Shorts
First today, a word from the editor.
And now on with the post.
Men are in crisis
‘Darling,’ I say, looking up from the paper, ‘Have you heard?’
‘What?’
‘Men are in crisis.’
‘Are they?’
‘Yes,’ I say, glancing down at The Times ‘Weekend’. ‘It says here. Apparently they’re having a terrible time.’
‘Oh dear,’ she says. ‘That does sounds awfully difficult.’
‘Well, yes. Sounds dreadful. However,’ I say, raising a small glass of batch brew coffee to my lips, ‘I have to say though that I’m not in crisis. I’m having a coffee and reading the paper.’
‘Well, good for you darling. We should think of the rest of the men though – must be unbearable for them.’
‘Oh yes. If there’s one thing men dislike it’s a crisis. It puts us right out of our stride, that does.’
We sit in silence for a moment thinking about the poor men.
‘I suppose I had better book the window cleaner,’ I say after a while. ‘The panes look rather blemished.’
‘But darling, what if the window cleaner is in crisis?’
‘The window cleaner is not in crisis,’ I say with sudden vehemence. ‘He’s got a trade.’
I can only make love to bardcore
My spouse isn’t particularly happy about it, but there we are; the only music that these days stimulates me to lovemaking is classic hip-hop set to medieval instruments.
Aromatic candles, mood music and sensual massage don’t float my boat, but put the bars of Eminem’s ‘Real Slim Shady’ over a backdrop of lutes and I am randy as a goat. Nothing gets me more ‘down to clown’ than the sound of a flute trilling ‘Still Dre’, or the opening of ‘California Love’ being hammered out on an enormous kettle drum.
Ironically, for my wife, such music seems to have an opposite, anaphrodisiac effect. For her, the sound of ‘Notorious B.I.G.’ winding through a hurdy-gurdy appears to possess no erotic quality of any kind.
And so a compromise solution needed to be found. At the moment we start with the sounds of pre-modern rap before switching to her preferred ‘Very Best of Tom Petty’. Though, I must confess that, even during that portion of the evening, I find my mind wandering to the possibilities of fusion.
My guinea pig brings all the girls to New Malden
A shop can be an invitation to visit an area, and some of London’s best outlets are located in its obscure suburbs. Thus it is with my guinea pig shop, fast becoming one of New Malden’s hottest ports of call.
Why has my establishment proved so enticing? Chiefly because of its unique marketing concept, encapsulated in its name – ‘Guinea Pigs for a Guinea’. Putting it simply, I trade guinea pig (Cavia porcellus) for guineas, this the unit of British currency from 1663 – 1814. If you can render me a guinea, I will exchange it for a guinea pig – which latter are carefully selected on grounds of cuteness and docility by myself.
What a simple and yet brilliant concept!, you exclaim, quite correctly.
But here is the secret of my enterprise; guinea pigs, in most varieties, and certainly those I sell, are worth far less than these antique coins of the British realm. And yet people are still prepared to part with their guineas in exchange for my guinea pigs. Why? Why do they do this?
It must be something to do with how people like a challenge – first, they have to find a guinea and then they have come all the way to distant New Malden to spend it; surely all that effort would only be reserved for guinea pigs of exceptional merit.
Everything in my shop model is designed to obscure my business’ true rationale. The young women attendants dressed in guinea pig hats; the fur-lined fountains cresting on the shop floor, the ten-foot animatronic guinea pig placed on the street outside. All theatre to distract from the shop’s real profit motor – the team of expert numismatists in the backroom who assess the guinea coins which customer’s supply, and who on receipt of valid items communicate with me over radio mic to proceed.
I implore you all not to betray me.
For it were to get out, my business model would crumble; no-one would come all the way to New Malden just to purchase a mere common-or-garden guinea pig. I would probably be disgraced and driven from southwest London altogether, not to mention the implications for my future projects. If outed, for example, I see little chance of realizing my planned megastore, ‘The Animals of Farthing Wood’.
I leave you to imagine the business model.