Tagged by Tygerland to write about “10 things that I’d never do”. This is harder than it at first seems. F’rinstance, there are all manner of categories which you have to decide to rule in or out.
First off, there are the kind of principled delusions of grandeur which aren’t ever likely to happen and would make me look a bit of a pompous fool to mention them, such as: Accept a knighthood, date Paris Hilton, be a space tourist, or deceive a tribe of south sea islanders who had mistaken me for a god.
Then we have another whole bunch which are entirely and obviously unethical, so you’d expect me not to do them as a matter of course - eg: mug giros off a pensioner, salute a bloodthirsty dictator’s indefatigabliity, eat a live marmoset. Though of course, if I don’t mention them, I could well be left open to the description of ‘potential marmoset abuser’.
Next up are the temporary ones. I like boycotts, so refuse to use RyanAir, T-Mobile, Esso & so on. But what happens when they see the light (through principle or financial necessity) and start to change a bit, a la McDonalds - surely you need to start actively buying again in order to justify the boycott in the first place? So in the hope that Michael O’Leary one day has a Damascine conversion, I’ll leave his airline off this list.
So after all that prevarication, I’m left with a rag bag of less dramatic ones, which I shall attempt to drag out to 10:
- Vote Tory. I’m Labour, me. (though not above tacticality in cases of extreme first-past-the-post silliness).
- Drive a Chelsea tractor or similarly inefficient motor.
- Sing along with ‘god save the queen’.
- Send kiddo to private school. (handy way to make my stinginess look like high principle - double points!)
- Fare dodge on public transport.
- Bungee jump (shudder… far too wussy).
- Cross a picket (even if I don’t 100% agree - I’d still want them not to cross one I was on!).
- Bin a book, when I could take it to a charity shop.
- Switch to Apple Mac.
- Buy the Daily Mail (unless it’s for my Mother-in-law, and even then make sure to tell her off for it)
10a. And to cap it all, I would never, ever, collude in the promotion of Iain Dale. What? Ooops!
I understand it is customary to draw this kind of thing out by passing it on to others until the whole internet collapses in on itself, but as I’m so late with this I can’t honestly think of anyone who might enjoy the task who hasn’t beaten me to it already, except perhaps Nighthawk, so Roger - consider yourself tagged!
