I remember fondly. It was one of the best mornings, lazing in bed, having breakfast served to me, I knew it was going to be a romantic one. I can’t remember what context spurred the utterance, but suddenly it was over. ‘Saying “Farty” ruins everything!” she said, and that was that.

I’ve finally decided on my New Year’s Resolution. This is why I haven’t written anything in so long, or actually done anything at all since January started in fact. The problem was that I couldn’t figure out what to do and there is no point in doing something with no resolve in your heart. If I’ve learned anything from looking up at the stars, it’s that (well, that and nuclear fusion, which I admit I did notice first and asked my Dad if it wasn’t a mad sort of thing to be happening altogether). Anyway, as you get older you learn more complicated stuff like how to avoid doing what other people want by doing nothing at all until you have your own idea about what you want to do and how you have to think of that at the very start of the year or else it’s all a waste and how if you make things hard to read, people often think you’re describing something complex so you must be good at writing and deserve a Nobel Prize (I still have my eyes on that baby) and this might lead to getting money without actually doing very much for other people, so you can employ someone to go to the shops and buy you cake, but it doesn’t always work.

So my resolution is to go around and be clever about anything I do. Not to become popular, because that’s shallow. It just gives me something to concentrate on when I have to spend time with others. The first step is to say everything in a slanted kind of way, using metaphors like, “Here, that bookcase is starting to look like London Bridge”, so when the bookcase flattens them I’ve managed to warn them but in a way that doesn’t ruin a potential moment of comedy, and also teaches them that if they were clever like me, they won’t get hurt. I’ll call it my spiritual journey: “the clever way” and people will flock to my door.

Yes, but that doesn’t really get me any closer to my cake. This has been bothering me since the year started. No matter what resolution I come up with, it doesn’t actually prove that I should even have a cake. But I want one. Is this all my complex genetic structure, honed over thousands of years, has managed to achieve? A deep desire for, cake? No, I must find some deeper justification for it, something that means I can stand by what I really want my New Years Resolution to be, deep down. And then I can finally start the new year.

You don’t. Trust is only necessary when knowledge is unavailable. There should always be indicators but there can never be proof. For example the phrase, “I trust that I am aware of this sentence” is interpreted as “I know that I am aware of this sentence” and use of the word “trust” in that context may be interpreted as indicating that knowledge is a starting point for trust.

A more useful question might be “What do I know that gives me an indication that I can trust you?” I trust this is what you mean by your question.

For your answer, you can have no scientific proof because I am not confined to a lab and if you put me in one, I assure you the answer to your question will be, “No”.

I’ve started reading blogs again. Zoomtard always reminds me of how unfair this world is. Why Calvin and not me?

And why did someone else have such a good year? Obviously this is the kind of thing that happens when you do what your parent (heavenly) tells you. Why am I the one to always get it wrong? It’s God’s fault anyway. He made me be like this. He made me.

Jesus says, spend more time with me, and I say, but I’ve got so much to do (because he made me say that). Anyway when I look around I notice he was actually on the phone to Martha so his comment wasn’t directed at me. It takes me a year before I realise working doesn’t work. Or maybe it just takes an actual holiday where I get time to listen, reflect and think. Christmas actually turned out to be about Christ this year for me, ridiculously.

Maybe 2009 will be better. I’m not going to make a new years resolution to open my heart and mind to what is Real instead of getting caught up in duty, because of predestination. I don’t need to try. After all, I was obviously destined to get closer to God by the end of 2008 and it happened in the end even though I didn’t do what I was told.

Wait, didn’t I make that mistake last year?

Your correspondent – re-writing other people’s punchlines. But not re-using them, no, that wouldn’t make me look good.

That’s right, Movember, the month where I grow a moustache for charity. “Shouldn’t you be ashamed of yourself, growing a moustache in this day and age?” some of you will say to me and I retort, “NO! I’m not ASHAMED, FOR IT IS IN THE NAME OF LOVE that I do this, the name of LOVE! And if you don’t sell everything you have and give to this charity you can’t be my friend.” Jesus said something similar, so why can’t I? I’m in the know. Now I don’t want to come across like those chuggers (charity muggers) you see and try to avoid on the street, but I will have your money. You see shame is precisely the problem here, shame of owning some porn-star’s moustache, shame of checking your prostate out in case it’s got cancer, shame of not giving to charity. Same thing. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. I’m just helping you and everyone else to overcome shame.

