Temping is a young person’s game. A lot of us have felt the dirty need to take on some quick fit employment for a quick money fix to put some fresh crumbs on the table. Throw in a dodgy job market, the absence of a steady career, and the recent conclusion of a degree, and suddenly I’m a temp agency’s wet dream.

You may end up at the same place regularly, maybe moved around a bit, or usually called in for one-time events. It can be fun or, more than likely, extremely painful, but it’s a bit of money with no-strings-attached. I guess it’s a lot like being a prostitute – you tell yourself it’s just this one time, and it’s only for the money, but you keep going back every time your agency pimp calls you up. Oh, and you always feel the need to shower afterwards too. You dirty little hospitality whore.

Degrading comparisons aside, I’m alright with temping; most of all because of the mind-numbing ease of it all. I can drift off in my head and start singing a song by The Shins to myself and suddenly it’s all over (any readers who are indeed ‘real-life prostitutes’, do you also adopt this tactic?). The problem is, every now and again, you have to talk to people. Selfish bastards who want nothing more than to ruin your day with small talk. Small by name, small by nature, but fucking massive in it’s difficulty to bear.

These encounters seem to occur on a highly predictable basis every time you meet a new person or group of people on one of these jobs. Here’s the typical script.

Step 1: The Obvious Ice Breaker

‘Obvious’ not because you obviously have to break the ice, but because it is almost certainly bound to be a stupidly obvious observation such as “Aaaah, can’t believe it’s still only 3 o’clock”. Well done, the education system has clearly worked wonders with you. Why do we need to break the ice, huh? Ice skaters don’t break the ice, and they’re bloody graceful. In fact, if they did break the ice, they would drown in freezing cold lakes.

Often the breaker manifests around a scapegoat, usually a supervisor or high-maintenance employee who has worked there slightly more times than the rest of the staff. Example, “She’s really annoying, ain’t she mate!?” Oh well done, congratu-bloody-lations, what an astute observation, I suppose now you expect me to engage you in some form of conversation?

Step 2: Searching for Commonalities

This stage takes the form of dropping as many facts about yourself as possible, in as short a time as possible, in the hope that at least one will be picked up by someone else as a form of common conversational ground. Typical subject matter includes:

1: Education – your degree, school, or college – “Oh my god, you did psychology, that’s so interesting, I did a bit of psychology in my media degree. So, like, why do you think I keep having recurring dreams about my dog eating my face?”

2: Hopes and Dreams – “Yeah, this is just a temporary thing for me. I’m actually going to be a dental nurse. What do you do outside of here?”

3: The Job – If all else fails, revert to the scapegoat or the aforementioned obvious breakers. This can be an infinite loop, and one that almost all interpersonal temping encounters will get stuck in. Beware of commonality drops that don’t find an audience, you are dangerously close to getting caught in the loop. RUN!

Step 3: The Banter

[Side note: Yes, the word ‘banter’ is awful. Although, I have recently read that it is in fact about 300 years old and not simply the adopted word of annoying twats who watch shows like The Only Way is Chelsea, and thus I feel more comfortable using it.]

If you’re lucky, you may get to the stage where you can actually have a bit of fun, maybe make some jokes, and generally distract yourselves from the job. However, don’t get complacent – if you’re not careful, the lack of any real friendship will result in overuse of the running joke, and the demon of boredom will strike down your newly formed relationship.

“Don’t go dropping those canapés again! Haha, only joking.”

“Watch out for this guy, he’s so clumsy. Haha, only messing.”

“Hey mate, dropped anything lately? Haha, only pulling your leg.”

………………“Can you believe it’s only 4 o’clock”

In the end, if you feel the uncontainable desire to initiate conversation, skip out all the bullshit, stop trying so hard, and revert to the inimitable British classic – talk about the weather. It’s frightfully overcast, have a nice day.

I am of the view that most sports act as a simulation of primal behaviours; in particular, hunting and fighting. In fact, if you analyse any given sport, most seem to fall into one of two categories: 1) the simulation of hunting, and 2) the simulation of fighting.

