendipitous element, which might appeal. This is because the gormless little cunt regularly delivers the wrong newspaper, so you often don’t know whether you’re going to get The Catholic Herald or The Sunday Sport. Consequently, for those who were expecting to follow, say, the controversy over the canonization of Josemaría Escrivá, the opportunity, instead, to have a wank over Veronica Zemanova’s decision to “lezz it up, big style” must come as quite a pleasant surprise. On the other hand, if you were expecting to have a wank over Veronica Zemanova’s decision to “lezz it up, big style”, having to read about apostolica vivendi forma might come as something of a let-down (particularly if you’re still disillusioned over the fall-out from Vatican II). For this reason, I believe The Catholic Herald ought to incorporate a “Readers’ Wives” section, just in order to placate such unfortunates.

Then again, this might, in turn, force The Sunday Sport to offer 0898 numbers devoted to discussion of Humanae Vitae in their back pages, alongside the usual “Bored Housewives” and “Lesbian Teens” ads. This brings the risk that some perve will inevitably misdial and start talking to a nun or priest about his raging hard-on and his desire to stick it any which where. Which isn't something that nuns or priests (nuns, leastwise) have much expertise in.

Pondering the matter further, though, this might actually be a good thing and turn the perve to the Way of Righteousness. Like St Augustine of Hippo, for example. We’re never actually told the exact reason why he abandoned his life of wanton profligacy and embraced the Lord. Perhaps it’s because, back then, there was a similar sort of reciprocal agreement between the publishers of The Life of St Anthony of the Desert and the Fifth Century equivalent of Razzle, where each carried ads meant for the other, and Augustine went for the wrong one. So, expecting to be brought to arousal by chatting to a 16 year old nymphomaniac, he was instead induced by a religious correspondent to follow the path of celibacy and godliness, thus enabling him, later, to develop the concept of the Church as the spiritual “City of God.”

Having a good intellect in the first place must have helped, however. I somehow doubt that any of the the Fifth Century Veronica Zemanovas were in much of a position to frame the concepts of Original Sin. Not without charging you at least the equivalent £1.50 a minute, anyway.

Clouds

One of the prime characteristics of the Working Class is that they engage in manual labour (that's if they've actually got a job, of course). Superior people don't. They have cushy office jobs or, like me, work from home. People who engage in manual labour tend to sweat a lot - far more so than those who don't. And what happens to sweat? It evaporates, goes into the atmosphere, and eventually becomes water vapour. And, of course, water vapour is the main ingredient of clouds.

This means that clouds (or the majority of them, anyway) are FUCKING WORKING CLASS.

I personally object to having something proletarian suspended above me. I object even more if the fucker then rains on me. This means I'm not just getting wet, I'm getting Working Class, too. Something must therefore be done to distinguish Working Class clouds from those respectable ones that are caused by the perspiration from exclusive foreign resorts and expensive health clubs.


In my opinion, the Royal Air Force ought to actively seek out Working Class clouds. This they would do by flying their Harriers and Tornadoes over the sorts of areas where such clouds are most likely to develop. For example, cities like Liverpool and Birmingham, as well as areas like Brixton and Toxteth, are awash with proletarian sweat and so are more likely to have pleb nimbi above them. Having identified the clouds, the RAF should then spray them pink.

As a result, people on the ground would be able to look up into the sky with confidence. If they saw a grey or white cloud, they needn't be fearful of its raining on them. This is because it would most probably be the product of the glistening rivulets of perspiration flowing into Claudia Schiffer’s cleavage, and then on to her firm, pert breasts. However, if they saw a pink cloud, they'd know it was a common as FUCKING MUCK. They could therefore let it rain itself out, or be blown elsewhere.

Charity

This morning I was approached just outside Waitrose by a charity collector, rattling a box. She had nice tits, so I gave her £1, whereupon she affixed me with an “I saved the whales” or “I single-handedly saved Africa from poverty” (or whatever) sticker, before I quickly moved on. In fact, there were at least half a dozen of these people out there today, all exhibiting the same modus operandi. That’s to say, you gave them money (curiously, it didn’t seem to matter how much or how little) then they gave you a sticker, which you put on your lapel.

Thinking about it, though, this system stinks.

Why is it that everyone gets an identical sticker, regardless of how much they've given? Surely, it stands to reason that, if I donate, say, £1, then I should get a better sticker than someone who's only given 50 pence. Otherwise, it's like a car showroom selling everyone a Skoda or a Hillman Imp, regardless of whether they've paid £5 or £50,000.

