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Five Stupid Things On My Desk

I have stupid things on my desk at work. They are:

1. A miniature silver trophy with the Everton crest on it. It was sent by my friend who works for the Football Association. The joke is “that’s all you’ll ever win this season, Cliff”. Never gets old.

2. A cartoon of a man on the phone saying “I can’t come into work today so fuck off.”

3. Sachets of wet wipes from a really very cheap rip-off fried chicken place. They have confederate flags on the pack. I call them “ethnic cleansers” I realise this is in very, very poor taste. I like to joke about things I find abhorrant. Suicide, war, paedophiles and Girls Aloud; all fair targets to me. I’m laughing AT you.

4. Thousands upon thousands of newspapers. Very stupid, but they all get recycled and I can’t not have them for my job. And when I say thousands, I mean at least forty.

5. A (fucking) knife (ok?!). I write well with pencils. I write even better with pencils sharpened with a knife. And I don’t just mean my handwriting, I mean I write better. No idea why. Pencil sharpeners either don’t work or you get that really sharp point which breaks as soon as you push down hard enough to do justice to a good idea. And then you get that double line thing from the jagged edge and that makes me feel queasy to write with. A knife gives you those nice strong angular edges like a crystal. Plus whittling in the office gives me a tribal, primeival buzz which appeals to the animal part of our souls which remains with us through the generations and mists of time, harking back to an age when our forefathers worked for the very first internet companies.

14 Responses to “Five Stupid Things On My Desk”

  1. Ed R Says:

    I knew you were laugfhing at me the whole time. And with a KNIFE no less!

  2. meesteryan Says:

    i need to get some stuff for my desk.

  3. Ed R Says:

    I need to get a desk. Or a job at least.

  4. Ed R Says:

    In retrospect it might have been a little foolish of me to freak out a man who keeps a knife at his desk.
    CD’s on its way, ‘one to two weeks’.

  5. riviera writer Says:

    Thank ed r for the word - comments now Open. (Pics on my desk are 10-year-old Cliff & his sister - and Dixie Dean, Everton legend.)

  6. Ed R Says:

    You may regret opening them you know;)

  7. Sooz Says:

    Err Cliff… it’s not a… um… flick knife is it? Or a bread knife? Or a butcher’s knife?

    *steps back slowly*

  8. Cliff Says:

    It’s a pen knife, sadly. Although I’m thinking of installing a lathe.

  9. Ed R Says:

    WHy are you using a pen knife on your pencils? You really need a pencil knife for that don’t you?

  10. Bonnie Says:

    Finding some sense of lovely irony that your pencils are sharpened with a pen knife.

    LOVE number three. Wow. Greatness.

    Oh, BTW I have been in a pencil-using phase recently and I’ve been quite dissatisfied with my sharpening options. If I didn’t have a fear of knives, I’d try your way. But I’m also wondering if maybe I’m writing better (assuming I am) due to my use of pencils.

    Hmm.

  11. Bonnie Says:

    DUDE!!!! Scooped by Ed on the pen knife/pencil comment by FOUR minutes. (Did it take me that long to post my comment?) GET OUT OF MY HEAD, MAN!

  12. Bonnie Says:

    Oh, and Forbes agrees with you about what’s important to have (on your desk). Sort of. ;)

  13. Boom Boom Becca Says:

    What about using a carpenters pencil?

  14. Cliff Says:

    Becca,

    Sounds like a good idea, but I’m going to need a bigger knife

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