The Simulation of Hunting

To use football for example, it is essentially comprised of two competing packs of hunters, chasing their prey (the ball) around a field, then trying to get it past their competitors and into a metaphorical cave (the goal). The better, faster, more coherent packs take more prey back to their caves and their loyal subjects cheer at the prospect of being better provided for. The loosing pack are mocked and jeered at by their peers, women and children to encourage them to increase future provision.

Each culture seems to have either created its own form of hunting sport, or adopted a popular one for itself. Australian Rules football, American football, ice hockey, rugby, lacrosse…the list goes on. The problem is that we no longer hunt, at least not in the cultures where these sports are popularised. So, really, the skills that these athletes demonstrate are now benign. Yet, because our evolved tendencies are so deep-seated, these skills and the individuals who possess them are idolised. As such, they are paid copious amounts of money (that could obviously be better used in other areas of the economy) and are in actual fact even more capable of providing for their tribes than in a primal society where their talents would actually be of use! Oh, the insanity.

The Simulation of Fighting

The sports that don’t fall into the hunting simulation category seem to serve a bragging purpose. If you are successful you may be viewed as the superior human, in total control of your body and able to swing your club around better than your rival caveman. Racquet sports for example, which allow you to prove that you can hit thing a bit faster and more accurately than others. The same can be said for golf, cricket, baseball, and softball. There is definitely an overlap with hunting games here, such as the various derivations of hockey, hurling, or lacrosse.

Combat sports would also fall into this category; however competitive combat serves as a much more direct connection to the primal function of sport. The winner is (usually) the better fighter, and would thus be able to protect his kin in a primitive environment. Our now complex culture has spawned equally complex means of demonstrating our worth such as bowling a cricket ball or throwing darts at a little felt wheel 7 feet and 9¼ inches away (i.e. look at us, doing the complicated things with our weapons).

New Sport

Essentially, these two categories can be summarised as metaphorical representations of ‘provision’ and ‘protection’. The problem is that sport has failed to play catch-up with the shift in human nature: It is evolutionarily outdated. 

In reality, with the shift of food provision from hunted to farmed sources, farmers would be the logical group to idolise. These are the people who provide for the present day population, not men with spears chasing antelope around the Serengeti. As such, a more accurate expression of basic needs through sport would be to turn agricultural practice into competition. There are basic forms of this already, of course, but not nearly near the scale of hunting sport. Sheep dog trials should be attended by stadiums packed with tens of thousands of spectators as testament to the practices that put lamb on our table every week. Helicopter herding of cattle in the Australian outback should be televised worldwide to millions. Pundits should follow crop rotation plans and hedgerow regulations. Countryfile would be the new Match of the Day, and it would be farmers who were paid upwards of £100,000 a week.

Certain sports have, however, reflected the shift in human culture. Motorsport, for example, embraces an industry that is central to the current human lifestyle, and the competition element pushes industrial development for the benefit of the industry. Although we do not all drive Formula One cars around the streets, the aerodynamic developments, increments in tyre quality, safety testing, and so on, would eventually influence large-scale car manufacture.

The BBC’s Great British Menu is back in our lives, and fantastic as ever. But if watching arrogant chefs covering pigeon kidneys with a tarragon foam and sweetbread emulsion is starting to drag, crack open a bottle of gin and play the Kettle Thoughts Unofficial GB Menu Drinking Game.

The Rules

Two fingers/one sip of drink for every time someone says:

1. “Ground Breaking”
2. “Olympic”
3. “Molecular Gastronomy”
4. “Banquet”
5. “Foam”
6. “Sweetbreads”

Every time someone does “classic cooking with a modern twist”

Every time someone uses a clichéd sporting metaphor

Every time Oliver and Matthew argue about a dish

Every time someone meets a local grower or sporting personality

Every time a chef tells the waiters to “be careful” with their dishes (or anything similar)

Bonus

If someone uses ‘Sea Buckthorn’ or ‘Douglas Fir’, finish your drink

I am a trained psychologist so this should cost you a fortune, but for one day only my advice is on the house. That’s right, completely free, so you’d be a fool to turn it down.