To operate a fairer policy, charity collectors should be graded according to their rates. So, for instance, the bottom end operatives would wear jackets printed with "50 pence to £2". By law, they'd only be allowed to accept money within that range. If you wanted to give £5, you'd have to find a "£2.50 to £10" collector. This would go right to the top, where there would be collectors who'd refuse to accept anything but platinum Amex cards and bankers' drafts over £20,000. And, naturally, each grade of collector would dispense his own, distinctive sticker. In this way, those who'd given the most money would be readily distinguishable from the cheapskates.

I suppose there is potential here for abuse of the system. For example, the top end collectors, flush with money, might start to act like international banks, and invest their funds in all sorts of dubious causes. Do we really need the likes of Help the Aged and CAFOD trying to destabilise friendly, foreign governments, laundering drug money, and investing in North Korean nuclear arms projects? I don't think so.

The next time I pass a Help the Aged shop I’ll lob a brick through the window just to warn the bastards off.

Nice and Nasty

A well-known police interrogation technique is to have two officers, one a “Mr Nice”, the other a “Mr Nasty”, interview the suspect simultaneously. The idea is, if the prisoner knows himself to be guilty, he will eventually want to unburden himself to one of the interrogators. Exactly which one depends on his personality. A submissive type, for example, would tend to confide in Mr Nasty, while the extrovert would eventually empathise with Mr Nice.

This is a tried and trusted method of arriving at the truth, and one which I believe should be applied to other situations. And where is truth more in demand than in a clothes shop? How often, for instance, do we delude ourselves into thinking that a crap tie or suit is in fact fashionable? Who is there to point out the error of our ways? Having a spouse or partner along is no use, as they tend merely to back up our initial (and often erroneous) impressions of the clothing.

In my opinion, therefore, Mr Nice and Mr Nasty shop assistants should be employed. Having emerged from the fitting room, one would face them, and they would immediately go into their double act.

“That suit sucks DICK - like the person wearing it.”
“No, that suit is just so you. It makes you look like such a hunk.”
“Yeah, a hunk of raw meat. I’ll bet the only reason you've chosen trousers with turn-ups is so that they'll catch the dripping spunk after you've finished WANKING OFF over pictures of little boys.”
“Don’t listen. Those trousers are tailored exquisitely. They highlight your crotch perfectly”.
“It's a good job those trousers are so baggy - they conceal the fact of your DIMINUTIVE DICK.”

And so on.

Eventually, the combination of their praise and scorn would force you to plumb the depths of your psyche and come up with your true feelings re: the suit, in much the same way as a murderer's confession can be extracted from the slough of his despond by stick and carrot. Thus the purchaser would get true value for money. And as an added benefit, I'm sure such sales procedures would ensure that flared trousers were never again inflicted upon us.

Information Overload

It's a good job that information isn't a tangible, consumable substance. If it were, it might easily become possible to drain a book or magazine of its contents simply by reading it through once. There'd be nothing but blank pages left, plus the occasional boring paragraph that had been skipped. People who browsed bookshops could start doing serious damage to the stock. The situation would be closely akin to that of someone roaming the shelves at Waitrose, periodically breaking into packs of biscuits in order to nibble the chocolate ones.

Talking of supermarkets, this is another area where voracious readers could do a great deal of harm, especially in the tinned food section. Anyone who read the label on a can that declared itself to be, say, soup or beans would instantly delete that information. Which wouldn’t matter much if he then went on to buy it, but would be a real pain in the arse if he didn’t, as the next customer who came along would just see a bare, uninformative tin. He might chance it, of course, and buy, anyway. But if he did, could end up cooking himself cat food on toast later that evening.

I suppose some types of information would be more potent that others. Existentialist novels, for instance. Intellectuals who visited existentialist book clubs and who overdid it on such might come staggering out, intoxicated by the text. Indeed, self-control might disappear altogether. After six chapters of Martin Heidegger, I'd imagine the average person would probably get very uptight and filled with self-loathing, and so try to pick a fight with someone who’d got similarly nihilistic after five and a half chapters of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Come closing time, the pavements around these book clubs would doubtless be covered in festering pools of regurgitated Jean-Paul Sartre.

Another problem would be information bloat. An overly voracious reader could take in so much information that his head would expand, dangerously. In fact, his brain might get so heavy with the intake that his head would actually fall off. Consequently, university towns would become full of headless dons.

On the up-side, however, all of this would force doctors and dentists to continually update the magazines in their waiting rooms. There’d never be any more risk of reading yet another National Geographic from 1959, for example.

