Thursday 22 February 2007

Actually, maybe giving up chocolate would be easier

We're a couple of days into Lent, that time of year when, by tradition, people give something up in order to show off lose weight become a better person give glory to God. Many people decide that they will give up chocolate, or indeed anything sugary. Others go with the "life betterment" approach, and give up things like swearing or gossiping. Right up at the difficult end of the scale you have people trying to give up thinking the worst of others, or maybe trying to give up a particular attitude.

All of these people lack ambition.

To go for this whole "giving things up" schtick properly, you've got to try to give up a whole lot of things. That way, if anyone asks you what you're giving up, you can not only make them feel guilty that they're only giving up one thing, you can also show off your impressive memory skills by reciting your entire list.

The downside of this is that the things you give up have to be fairly easy, because otherwise you'll spend all day trying to remember whether you're accidentally infringing one of your own rules. With this in mind, I would like to present the List Of Things That I Am Giving Up For Lent.

  • Planning the assassination of the President of the USA
  • Carrying out assassinations of Presidents of the USA
  • Eating kittens
  • Trainsurfing
  • Trucksurfing
  • Just surfing in general, really
  • BASE jumping from cliffs under 150ft in height
  • Tickling policemen
  • One-handed press-ups
  • Bluffing my way into foreign embassies during cocktail parties
  • Amateur tattooing
  • Kidnapping members of UKIP and releasing them into small areas of Britain where I've painstakingly re-written all the road signs in French
  • Smearing fake blood across my face and slumping motionless onto the desk in the library
  • Dressing in a monkey suit and running through the Psychology department chased by people in white coats
  • Stealing numberplates
  • Competing in the blindfold shot put
  • Attempting to register to vote under the names "John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith", "Paddy O'Door" or "Agent Orange"
  • Sticking "Pray For Me" notices on Richard Dawkins' back
  • Heroin
  • Selling my blood
  • Selling my housemates' blood
  • Selling more than one of each of my housemates' kidneys
  • Use of the terms "fluffy wuffy bunny wabbit", "snooky-poos" and "dearest, loveliest Elizabeth" when referring to my project supervisor
  • Especially in front of him
  • Ballroom dancing
  • Bungee jumping
  • Credit card fraud
  • Putting up notices around town telling people that they can claim free cake in the Town Hall by walking in and loudly proclaiming "I HAVE A BOMB IN MY RUCKSACK"
  • Hiring people to walk out of the Town Hall carrying rucksacks and eating slices of cake
  • Drink driving
  • Eating kebabs from Ahmed's Bar-B-Que van during tutorials
  • Replacing the front cover of every copy of the Daily Telegraph in Univ's Junior Common Room with the cover of the Socialist Worker
  • Drag racing
  • Racing in drag
  • Drag racing in drag
  • Leaving cryptic messages signed "Falcon" in the margins of the newspapers in Starbucks
  • Borrowing all of the first year textbooks from the library
  • Setting up a small bookstall outside the library, mysteriously stocking only first year textbooks
  • Disco dancing in church
  • Climbing trees in the park armed with a toy bow and arrow and claiming that I am the new Robin Hood
  • Going into a crowded lift and screaming from the moment the doors shut until the moment the doors open again
  • Murdering people with axes, polearms, or knives with blades longer than 4 inches
  • Playing lacrosse
  • Prank calling the Dalai Lama
  • Feeding the animals at the zoo

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