Stuck

Oh let's just start this. No-one reads the first sentence of a blog anyway. No-one reads the first paragraph. Or the last paragraph. They just sweep their eyes over a chunk in the middle to get a sense of things. If they don't spot certain key words of interest ("naked" for example, or "Bieber"), they move on. Life's too short to dwell on vacant text.

Today I'd like to talk to you about Israel.

But I won't. I'll just embolden that word to draw you in. And then lose you immediately.

Half asleep last night, I was trying to come up with a tweet. These sleep tweets (or "sleep-tweets") are sometimes... brilliant? Why not. No-one will check. But this one has proved top be a dead end.

It was based around the title of the Stealer's Wheel song 'Stuck in the Middle With You'.

My initial thought was to suggest that the title was dialogue spoken by one of the 'd's in the word 'middle' to the other. But that proved difficult to explain, as you can probably imagine.

Then I thought I was missing a trick by not using the letter 'u' somewhere. I thought maybe I could say that the 't' and the 'c' in 'stuck' were stuck in the middle with 'u'. But that's just nonsensical.

Realising that my dreamy brain hadn't given me much to work with, I thought about resorting to The Tweeter's Folly of invoking the female sheep:

"I was trying to make mutton stew last night. Stock in the middle with ewe."

Then I cried for half an hour, and wrote a cheque to a dozen charities. After realising that you can't include twelve recipients on a single cheque, I tore it up and just ate an apple.

I lead an interesting life.

***

What about:

The t and the c in 'stuck' in 'Stuck in the Middle With You' are stuck in the middle with u.

?

What about that? Does that make sense?

I don't know.

I'll tell you what, I'll tweet it now. But you and I know that it's not a genuine tweet. It's an experiment.

A naked Bieber experiment.

***

There it's done. The experiment has begun. I feel like one of those scientists. You know, like Boyle or the other one.

I'm wearing a wig and carving a star chart into an Aborigine's back. Just like in the old days. If it wasn't for the scientists, we wouldn't have any of the things we take for granted today (like some moss).

No retweets or favs yet.

Oh. Oh dear. I've just thought of something that might compromise the experiment. What if someone retweets the whole "stuck" thing only because they've read this? What then?! It could happen. I'm going to publicise this blog post on Twitter as always. There's overlap there.

If my terrible tweet gets twetten only because of my writing about it, the results will be null and void.

If you are reading this, please DO NOT retweet the "stuck" tweet. It would jeopardise all the good work I've done so far. We need to keep this clean and sterile and objective. Our conclusions must be based on fact, not happenstance or the opposite (sadden... sitting down...).

***

I'm bored of this experiment now. How do scientists overcome apathy? Is it with some kind of exciting beaker?

I'm still searching for my calling.

***

I just found my calling. It's asterisks.

And taking exception to everything (with no exceptions).

***

I've run out of money this month. It's all my fault. I bought some things (comics, cinema tickets, apples). It's annoying because I'm not in a very good mood, and money can buy happiness. I might spend the money I don't have anyway and hope no-one will notice. Banks can't be everywhere.

I get paid on Monday. I can survive until then. Maybe I'll hijack a liquor store and ask for a little bit of ransom. Just enough to tide me over. Then you get your liquor store back, safe and sound.

We don't even have liquor stores in this country. I'd have to buy a plane ticket to America. We have off-licences. They sound much tougher. A liquor store is like a magical world of manna and secret kegs.

An off-licence is a bureaucrat barking obscenities into your face. I wouldn't want to kidnap one of those.

***

Still no retweets. I'm going to shut up and sort my life out.

Here's the final paragraph. As we've established, no-one will read this. Which is a shame because I'm giving away all of the manna kegs which I've smuggled over from the US. They are at 77 Banbury Road, Oxford, England. First come, first served. But you won't come. Because you're not even reading this. You tuned out after the Bieber/Zion tease and have never looked back. Well that's just too bad. More for me.