The War Against Terror

This morning I went to the baker in order to purchase a fresh baguette. Having done so, I exited the establishment. Normally, I have to open the door to accomplish this. Today, however, another customer, unprompted, opened it for me (he didn't tug his forelock, but you can't have everything). I said “Thank you,” or words to that effect. But – and here’s “the kicker”, as they say – as I went out, someone else came in, virtually simultaneously. He also said “Thank you” to the man who was holding open the door.

This is obviously an iniquitous situation. Clearly, the door had been opened for me and me alone, yet this other arsehole seemed to think that he had the perfect right to make use of the service, too, hence his entrance and accompanying words of thanks.

Why does this bother me so much?

Because, when I stayed at the Hotel Nacional in Cuba, the doorman there used to expect to receive one dollar each time he let me in or out. At the current rate of exchange, this is about 0.71 pence. Now, I’m not saying that the man that opened the door for me this morning is necessarily going to chase me up with an invoice, but, in these troubled economic times, one never knows. And if he does, he’ll probably expect 71 pence, too. Which effectively means that I’ll be paying for that other twat, as well. But even if he tries to be even handed, splits the fee, and only invoices me for 0.355 pence, I’ll still think it a little unfair. This is because I’m far fitter, more intelligent, and better looking than the second man, so my exit is actually worth a lot more than his entrance. Therefore, if you think it through logically, I’ll, in fact, be subsidising his lower IQ and overall decrepitude.

On consideration, an exact analogy is the situation in Gaza where, back in January, Hamas officials helped themselves to a good proportion of the aid provided in good faith by the United Nations. By the same token, then, isn’t it fair that I should treat that second man like a Hamas official? Accordingly, the next time I see him in the baker’s I’ll lob a phosphorous bomb at the cunt.

I will, of course, endeavour to ensure it’s a precision bombing, but I can’t absolutely rule out the chance of collateral damage to the baker’s shop and to his other customers. But better this, surely, than allowing the forces of terror to succeed in their goals. It's just to be hoped that George Galloway doesn't then add fuel to the flames by turning up with an aid convoy.

Road Traffic Accident

A few weeks ago, on a nearby stretch of road, I noted a dented lamppost, surrounded by flowers and a plethora of little wooden crosses. The reason for this, it seems, far from being some sort of new lamppost cult, as you might expect, is that a car had hit the thing and killed some, if not all, of its contents in the process. The various bit and bobs were therefore to commemorate the event.

Interestingly, last week, on this same stretch of road, just a few yards further on, I noticed another lamppost, almost equally dented, and with another load of flowers and crosses round it. My initial reaction that they'd run out of space round the first lamppost and so had decided to mutilate a second and similarly bedeck it as a sort of memento mori - had to be re-evaluated in light of new facts:

What had actually happened here, according to the local papers, is that there'd been a second fatal accident. Now, of course, some people in the area are complaining that this previously blameless road is an accident black spot, that speed restrictions should be brought in, and that loads of speed cameras and whatever else should be put up all along the length to dissuade drivers from travelling much over 30 mph. I, however, think this is a load of fucking nonsense.

To me, what happened is quite clear: The second driver had caught sight of the first lot of crosses, been distracted by them, and during this brief lapse of concentration, had ploughed into the next lamppost, with fatal consequences.

I suppose this sort of problem must have been particularly acute in the Golgotha area of Jerusalem back in Roman times. Whenever some chariot driver got pissed and smashed headlong into Golgotha's base, the Roman administration, as we know from the Gospels, usually stuck some crosses up in memoriam, decorating them with thieves and the occasional Messiah. But, as with St Leonard's Road, this could cause another chariot driver to look up at the sight, lose concentration, and plough into the hill, or into the nearby gate into Jerusalem. Which then meant you'd need another set of crosses, more thieves, and another Messiah to commemorate that particular accident. And so on and so on. It's a good job Jesus could resurrect so easily and thus be re-used. Not so the thieves, unfortunately.

Thinking about it, this fact could have pissed off quite a few people, thieves in particular. Especially when, inevitably and eventually, they noticed that it was always the guy on the middle cross who came back to life. I imagine it led to all sorts of "It's not fair I want to go on that one", "Fuck you this is mine and I'm not moving", and "How come He's got a crown of thorns and I haven't?" arguments. The sight of which, in turn, doubtless led to more road traffic accidents down below.

The whole sorry mess could have been avoided if the Romans had simply put speed bumps down on the road into Jerusalem, of course. But, then again, if they had, there'd most likely have been no Christianity, and so we'd all probably be Muslims by now.