If you really want to be my friend, you’ll identify with me in my suffering and help raise awareness of this issue so that less people will die of prostate cancer, but mostly because you are my friend right? Just as I have laid down my ego for those who haven’t, so you can lay down your money to help spread the word about the consequences, sort of an attractive idealist coupled with hellfire and brimstone thing, a combination that works great.

And no, growing the mo will not give me prostate cancer. (don’t worry)

I think it is a good idea to show you my progress so far so here is a photo of what I look like now, 11 days in. Because I am a man of sensibility and I know some of you are people of taste, I’ve spared you from actually having to hurt your eyes though. It’s amazing what you can do with photoshop.

If you really want to see what I look like, why not come and see me, you haven’t been in touch in ages you old abbreviated “Basket of Turd“.

But seriously, if you don’t want to give that’s fine. Do be aware that I will be sending you an “IT’S YOUR FAULT” note every time someone dies because you could have helped but didn’t. If you do want to give, click here. If this doesn’t help let me know and I’ll sort something out.

Well, now that you’ve been manipulated I feel safe to leave you alone and get back to housework. Yes, Movember is also the month where Curly D does her second teaching practice, preparation for which takes up all her time. I have been told to remove the various types of mould I’ve been cultivating and I’m running out of excuses. Let’s see, I’ve used the “It’s an experiment” one,

Ah, how fortunate, I can’t clean up any mould because the scrubber to clean it with is covered in mould. Saved again!

I’m sorry for calling it a heap of junk. My wife wishes to remind me that her borrowed bike is a “Giant”, a very respected brand. It is a good bike. It became a heap of junk the moment my attempt to overcome the tiny crank arms and flat tires (by standing hard on them while shifting gears) caused the chain to jump and my left knee to smash into the head tube. Actually to be honest, it became a heap of junk of lower than average intelligence at this precise moment, but I had decided that remark was unfair by the time I reached home.

Did you ever get that feeling of waking up dislexic when it is very very important for you not to be? I did, this morning. Next I had that feeling where you go to use your backup plan and find you left it locked to the bicycle rack in work and you have to ride a piece of junk to get on top. Except it wasn’t exactly that feeling either. There was also an underlying sense of coughing and spluttering with the “flu” for fifteen minutes while pumping my legs against that aforementioned painfully resistent piece of junk. Lastly there was the irritating impression at the back of my mind that YOU were lying there snug in your bed, while in fact this was probably all your fault (did you have a cold recently? At the very least it was you who gave me this cold you know), and that even when I complain about it you would probably play the air violin and mockingly rub your finger under your eye, wiping away invisible tears. Even the invisible tears have no sympathy. The very essence of nothingness has no sympathy for me never mind anything real, leaving me without even the imaginary pretence that you care. I’ve never even suffered from dislexia before. Why just this once, when it mattered? The only explanation is that it is a form of devine vengeance for failing to prove God’s existence to QMonkey.

Phew, just got to answer before it stopped ringing. Hello? Hello? What the? No one there.

Oh no, I did it again, used the wrong medium of communication. Listen, just ring me back again, I got confused, thought it was the internet ringing when it was actually the phone.

Anyone else ever have this happen to them? Modern technology is so confusing.

For the past five months, it has been my task to sit down and stare straight ahead, keeping my body still save for my tiny, perturbing fingers. The occasional twitch of the mouth is acceptable, lolling the head merrily from side to side less so and singing random hymns is frowned upon (yet another example of discrimination against the church).

Speaking of this, seeing that all was well amidst the brethren of one sacred society and that it was difficult for me to do more than supervise the unfolding of their plans to conquer an area far far away, I decided to bring my particular talents to bear to a more needy group close by my current residence. Being a man of action, I acted on this decision some time ago and since then I have transformed the Sunday’s of this church. It is unlikely that others may have thought to do what I have done, but even if they had none could have succeeded. I have filled a place on a seat for the past months with a bottom that no one else can perfectly emulate. I have added a new voice to their music and specifically – it is my voice that has been added. I see the organist nodding to himself appreciatively as his ear singles my voice out from the masses. And how they thank me for my mere presence, marveling at my youth, prodding my eye-balls and nodding with smug satisfaction at the youthful rate of my reaction. “Ah, the passionate indignation of youth” they say.