1. Gym guys, stop drinking protein shakes. Eat proper food and spend more of your time living life and less time lifting things. Protein shakes taste like someone used piss instead of milk in their Nesquik.

2. Women, stop wearing make-up that is ten shades darker than your actual skin. Are you trying to be a walking, squawking advert for Dulux? This behaviour, that we shall call ‘Reverse Jackson-ing’, makes you look like a clown. Do you think that when you sweat, and droplets of dark brown filth drip off you and onto passers-by, they’re going to stop and think “Daaaaym, that girl is FINE!”? No.

3. Dogs, stop giving me your paw. I don’t carry Scooby-Snacks around with me wherever I go.

4. iTunes, stop asking me to update you! I am now on version 100,000,000.230,500,525.124,111 (beta) and am yet to see any change from the first time I installed you.

5. Motorists, use your cars properly! Some poor old inventor didn’t spend his time coming up with the idea for indicators and rear view mirrors so that you could forego using them. Opening your doors into the middle of the street without looking should hold the death sentence. I at least wish my bicycle (and I) were made from titanium so that I could plough right on through and take your car door and stupid, neglectful arm clean off.

6. Jehovah’s Witnesses, give up already. You’ve had a go, done your best, but maybe it’s time you accept that no one cares. Stay at home, save your own damn souls, and have a cup of tea, because you’re sure as hell not getting one at my house.

7. White van men, buy different coloured vans. You are inviting discrimination. Perhaps you would have more chance with the ladies if you drove slowly past, whistling and requesting to see their breasts whilst driving a duck-egg-blue van? Or maybe a rich burgundy?  

Actually, I’ve changed my mind. That’s some really good advice and I will be sending you an invoice. 

Worry not poor readers; I intend to capitalise on this drop in competition with The Moon – a handy template paper that actually has the exact same thing on the front cover every day! This save a fortune on printing and writing costs and, luckily, the readers will be none-the-wiser thanks to the generic nature of the information and its conformity with all other tabloid papers. With an estimated daily readership of 2 million people and price of £1.50, gross annual profits are estimated at just over £1 billion.

Drink: Hot water

Today, instead of working, I have compiled a list of things that people ‘Like’ (thumbs up) and tell all their metaphysical internet friends about, including the exact number of cyber-idiots who currently ‘like’ these things:

‘Sleeping’ (Interest) – 15,366,010 people ‘like’ this – because otherwise, people would have assumed that you just drifted through every second of your lives in a conscious state. Thanks for the update.

‘Breathing’ (Interest) – 183,699 people ‘like’ this – surprisingly, fewer people than sleeping. Perhaps there is some form of mass embarrassment regarding breathing. Or maybe it’s gone too mainstream…

‘Holding Your Breath For Fun’ (Community) – 773 people ‘like’ this – obviously the sub-culture of individuals who agree that breathing has indeed gone mainstream.

‘Death’ (Local Business) – 38,413 people ‘like’ this – For those who ‘liked’ holding their breath for fun a little too much; or didn’t ‘like’ breathing.

‘Lemsip’ (Drugs) – 76,192 people ‘like’ this – more people than ‘like’ death which is logical seeing as how Lemsip is a well-known cure when ‘dying from a cold’.

‘Shaving’ (Interest) – 6,665 people ‘like’ this – a shockingly small figure, suggesting that, of the people who feel compelled to tell everyone they know online every single thing they ‘like’ (let’s take the ‘Lemsip’ cohort as a representative example), only 6,665 shave. Of the males and females, both of whom advertise their use of Lemsip, only 8.75% of them shave.

‘Mustaches’ (Interest) – 39,799 people ‘like’ this – which, I suppose, accounts for some of the shaving deficit. I can’t help but think that growing one would be better testament to your ‘liking’.