The primary cause of ancient road traffic accidents

Traffic Management

I am sure everyone is aware of the existence of bell peppers, or capsicums as they're also known to Americans (or should that be capsica?). Hitherto, though, I'm sure most people regarded them merely as an edible vegetable, and nothing else. But now I have decided that they could be of some road safety value, too.

Red peppers actually start out green. It's as they slowly ripen that they gradually become red. This being the case, I reckon that they would make ideal "traffic lights" for snails.

At the moment, busy snail intersections can be lethal accident black-spots. Speeding snails, impatient to be on their way, simply don't pay attention to what's coming from their left and right sides. They just bomb across the junctions regardless. Little wonder that there are so many snail fatalities.

However, if unripened peppers were to be positioned at the crossroads, they would be able to control the traffic flow with great efficiency. Upon seeing a green pepper, the snail would know that it was safe to cross the intersection. But once that pepper turned red, he would know that he had to stop. In the meantime, in the other direction, a fresh green pepper would spring forth from the ground, indicating "Go".


Of course, it would be necessary to carefully co-ordinate the pepper growth cycles. It would be extremely hazardous, for example, if, due to adverse climatic conditions, none of the peppers ripened. Both lanes would be on "Go" and carnage would result. Conversely, if both sets of peppers were to ripen simultaneously, there would be gridlock.

Naturally, there's always going to be some cunt who'll try to jump the red pepper. To discourage this, large pots of salt should be suspended above the intersections, controlled by a mollusc GATSO. Upon spotting a miscreant, it would automatically tip the salt over him thus rendering him desiccated.

Body Double

You often hear of film stars requiring body doubles because certain bits of their anatomy just aren’t up to standard. Michael Douglas is a case in point. I read yesterday that, in the film “Basic Instinct”, the arse that’s displayed as he walks across the bedroom in the moonlight isn’t actually his own, but belongs to another, more posterially pert actor. Likewise, Demi Moore’s tits in the film “Indecent Proposal” were actually played by a model who specialises in mammary roles.

I approve wholeheartedly of this. Indeed, I feel that the concept ought to be applied in the real world, too, not just in the cinema and on television.

In my opinion, therefore, people’s individual physical attributes should be graded on a 1 to 10 basis. Bits that score 4 or below should be required by law to be hidden from public view. So if, say, you’re a woman and your knees score only 3½, you should be legally obliged to hire the services of body double. You’d then perch on her shoulders, your legs concealed by her jacket, while she displayed her own knees on your behalf. Likewise with other body parts. And if the aggregate of your body parts scores 4 or below, you should be walled up in your home and forbidden to go outside. Instead, you would be required to pay for a body double to impersonate you on a day to day basis.

Naturally, all this would be expensive. So I suggest that, when they’re young, people take out an insurance policy against turning ugly when they get older. Of course, the premiums would be far higher for those with two ugly parents, as there’d be more likelihood of their turning out nausea-inducing themselves in later life. Then again, I suppose you could defray some of the costs by agreeing to be exhibited in a freak show should this worst-case scenario actually happen.

Talking of which, most of the people in this village look as if they belong in a freak show. I must inform them of this fact. Then, perhaps, they’d agree to my acting as body double in their stead. I’d make a fucking fortune.

AC/DC

Back in the 1970s (and, as far as I’m aware, the expression might still be used today), if you wanted to describe someone as being bisexual, you’d say that he was “AC/DC.”

As you may know, in its original context, this describes electrical current. AC is the alternating variety, while DC stands for Direct Current. So why apply the terms to someone’s bedroom inclinations? It’s obvious, really: Electricity must be just as susceptible to variations in sexuality as humans. But which of the two is the gay electricity?

Could it be AC? I think not. Alternating Current is the electricity that comes from the national grid and which powers all domestic electrical appliances. If it were gay, it would, for example, go into my electrically operated fridge and turn its contents, including my milk, my frozen peas, and my ice cubes gay. Over a period of time, ingesting such foodstuffs would undoubtedly turn whoever ate them gay, as well. Thus far, however (and I’ve had nearly 50 years of exposure), I remain straight. Putting ice cubes into my gin and tonic doesn’t make me suddenly want to put on one of those leather biker caps, head off to The Admiral Duncan on Old Compton Street, and take it up the arse.