And then there was the mighty battle with the corporation who sought to prevent me from visiting this virtual world that we know as the world, Wideweb. You may remember that I once disguised myself and infiltrated their dark tower for several months, leaving it a week or so before I found the ring and brought it on a journey to the Ottoman Empire (see Yeats’ “Sailing to Byzantium”) with my now famous companion, Curly Dee, where I threw it into the sea from whence it came not, looking up to the heavens in satisfaction as I saw the Death Star explode in a haze of mixed metaphors. From my prior espionage I had escaped with some inside information that stood me in good stead, and yet it took a full quarter of a year (even with the aid of Curly Dee) before the way was opened for full communication to be possible with Wideweb. Even now some pamphlets have come into my possession that display an attempted theft which I must counter before I finally allow traffic through. I am currently allowing vocal communications only to pass through the portal as this involves too little information to allow even half-lives through or facilitate bandits. To my faithful followers: I will visit you more frequently when the gateway is fully operational.

Slim Jim, an evil legacy of, em, evil
From now on, when we meet in public you are to call me Slim Jim. Lo! I was in a holy place and I felt god speaking to me, saying “Go forth in my name”, so I said, “what is your name that I may go forth in it?”, but I couldn’t really hear what god was saying; the wishy (or was it washy? maybe both) feeling of being in his presence was giving way to nausea as I strained desperately to hear, and I thought I’d better stop asking questions in case god was annoyed with me. I thought well, he’s given me a brain so he’s obviously telling me I need to use it. So I thought about other recent revelations until it came to me.

I joined a gym (note: GYM not jim! I’m jim and the gym was in) and they had to measure my blood pressure because I wanted to do weights because they didn’t take as long as other exercise even if they are boring. So. They said I had high blood pressure which I thought was strange because I am young yet and not vastly overweight. Hmm, the plot thickens. So I went to the doctor and he took some blood and tasted it, and then measured my blood pressure with a 24 hour thing and said my blood pressure was OK and the high blood pressure from the original test was because I didn’t like getting my blood pressure taken, which made my blood pressure rise – sort of a Heisenberg uncertainty effect going on there (according to someone). But then he stopped and frowned. He licked his lips and ran his tongue around his mouth. “Uh.. I think..” he said, and held onto the desk. He started shuddering, slowly at first, then quickly until he was positively vibrating! Positively vibrating, not negatively mind because then he would have died of course. Then he shook himself and relaxed, and finally shifted to face me. I will never forget that look – eyes sharp and piercing, expression serious as he uttered the words that would change my life forever. “I taste high cholesterol” he spoke.

It turns out that this is my parent’s fault. My father, along with most of his family are hereditary. That’s what the doctor said anyway, and it means they generate more cholesterol than necessary, and apparently my father did this to me too. This is not the first time he has sought to control me from afar. He had the cheek to lend me money when I needed it in order to become a master (see He-man and the Masters of the Universe), and now I must consider the best way to give it back. Oh he says not to worry about it, but I know it is all part of a sinister plot. I know. So now I have to avoid cheese and full fat milk which I used to have every day. Apart from that I was fairly healthy but I believed in cheeses. They were my life. No chocolate either. And I have to become really active. That is why I have to become Slim Jim, not out of choice, but out of duty to my family.

It could have been worse. I was afraid that I might be turning into a diabetic at one point. I don’t know what that is, but I know what diabolical is. I think it is a diabolical robot. It sounds cool but I’m in a different school. I rule. You mule. ~Eat Gruel, fool! cos I’m into maths just like Boole!

Anyway, I am going to take my considerable talent and transform the Christian Music scene by writing music that is relevant and rhymes, and is natural and living. Taking my music I will start a new type of Presbyterianism, a break-away that will be known as the Organic Presbyterians. We will state our outrage that the Westminster Catechism requires no good Christian to eat organic food and save the earth for Jesus. That is to say, it doesn’t mention organic food and it should as this is moral. What new dangers will lie in wait around this corner? You will have to wait and see. I have done so much already in my short life. Now I am going forth. Slim Jim at your service.

Disclaimer: BBC have asked me to say that they have nothing to do with any embellishment of the truth here. They say they don’t even know me, before anyone starts to question them to make them publicly renounce their alleged words so please, please just leave them alone. They also want to make a public statement that the explosion of the death star was coincidental to the loss of any wedding rings or any epic journey to dispose of a similarly fashioned ring, which also had nothing to do with telecommunications companies. The labels used in this piece were obviously carefully chosen to imply great adventure where there was none and the person who wrote it all is a sad, lonely man who has minimal impact on even local affairs, save that he gives the impression (by playing with phonetics) that the church is a conspiratorial society, and this has resulted in a major, baseless turn in public opinion which may shape the church of coming years. Also, typing at a computer daily is not considered an amazingly difficult task. And he doesn’t even practice the piano enough, and he isn’t slim. That is all the BBC have to say. Good evening.

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