‘Moustaches’ (Interest) – 19,504 people ‘like’ this – for the minority that believe spelling ‘moustache’ correctly is as important as telling people you ‘like’ them.

‘Spelling’ (Interest) – 20,295 people ‘like’ this – incidentally, the exact difference between those that ‘like’ mustaches and those that ‘like’ moustaches. Very interesting…

‘Facebook’ (Product/Service) – 61,406,715 people ‘like’ this – roughly four times as many as sleeping, which explains why there are so many useless ‘pages’ that tens of thousands of people ‘like’ all day and all night long. Plus, only 0.03% of those people ‘like’ spelling which explains statuses like this:

Furthermore, what is the benefit of ‘liking’ these things? Do you go around telling your real-world friends everything you ‘like’:

You: “Hello Thomas”

Thomas: (raises thumb in appreciative fashion): “I like this”

You: “You what?”

Thomas: (maintains raised thumb): “That moment when you see a friend you haven’t seen for a while and they say ‘Hello’. Here is a list of 7 of our mutual friends who also like this. Sasha Valtonio, Dimitri Popich, Walter Gregory, Aston Sinclaire, Patricia Farlington, Davina Eversloft, Alberto Giuseppe Frost”

You: (raise middle finger in unappreciative fashion): “Fuck off”

If only Facebook had a button for such a response.

Bearing all this in mind, please ‘like’ this post. Tweet it. Email it to a friend. Because they already know you shave, but probably have no idea that you have read this. You know it makes sense. Sort of. 

Drink: Latte

A short time ago, I found myself reading about the most recent allocation of research grants to UK universities. Partly because things like that interest me, and partly (or mostly) because I had to kill some time in the library, and that was the only decent reading material I could find nearby.

Whilst most of the grants dished out were for admirable purposes (research into renewable energy, improving the economies of sub-Saharan Africa via fibre optics, etc.) several grants struck me as categorically bizarre. Unsurprisingly, a significant number of these research projects appear to be occurring at The University of Oxford where, seemingly, a lofty status in academia means that you can study all manner of ridiculous subjects (and get paid handsomely to do so).

A noteworthy grant provided exactly £412,364 for the commencement of a study entitled “Menstruation and the cycle of poverty: does the provision of sanitary pads improve the attendance and educational outcomes of girls in school?”

£412,364!? Here’s an idea, Oxford can have £2,364 so that they can write a paper saying “Yes, when girls do not have to miss school for a few days a month, they will do better in education. We conclude that, where possible, all girls should be provided with female hygiene products…” and I will take the remaining £410,000 for my own projects.

So that the research council accepts this proposal, I have come up with a few ideas on what to spend this money on:

1. I could create a range of novelty sports clothing for animals. Boxing gloves for kangaroos, go faster decals for greyhounds, gum-shields for sharks, safety harnesses for mountain goats… People buy anything for their pets nowadays; I may as well make a contribution.
2. Start a business that creates luxury homes by converting disused industrial buildings. I recently saw a set of pictures of abandoned buildings in Detroit (click here to see for yourself) and thought that the abandoned National Bank of Detroit would make the best apartment ever. I would turn the vault into my bedroom and use the safe deposit boxes as the world’s largest chest of drawers.
3. Reintroduce wolves in the UK. I like wolves, and it may help with the population overcrowding problem.
4. Attain a very large and angry bull and release it in a china shop. Maybe Waterford and Wedgewood, who foolishly declined my job application when I was a youth.
5. Hire a mob of loud people to follow Nicki Minaj wherever she goes so that she may never record another song again.
6. Invest the money in research to develop a drug for chemically halting hair and nail growth. You’d be able to cut your hair and nails to the desired length and then pause them at your own perfect level.
7. Or, finally, I could buy £410,000 worth of sanitary towels and have them delivered to the University of Oxford.

If a representative from any given research council happens upon this page whilst Googling the aforementioned wasted research, please consider my proposals and head to the Contact page so that we can sort out some means for payment of the £410,000. Thank you kindly. 