The inescapable conclusion, therefore, is that it has to be the DC electricity that does make people want to put on one of those leather biker caps, head off to The Admiral Duncan on Old Compton Street, and take it up the arse. Users of DC-powered electrical goods – those with batteries, in other words - should be warned. These include i-Pods, portable strimmers, and battery-operated shavers. (Though, arguably, anyone who uses a battery-operated shaver – any electric shaver, for that matter - is already gay and so the warning would be superfluous.)

In my opinion, manufacturers should label such devices with a clearly legible sign saying, “Caution: Repeated use of this product may turn you into a homosexual.” Then you’ve got no grounds for complaint if and when it eventually happens.

On the up-side, however, this does suggest that the condition of gayness can be easily reversed. All a homosexual need do to turn straight is plug himself into the mains. After all, how many people who’ve used an AC electric chair in the United States have gone on to bugger anyone?

QED, then.

Gladiators

There are lots of posters up hereabouts advertising the impending opening of a new sports shop. "G&H Sports (or whatever the fuck it's called) will be opened next Saturday by Wolf, from the Gladiators," says the legend. This is accompanied by a picture of said Wolf - obviously from his demeanour, a friend of many members of the Cabinet - attempting to look dead hard while simultaneously rippling his muscles.

I suppose this practice dates back to Roman times. In those days, fledgling Roman sports shops would no doubt try to drum up business by painting hundreds of murals and assembling mosaics throughout town, announcing, "Next Wednesday, Quintus Julius Varo's Sports and Leisure Toga Emporium will be opened by Marcus Quirinius, from the gladiators."

Unfortunately for the Ancient Romans, such advertising was, financially speaking, a somewhat riskier business than today's. This is because, unlike Wolf, who will most probably survive until next week, there was every possibility that, betwixt the posting of the advertising and the opening, Marcus Quirinius would get killed in the arena. In which case it would then be necessary to repaint all the murals and reassemble all the mosaics with the name of new, replacement gladiator. Which would take quite some time, and probably delay the opening of the shop. And, of course, if the replacement gladiator then went and got himself killed, they had to start all over again.

The situation must have been even worse for larger organizations. For example, if a company were to embark on an Empire-wide, multi-million denarii advertising campaign for, say, its new range of chariots, endorsed by a gladiator who managed to get himself hacked to death before even the first chariot had rolled off the production line, it would most likely bankrupt the company.

I suppose this is the reason why - whereas when you wander through London today you see lots of shops declaring "Established 1868" or "Founded in 1792" - you never see any that say, "Founded during the Consulship of Marcus Crassus." The advertising spend simply wiped them out.

Canine Behaviour

People are often very abrupt with their dogs, ordering the poor things to “Sit!”, “Stay”, "Roll over!", and so on. Their tone of voice is so imperious, and there’s never any “Please” or "Thank you". It’s little wonder, therefore, that many dogs turn out to be vicious and anti-social. If humans were treated in the same way, I’m sure that they, too, would start to acquire a few of the less endearing canine indiosyncrasies.

This morning, just to test my theory, I went up to a random man in the street and said, “Heel!”. Fuck knows what people expect their dogs to do when they say this to them, because, according to my dictionary, it refers simply to the bit on the bottom of your shoe, or else it’s a verb meaning to tilt to one side. Anyway, he didn’t tilt to one side so, à la Barbara Woodhouse's advice, I hit him over the nose with a rolled up newspaper, causing him to whimper a little.

Next, I threw a stick over to the other side of the road and commanded, “Fetch!” At first, he proved a little reluctant, so I threatened him with The Daily Telegraph once more. Eventually, he got the message and retrieved my stick, wiggling his little rear end and panting as he did so. Having achieved success here, I held up a milk chocolate button and said, “Beg!” He instantly dropped to his knees and held his hands in the air, whereupon I released the sweet, which he proceeded to gobble up.

At this point I decided to leave him to his own devices. No sooner had I left than, as I expected, he immediately pounced on a three year old child and bit its head off. Then he went up to a lamp post, cocked one leg, and pissed against it. Finally, he approached a bus queue, jumped on top of one of the waiting women, and started shagging her in broad daylight. All this because I’d spoken to him as one does a dog.

Henceforth, therefore, dog owners should bear this in mind and be more polite to their pets. They might be surprised at the results. Who knows? Courteous requests - for instance, “Fido, would you please conceive a Unified Field Theory, there's a good boy” or “Tyson, old fellow, I would be very grateful if you could just take two minutes off from humping my leg in order to wipe out world poverty and solve the Middle East crisis, you clever fellow” - might work wonders, and transform the lot of humanity.

