Wrapper's Delight

I have to go buy wrapping paper. Its one of those items that I can't help but slightly begrudge buying. Its an item that's purely bought for milliseconds of enjoyment before its torn to smithereens. Please can we all use the word smithereens more? Thanks. It always seems like a good idea as you search for appropriate wrapping paper for the person. Will it have robots on it? Or guns? It should be noted that that is always the sort of wrapping paper I buy for people whether they like it or not. This is because I usually have to spend a great deal longer looking at it than they do as I attempt to cover the present in said paper without it looking like its been kicked through a hedge. I have never ever not managed to do this. My wrapping skills would ensure I'd come last in a wrap battle, if such things existed and I wish they did. 8 Mile would've been a hugely different film if the final battle involved Eminem being handed a load of pink shiny and impossible to cellotape paper to put round a cactus while Doc has to use thin crepe paper to cover a helium filled balloon. It'd have been nothing but tense I tell you. This is exactly why I should make films. I'm just shit at managing to make it look all neat and sometimes I wonder if its nicer presentation not wrapping it, although the shoddy appearance does often produce a nice gasp when they open it up and its not a dead hedgehog like they assumed or a tramp's boot. But then even when I have spent arduous hours choosing the paper, smothering the pressie as though I'm trying to kill it and winding cellotape around its exterior as though creating a prison for Morph, the recipient always spends all of 30 seconds looking at it before aggressively attacking it to get to the present like a wolf to fresh meat. I can't handle all this wasted effort. Its the same way that while I like it when food is nicely presented, ultimately it will end up in my gob and therefore surely it doesn't matter? Its like the lesser equivalent of decorating someone's house just so they can detonate it, but at least it looks pretty as bricks fly through the air. Pointless.

I have googled why we do it and there is no answer. I've asked Jeeves, and he doesn't know. If he doesn't know, then its clear there is no reason as Jeeves knows everything, despite just being a butler. Essentially he is a constant reminder never to undermine anyone because of their working status. All the web told me is that every year the US wastes 5 billion tons of paper over Christmas on wrapping paper. Imagine being a tree - ok, that may be hard at first, unless you're a drama student in which case STOP WAVING YOUR ARMS IN THE BREEZE, I just meant in your head - and knowing some of your pals are about to become tables to be used in a family home for centuries to come, or to be turned into paper that's used for important literary journals heralded the world over. Then as you are being cut down by a saw wielding lumberjack - DRAMA STUDENTS, STOP SCREAMING - you overhear that your purpose is to be broiled down into thin streams of Barbie wrapping paper to then cover some overpriced dollop of plastic so that a fat unappreciative chump can tear you into strips and put you in a bin. That is no way to live a tree life. If I heard that as a tree, I'd kill myself and become withered wood so they couldn't use me.

I'm still going to go buy some. One day I'll get angry about something and see it through. Till then I'll keep collecting plastic bags, wrapping paper and occasionally killing endangered species by spraying CFC's into their eyes. JOKE! I use bags for life. Promise.

Couple of other quickies. Who doesn't like a quickie eh? Sloths. That's who.

- If I hear another comedian say the line 'Let me tell you a little bit about myself', I will storm onto the stage and start screaming in their face. People are already there to listen to you. We assume you are about to say things about you, as if you started saying things about everyone else, we would be freaked out. Unless you're Derren Brown, in which case its ok. DIE COMEDY CLICHES DIE! Its also never a little bit. That's the worst thing about it. You have braced us for a morsel of self-indulgent diatribe and yet you warble on about how life's so tough being ginger/middle class/fat/stupid/a complete arsehole, punishing us for ever wanting to pay attention in the first place. Cock off. If you want to tell us about you, just go into it. Link it somehow. Remember those? Links. NO NOT THE CHARACTER FROM ZELDA! The other ones. Hmm. Rant over. I'm going to punch some wrapping paper to fell better.

- My beard is at galactic itch levels. I honestly don't know how people cope with it. I'm trying my best and working on the basis that what doesn't kill me will make my stronger. The repetitive arm movements used to scratch my beard every two mins probably mean that I am in fact getting stronger through a mini workout so it may be true. I tried to do a breakdancing baby freeze yesterday - why? Because I was bored. Its dangerous me being bored. We've been through this - and managed it for the first time in about 8 years. I think this may be beard scratching's doing. I suggest everyone get a beard and scratch it and soon we will a mighty bearded race and able to take over the world. That's what the Spartans did. FACT.

These last two are boring, but necessary info if we are going to be friends:

- My telly now works. If I thought punching the air was cool, I would do it. Instead I intend to spend much of today watching the Bourne trilogy on Blu-Ray and cheering everytime violence happens.

- I rediscovered the Sneaker Pimps album Becoming X last night. It brilliant. Such a shame the women, Kelly Ali, left after that album because they were never as good after. I'd say if you're a fan of the XX then this must have influenced them in some way. 6 Underground and Spin Spin Sugar are classics. Classics that no one really remembers. Go listen to it now. God I'm old. Sigh.


Das ist alles.