Drink: Lemon and Ginger Tea

There is a fundamental discrepancy in the way hard work is rewarded in terms of attractiveness. When someone works out, plays sport, inhales protein powders, and pumps metaphorical iron, they are compensated with a muscular well-proportioned physique; one that the opposite sex finds extremely attractive. However, if you work out your brain, read books, write papers, and pump mental iron(y), your compensation, although a fantastic asset, is completely invisible to the naïve observer. Not only that; you will probably also forego much physical activity and thus end up less muscular than ordinary. This is not attractive.

The problem is that, in the modern age, a superior mental capacity has replaced a superior physical capacity for the provision of resources. To throw a little evolutionary theory into the mix; a big strong-looking male used to indicate his ability to hunt, protect and provide. Nowadays it signifies that he spends too much time with his sweaty friends in the gym, homoerotically watching each other do reps on all manner of ridiculous machines. Superior ability to provide and protect is now determined by mental capacity and entrepreneurship (professional athletes aside; who make up a very small percentage of the population anyway). So why then do women still find blokes who look like deformed rugby players attractive?

The most logical explanation is that society has shifted towards the success of the brainy only very recently in our evolutionary history, and that there is a lag whilst our evolved tendencies play catch-up. Therefore, I can see the powers of sexual selection providing one of two possible outcomes (or maybe both):

1. Women will start finding men who look nerdy much more attractive than big muscular behemoths (who will probably suffer from weight-related health problems and back pain in later life anyway), or…
2. Humans will start exhibiting observable physical indicators of intelligence. Perhaps for every item of information we learn, our head will increase in size. Only a microscopic, unnoticeable amount, but as you continue to learn and learn it will start to look visibly intelligent. You will have to make way on the street for people with doctorates as they struggle to navigate their massive heads through the crowd, pursued by a flock of aroused women.

I am almost entirely positive that this will happen. Maybe… 90% certain that, one day, ladies will find fellas with massive heads completely irresistible. And if you can manage to find the time to get yourself a set of muscles to go with that big head (just to cover your bases), you can think of yourself as the ‘evolved Brad Pitt’. 

The undeniable future of 'sexy'...perhaps

Drink: Cinnamon Hot Chocolate

I have come up with a new sport: Distance-Golf. See, the problem is, watching golf is boring. I can’t understand why people spend days on end watching people do the same thing over and over. Step 1; hit ball, then follow it. Step 2; hit ball a shorter distance, then follow it. Step 3; hit ball a very short distance, follow it. Step 4; hit ball into hole, follow it, then return to step 1. There’s even someone to carry your things for you; your very own boredom-entourage.

Distance-Golf will solve this problem. No longer will golf be the sport of lazy old men whose only skill is hitting something straight. Bring on athleticism, stamina, youth!

The Rules:

All players start at the same point. When a whistle/klaxon/gun/bell/fog-horn is sounded, the game begins.

The aim of the game is to hit your golf ball as far from the starting point as possible within the three hour time limit.

You are only allowed one club and one ball. It can be any club you like, but something that will work on various surfaces would be beneficial (player’s choice).

This is a non-contact sport; however, you may hit another player’s ball. If your ball is hit by another player you must first locate and hit your own ball before you are allowed to hit any other players’ balls.

And that’s it! When the time expires, the player who is furthest (as the crow flies) from the start point is the winner and is presented with a celebratory scotch egg in honour of the Scottish origin of golf. I assume that we possess the technology to have GPS locators in golf balls, so all balls and players will be geographically monitored for the purposes of impartial refereeing. The beauty of the game is that not only must you have the power and accuracy of a golfer, but also the stamina and athleticism of a long distance runner. Furthermore, there will undoubtedly be a tactical element; do you strike off in your own direction? Or stay close to an opponent in order to try and knock them off-course? Do you go for the long hits to save time but risk losing sight of your ball; or play the sort game for increased accuracy but lots of stops? And how fast do you run? And which club do you use? My word, this is getting exciting already!

Look out Planet Earth, Distance-Golf is the next big thing.