Robert McNeil: Robbie, if you see a flying saucer, don't be alarmed … but get rid of that balaclava
THIS column keeps an eye out for Robbie Williams, the likeable pop-based oaf who has now dedicated his life to searching for UFOFOSs. UFOFOS stands for Unidentified Flying Objects Fae Ooter Space. Yesterday, Robbie's indefatigable biographer, Paul Scott, gave the nation the latest update, including the bombshell news (to me) that Robbie had come back to live in this country, or at least Englandshire.
He has given up LAT (Los Angeles Toon)
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, because his aides thought it was making him weird. Unfortunately, the relocation plan hasn't worked. According to Paul, Robbie has been wearing a balaclava while oot shopping. Even in the snow, you'd have to have something wrong with you to wear one of these. The itchiness is appalling.
Other than that, Robbie spends his days in his new £7 million chateau-style hoose, surfing loonie websites that claim the switch from analogue to digital TV is a US government plot involving hidden microphones and miniature cameras. How ridiculous. Everybody knows it's the Canadians who are behind this.
Cybernuts on one site also believe FBI satellites are reading people's minds, which must be difficult work. Make sense of this jumble: new midfield needed, huge hooters, remember to get ketchup, specs are missing again, huge hooters, third goal was clearly offside. That's what I've just found going on in ma ain heid. I didn't even need a satellite. Just stood there with a hairdryer set to maximum.
However, fuel will have been added to Robbie's paranoia when he read Paul's revelations of the pop idol's codenames for logging on to the barmy site. I cannot pass these on to you. You will just have to buy all yesterday's papers and find them for yourself.
You say: "How could anyone know these passwords, other than the logger-inner himself or even herself?" Actually, it's quite simple. I traced several user-names of one particularly ghastly individual, simply by checking his contributions and matching them to his life over a certain period. It's true I'm a trained investigator (retired), but you could do so too, if you were willing to sit up all night fuelled by a desire for vengeance.
My advice to the estimable Robbie is this: do not be alarmed. We are merely your guardians, preparing you for your mission on Earth, or whatever this planet is called. The black-and-yellow striped flying saucer you saw over your sunbed in Beverly Hills was merely involved in a shopping trip for some cling-film. Hmm, delicious! Be still. When we are ready to move against the Earthlings, you will find a big rasta hat waiting for you. Wear that, instead of the balaclava, and await further instructions from our Chinese allies.
My instincts say I dither, therefore I am
MY INITIAL reaction to a report on trusting your instincts was: "This cannot be correct! I am sure of it!" However, upon mature reflection, I saw merit in the idea and discarded my original feeling.
According to a top study, instincts are based on memories that lie just beneath the surface of the brainlobes. These memories float on a sort of jelly substance, and are mainly blue, but sometimes green. They measure about 1cm across.
The problem I have is that my primary instinct is to dither. On several occasions, dithering about a social event (the stuff that causes me most distress: do I have to go?), I've actually gone to the door of the venue, still undecided about going in, and then have turned back for home.
This has included house parties, as I dislike these, and once notoriously climbed out of the bathroom window at one. I still recall the feeling of freedom as I breathed deeply of the night air in the dark and lonely street outside. I should have trusted my instincts and not gone in the first place. House parties and other hellish social occasions always turn out worse than one feared.
When I said above that my primary instinct was to dither, I was not lying, but neither was I telling the truth. I was merely being incorrect, something I enjoy enormously. Dithering is my secondary instinct. But, alas, it overrides the primary decisive instinct, which I wish I could learn to trust.
China is tightening its belt but at least it's not wearing Lycra
I SEE China is advocating austerity for its citizens, who know better than to disobey the controversial country's comically undemocratic authorities. This is a shame really. Many of us look to China partly for inspiration, but mostly out of fear.
If they do invade Britain, as many people expect this year or next, we will have to write in pictograms, and I was always rubbish at drawing. The first luxury the Chinese are giving up is the car, that excellent motion-based box which keeps us warm and feeds us music while we travel. It insulates us from the smelly masses as well as from other drivers, who are all rubbish. The Chinese are reverting to the bicycle, which famously makes people aggressive and heedless of the safety of others.
Thankfully, the Chinese are averse to showing off and would never dream of dressing up in skin-snogging Lycra, unlike Westerners, who don't share the same capacity for shame.
The admirable Easterners are also giving up expensive gym memberships and returning to the parks to practise tai chi, which unclogs your meridians but, alas, does nothing to help you lose weight. What good unclogged meridians if one remains a waddling bloater?
At the more extreme end of things, citizens are giving up "fashionable western-style" consumables such as milk, bread, and Coca-Cola. I hadn't realised milk was fashionable. Next time I pour it on my Golden Grahams, I'll put on my flared troosers.
The official Chinese magazine, Liaowang (Huge Hooters), wheezed authoritatively: "Patriotism doesn't just mean shedding one's blood on the battlefield – ken? – but in these times when our economy is afflicted by the global crisis, going oot and consuming is real patriotism." Blood? Battlefield? I thought patriotism, in this country at least, was just poking fun at the London Must Rule Over Us brigade. However, I like this new idea of going oot and consuming for Scotland. Where's the nearest Scottish-owned store? McDonald's, is that one?
http://news.scotsman.com/opinion....2458.jp