Red Hot Love Machine

This morning, when I went down to the newsagent in order to collect my up-market, intellectual Sunday newspapers, I happened to catch sight of a couple of tabloids that are aimed primarily at members of the Working Class. Both carried somewhat identical special features, along the lines of "How to turn yourself into a red-hot lover."

As I already am one, there wasn't much point my buying either title, even if I felt inclined to stoop to the level of reading a tabloid. However, their subject matter did give me pause for thought. It occurred to me that both papers regularly carry these sorts of features, maybe every three months or so. The thing is, though, if, say, Gordon Ramsay were to publish "Ten tips on producing a perfect soufflé", but had to repeat himself every three months, you'd either think that the recipes themselves were fundamentally flawed, or else that the people reading them were too thick to take the information onboard in the first place.

So what is it with the Working Class? If they actually had got the message they’d all now be sizzling love machines, surely. Clearly, though, this isn't the case. If it were, respectable, frustrated women the length and breadth of the land would be commuting to council estates in places like Toxteth, Stockwell, and Croydon in order to get a decent porking.

But they don't, because they know that - notwithstanding the efforts of The News of the World and The Sunday People - the average Working Class erection lasts about three seconds, and that Working Class foreplay consists of reaching over to turn out the light. Further, they know that Working Class men (and women, for that matter) all weight at least 18 stone, thanks to their diet of lard sandwiches and Economy Lager. Even if they did possess the necessary sexual technique to give women pleasure, their physical appearance would act as an instant turn-off.

It is obviously impossible to teach the proletariat how to do it properly. And we should be thankful that it is. If they actually got to enjoy it, their already disproportionately high birth rate would go right through the roof. Does the world really need more Social Security scroungers and car radio thieves? In opinion, it's highly irresponsible of the tabloids to attempt to put ideas into their heads.

Wine

As everyone is aware, there are many varieties of wine. In my own cellar, for example, one may find, amongst others, Shiraz, Malbec, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon (only for the cleaning lady, of course, and for chucking into stews), Rioja, Chianti, Frascati, and Chablis. I'm seriously considering opening a Chablis in half an hour or so, in fact, to accompany the seriously good chicken on ciabatta sandwich that I have just created, which I shall consume in the conservatory.

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that, generally speaking, the better the quality of the original raw materials, the better (and, consequently, more expensive) the resultant wine.

Generally speaking.

Something is confusing me, though. It is a truth universally acknowledged, is it not, that cheap, shitty raw materials result in cheap, shitty wine? Hence, for instance, at the bottom, Working Class end of the scale one finds rhubarb wine, elderberry wine, dandelion wine, and so forth. What could be more common and brutish than those pathetic weeds and vegetables?

So how come house wine always languishes with them at the very bottom of the bibendary scale, often going for no more than seven or eight quid a bottle in a restaurant?

Given that, even with the current property crash, a house nevertheless still costs at least upwards of £150,000, you might reasonably expect any wine that's produced from one to reflect such initial investment. And that's before you factor in the substantial extra costs of having teams of peasants harvest the bricks, tread them, and then transfer the ensuing juice to vast fermentation tanks.

There can only be one answer: House wine is manufactured from condemned, slum dwellings. Drinking it is therefore the equivalent of eating condemned meat. Consequently, just as condemned meat is generally diseased, so, too, is house wine. House wine gives you salmonella and E-Coli. It probably gives you BSE, too. This is why people who drink too many bottles of house wine always stagger around and fall over, like BSE afflicted cattle.

QED, I think.

Ragnarok

History records that the first successful passenger lift was installed in New York’s five storey E.V. Haughwout Building by Elisha Graves Otis in 1857. Before then, however, people who worked there had apparently managed quite well without one, so it makes you wonder why Otis bothered (and it also makes you wonder what happened with all those unsuccessful passenger lifts that must have come beforehand). After all, five storeys aren’t that much of a challenge, even for K. McEgan. Besides which, I’m sure that, in the mid 1850s, the very name of the invention could have caused concern to many, encouraging them to stick with the stairs.

How so? Because Otis called it an elevator. We call it a lift. The French say ascenseur. The Spanish, ascensor. To the Israelis it’s מַעֲלִית, and to the Arabs مصعد. And so forth. In all cases, in all languages, the noun conveys the concept of “going up.”

The thing is, though, if Otis had said to me “How would you like to ride in my elevator?”, and I’d never used one before, I'd most likely have been very wary. OK, it’s probably going to perform to spec and get me up there, as implied by "elevator", "lift", ascenseur, or whatever, but what about getting down again? Nowhere in the agnomen is there any suggestion that it’s capable of making that reverse journey.

