Sunday, March 22, 2009

reflection, boxes, gravel

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By the lake.

Sometimes I wake up with a phrase in my head, which I would never use or want to use. This morning, it is "tick all the boxes". "It ticks all the boxes," someone says on a tv programme, meaning it meets entirely with his approval, leaves nothing to be desired. We seem to live in a box-ticking society, in an age of box ticking. All the time we are asked to complete questionnaires which involve ticking boxes. I amuse myself, while still half asleep, with a box-ticking exercise of my own. Plutarch Research Inc, my newly formed global, opinion and market research organization is not going to be left out of the procedure. We have devised ten simple questions, which tell us everything there is to be known about anyone foolish enough to answer them.
Do you think of yourself as:
Happy? [ ]
Utterly mistaken? [ ]
Heathrow airport? [ ]
Shroedringer's cat? [ ]
George Washington? [ ]
The special theory of relativity? [ ]
A teddy bear? [ ]
BBC Radio 4? [ ]
In need of quantitative easing? [ ]
A box that needs ticking. [ ]
When relevant boxes have been ticked indicate the importance to you of your answers in the following box on a scale 0 - 10oo., where 0 is of no interest or relevance and 10oo , a matter of life or death [ ]

How reassuring is the comfortable crunch of gravel under foot.

3 comments:

Zhoen said...

In order,
Shroedinger's cat
In need of quantitative easing
Utterly mistaken.

Ok, I'm tired of ticking, of either clock or bedding type.

I prefer deep forest litter, but gravel is good in it's way.

Roderick Robinson said...

Because the list is like no other I'm almost tempted to tick. But not quite.

Unknown said...

Headline news: Shroedringer's is top cat. Wins popularity survey with 100 per cent of votes.

"We're sick of ticking" said the clocks,
"Of exploding" said the bombs,
Let's all find a cosy box
And sit upon our thumbs.