There is, of course, a long history of people going up and not coming down. One thinks, for example, of Jesus and his mother, Mary. Then again, rather than being worried, those first lift users in the 1850s might have thought of Jesus and Mary, too. They might have said to themselves, “Yes, I shall ascend! I am as God Himself! Abase yourselves before me, therefore, mere mortals, lest you feel my holy wrath!” But then if, say, half a dozen like-minded individuals had tried to use the lift at the same time, each believing himself to be the One True God, there’d have been a sort of Ragnarok once the “Up” button had been pressed and all the would-be deity passengers fought for supremacy. Even if they didn’t, it must have been a letdown arriving, not in Heaven, as they expected, but merely in the office supplies and stationery department.

Maybe that’s actually what happened to Jesus when He ascended. Instead of sitting at the Right Hand of the Father, He’s in fact sitting on an ethereal photocopier, doomed to turn out pictures of His arse for all eternity while simultaneously inhaling the fumes from an infinite number of protoplasmic Tippex bottles. Which would certainly explain the present state of the world.

Suntan Segregation

In my opinion, the Working Class shouldn't be allowed to have suntans. Or at least, if they are, some serious restrictions should be imposed on the degree or shade of tan they're permitted to acquire. Accordingly, the beaches and open spaces where these people wallow in the sun should be patrolled by armed tan-watchers, primed to spring into action whenever a prole starts turning an unsanctioned colour.

It makes perfect sense when you think about it rationally. After all, if I buy a Canali jacket, I expect it to look better than its equivalent bought in Top Shop or C&A. Similarly, if I spend a thousand or more pounds on two weeks in, say, St Lucia or Mustique, I’d want some way of differentiating my subsequent expensive international jet-set tan from a common, hoi poloi variety acquired in somewhere dead common like Blackpool or Benidorm.

Further to this, therefore, I propose the creation of special suntan lotions, designed to react with the skin and produce a different colour depending on how much you pay for your holiday. I'd suggest that lotions supplied to people who stay in five star hotels in exotic locations should turn their users a mahogany brown. On the other hand, those who can only afford a two star hotel or, God forbid, one star, in somewhere dire should be sprayed with a formula which turns them green when exposed to sunlight. Or maybe one that makes them come out in blue stripes, similar to the markings on Tesco economy products.

As for people who go to Mykonos (or any of the Greek islands for that matter, except Santorini), they should turn pink. Which is only right and fitting, because they’re probably gay, and pink is the universally acknowledged colour of gayness. This is a bit hard on straight pigs, of course, but they usually get turned into bacon and Parma ham early on in life, long before their sexuality really becomes much of an issue.

Explosive Yield

I spent much of this morning teaching the Vicar’s budgerigar to say words such as “fuck” and “cunt”. He, in turn, taught me the budgerigar equivalents, and also instructed me in the best ways to wind up specific birds. Starlings, for example, apparently get very pissed off if you suggest that their mate might actually be incubating a cuckoo’s egg, while robins are easily provoked if you imply that they’re actually nothing more than sparrows with a crude paint job.

Anyway, fun though this was, we soon progressed to discussion of weightier matters. Specifically, Iran's efforts towards manufacturing a nuclear device and the implications for world peace. The budgerigar was quite concerned. I, however, felt more at ease with the situation.

The thing is, everyone always talks about a nuclear device in terms of its “yield”, which is expressed in Megatons or Kilotons. A one Megaton bomb, obviously, has the exact equivalent explosive force of a million tons of TNT. Why, then, if you set off a one Megaton bomb, does the World Community get really irritated, whereas if you drop a million tons of TNT on someone, no-one really gives a fuck? They’re both going to cause the same amount of damage, after all.

The budgerigar suggested that size is the real issue here. He said that, while a million tons of TNT is really massive, a nuclear device is small in comparison. Both, however, can do an equivalent job. To my mind, though, this is the exact same argument used by people with small dicks. It’s the “It’s not how big it is, it’s what you do with it” rationalization which I, personally, feel is a load of shit. Are nuclear-equipped countries really trying to tell us, “Yes, what we have is small, but we’ve never had any complaints.”?

Next, the budgerigar said that, because the nuclear device is small and compact, but offers all the performance and versatility of its larger counterpart, it's therefore deadlier. But surely this implies that a midget with an IQ equivalent to that of a normal-sized person is somehow deadlier than his taller opposite number. Or perhaps it’s an excuse to put brainy people who are shorter than 5 foot 8 into labour camps. It might actually be a good idea, when you consider it, but I wasn’t having a budgerigar tell me that.

I was going to feed him to the cat, but Cate suddenly returned and told me not to. I complied, of course, as I didn't wish to jeopardize my chances of a shag.

An Accident is Announced

You often hear something described as “an accident waiting to happen.” Most people say they regard this as a bad thing. I, however, feel that it could provide an excellent opportunity for the right entrepreneur, especially in these dire financial times. After all, everyone actually likes to see an accident, whatever they might claim in public, and I’m sure they’d be prepared to pay good money to see one if only they knew its exact time and place.

Take, for example, Chernobyl. Back in 1986, Reactor Number Four was quite obviously held together with a mixture of Sellotape and polystyrene. Basically, it had “Meltdown” written all over it. Yet did anyone capitalize on this fact and invite a paying audience along to watch? No. This is therefore exactly akin to having Luciano Pavarotti turn up at your establishment, announce that he’s going to sing Nessun Dorma, but then not tell anyone about it. What’s the point in keeping such a thing quiet?

Then again, I suppose, Pavarotti may indeed have turned up at Chernobyl on the 26th of April, 1986, which is why the Russian nuclear engineers were distracted from their jobs. And it just goes to show that, regardless of how good your singing voice is, singing an aria next to a severe radiation leak is not particularly beneficial for the health. Could this have caused the cancer that eventually killed Pavarotti?

Frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t concrete Pavarotti in with the damaged reactor just to be on the safe side. People are always talking about the potential dangers of irradiated fruit and vegetables, aren't they? But I would have thought that letting irradiated Italian tenors loose is a far worse hazard, especially if they go critical during a performance of Turandot (and who'd want the job of extracting uranium fuel rods from their arses in order to try to stabilize them?).

Now that really is an accident waiting to happen.

Altitude

This morning, as I walked up to the baker’s, I observed a scantily-clad young woman walking down the road. Co-incidentally, so, too, did a bunch of builders who were atop the scaffolding of an oldish building that’s being renovated. I kept silent. The builders, however, cried out in unison, “Whoah! Get 'em off, darling'! I'd give you one any time, luv!" And so on and so forth.

This set me thinking. If you go to a lecture at, say, the Royal Institution or the Linnean Society, and some female member of the audience turns up in an evening gown with revealing décolletage, generally speaking, the assembled lecturers and professors don’t instantly launch into a series of thrusting motions with their hips, accompanied by cries of "Show us your tits, girl! Come on! You know you want it!" (Neither, for that matter, do these same academics usually have their arses hanging out of their trousers, but that’s by the bye.)

Why should this be? I wondered. Some people would say that it's because builders, being Working Class, are inherently crude. But if so, why don't other groups of Working Class individuals react in the same way to the sight of half-dressed females? I've never, for instance, seen teams of dustbin men or asphalt operatives responding with jeers and catcalls to passing women, yet they're equally as dead-common as builders.

So is this sort of behaviour builder-specific? If it is, what’s the causative factor? That the builders are up high on their scaffolding, where the air is thinner? I think not, because if altitude alone were responsible for the phenomenon, then you might reasonably have expected, for example, Sir Edmund Hillary to have grasped his cock and waved it, suggestively, in the direction of the Nepalese women down below once he’d reached the summit of Everest.

So, instead, could it be the hard hats that the builders wear, constricting blood flow in the skull? Or the proximity of the metal scaffolding attracting harmful radiation? Or the combination?

The only way to reliably test these theses would be to take a group of extremely posh, respectable people, such as high-ranking academics, equip them with hard hats, and stick them up scaffolding for a week, while glamorous-looking women ran underneath. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that many university professors and quantum physicists would agree to this procedure. (Not for a whole week, anyway.) Better, then, to select some respectable brainy person who, even if he didn't like the idea, wouldn't be able to do much about it.

To this end, I believe Professor Stephen Hawking should be given a hard hat, abandoned at the top of a large construction project, and told to ponder the nature of black holes (or whatever it is he ponders these days). At some point, a tasty female dressed in a tightly fitting, wet tee-shirt should be persuaded to walk along beneath. If, upon seeing her, Hawking's synthesized voice suddenly switches from explaining the origins of Dark Matter to blurting out, "Hi there, gorgeous! You're gagging for it, I can tell! I've a got a good nine inches for you here!", then we’ll know that our researches are proceeding in the right direction.

In this way, one of the major scientific questions of our times could, at last, be answered.