Everyone hates corporate buzzwords and boardroom slang. Everyone. Even newborn infants, yet to glimpse the world for the first time or hear anything other than the beating of their mother’s heart are filled with a primal, instinctive dread at the very thought of modern business phrasiology. It is an unspeakable horror, more twisted and vile than anything described in the pages of H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘Cthulhu’ mythos.
By far the worst however, by several orders of ghastly magnitude, is the term “singing from the same hymn sheet“. Derived from the slightly less foul but equally forbidden “reading from the same page”, this sickening utterance not only fills the meeting rooms of the English speaking world like a deafening, crackling static, but by introducing hymn sheets to the fray drags Christianity into the fucking equation. Bloody Christianity.
While contemplating this term and the various methods I would employ to dismember any soul foolish enough to use it in my presence, it occurred to me that it would offend me far less if there were a variety of multi-faith equivalents that could be used by, for example, our Islamic chums or those nice Buddhists.
Some examples:
Bellowing from the same minaret
Praying in the direction of the same Mecca
Wearing the same turban
Carefully moving the same earthworm out of our path so we don’t stand on it
Sacrificing at the same altar
Fasting for the same Ramadan
Hallucinating with the same shaman
Taking a pilgrimage to the same Hajj, circling the same Ka’bah seven times, kissing the same Black Stone, running back and forth between the same hills of Al-Safa and Al-Marwah, drinking from the same Zamzam Well, standing in vigil at the same Mount Ararat and throwing stones in the same Devil-stoning ritual.
Take note, international people of business. Take note, or I will punch your stupid heads off.
One from the archives here, but since I’ve been neglecting you all a little I thought I’d spoil you rotten by dousing you in this hot spray of sticky liquid fun. The following is an exchange betwixt myself and one scamming Nigerian bastard. I’m afraid I have since lost the images that accompanied the story, but will attempt to convey their content using words.
From: philtom [mailto:philtom@ummah.org]
Sent: Sun 29/08/2004 03:46
To: rodti macleary
Subject: BUSINESS MANAGEMENT & CONCEPT.
If I were to run into a crowded public place right now – covered from head to toe in the most powerful plastic explosives available – and detonate myself to the detriment of numerous innocent bystanders, Allah would give me seventy two beautiful, yielding virgins to do with as I wished. SEVENTY TWO. Why, I expect I’d be saddlesore after the first dozen. As it is I’m stuck with one virgin, Virgin Bastard Media, and I might as well be dead for all they care. As part of my ongoing catalogue of complaints against Virgin Media grows I thought I’d share my latest letter to them with you, as you’re all so jolly lovely.
Enjoy!
HELLO THERE.
Despite experiencing numerous 'issues' from the very moment I entered into a business relationship with Virgin Media I have tried to maintain stoic and composed at all times. There does however come a point where the time for peaceful, amicable negotiation ends and I turn into a bawling, demented madman, screaming at the heavens for all I'm worth while shaking my fists in the air. That time is now.
I WOULD LIKE TO MOVE HOUSE PLEASE.
I WOULD LIKE TO MOVE HOUSE FROM 142 GLAROBATRA STREET, EDINBURGH TO 11 FRONDLECRUBE CRESCENT, EDINBURGH.
FOR SOME REASON CURRENTLY BEYOND MY KEN I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE THIS ACCURSED VIRGIN MEDIA TELLYBOX WITH ME.
I WOULD LIKE YOU TO FIX YOUR WEBSITE SO THAT I CAN REQUEST THIS HOUSE MOVE. THE WEBSITE THAT HAS SEEMINGLY SWALLOWED MY REQUEST EACH AND EVERY TIME BEFORE VENTING IT OUT OF WHATEVER STRANGE ELECTRICAL BOWELS IT HAS ALL OVER THE FLOOR OF THE INTERNET.
I WOULD NOT LIKE TO BE TOLD BY THE CALL CENTRE OPERATIVE IN YOUR 'HOUSE MOVE' DEPARTMENT THAT MY ACCOUNT, PREVIOUSLY IN CREDIT BY LOTS OF MONEY BECAUSE OF YOUR OWN INCOMPETENCE, HAS BEEN CLOSED FOR NON-PAYMENT. THIS IS NOT RIGHT. THIS IS WRONG. THIS IS WRONG IN THE SAME WAY THAT HITLER WAS WRONG.
I WOULD LIKE YOU TO KNOW THAT EACH LETTER TYPED HERE IN CAPITAL LETTERS IS ACCOMPANIED BY ACTUAL VOCAL WAILING, GNASHING OF TEETH AND REAL TEARS COMING FROM MY FACE AND COMPONENTS THEREOF.
Please either ARRANGE MY HOUSE MOVE or pick up your stupid crash-prone tellybox at your earliest convenience, lest I frogmarch to your offices (presumably still in The Gyle, Edinburgh) and let you hear the aforementioned anguished cries for yourself.
Well yes I suppose I have been rather quiet of late, but I’ve been busy in my internets laboratory sticking bits of dead rabbits onto potatoes like some sort of sickening Mr Potato (Rabbit) Head thing. I suppose it’s all a bit of a secret, but it’s a scary secret and it’ll be rammed up your well-oiled internet pipes before you have the chance to politely decline.
Ignore for a moment the intellectual property lawsuits about to be raised by the former Soviet Union and Pixar’s ‘Monsters Inc’ team, and instead revel in the visual delight that is a dancing Stalin.
I do hope a breakdancing Hitler is in the pipeline.
What is HORTO GRAVANDA? HORTO GRAVANDA is the language of pleasant greetings. While other languages are cluttered by words for all manner of different things, HORTO GRAVANDA is perfect for greeting people in a pleasant fashion as its only word is ‘HORTO GRAVANDA‘, roughly translating as ‘hello‘. While ‘HORTO GRAVANDA‘ would be regarded as two words in any other language, it is made into one by the secret punctuation unique to the language of ‘HORTO GRAVANDA‘. When you say ‘HORTO GRAVANDA‘ to someone, you’re not just saying ‘hello’ (or ‘HORTO GRAVANDA‘) to them, but you’re saying ‘hello’ (’HORTO GRAVANDA‘) to their mother. This is the beauty of ‘HORTO GRAVANDA‘.
Graham Linehan (yes that Graham Linehan) will be watching M Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Happening on Friday night. At 9pm on Friday night, to be precise. While simultaneously tearing it a voluminous new posterior void on Twitter with a vast coven of bastards from the internet. It promises to be mildly amusing.
Some fantastic level crossing near-misses here, courtesy of Sky News (apologies for the advert beforehand). Gaze in wonder at these most asinine feats of human endeavour! See those brave imbeciles who will risk their lives to get somewhere ever so slightly quicker than if they’d just waited!
Apparently fifteen people lost their lives in the UK last year on level crossings. I’m hopeful that at least one of them was hit so hard that their faces were spread across the front of the train in such a way that it looked like a sickeningly visceral character from Thomas The Tank Engine. Imagine the look on the faces of any children present as it pulled into the next station! “Look Mummy, it’s Clancy the bleeding engine!”
There’s money to be made here. Get me Britt Allcroft’s phone number.
Cobra Beer have a lot to answer for. Whichever vile marketing goons they hired for their current advertising campaign have fashioned a thing of such utter repugnance that spermatozoa actively sterilise themselves in order that future generations aren’t born to witness it.
In each of these vomit-inducing animated vignettes currently airing predominantly on Dave (the BBC’s unofficially sanctioned repeats channel) three blokes exchange what is supposed to be the channel’s trademark witty banter. Unfortunately the level of wit possessed by Cobra’s marketing chimps is significantly less than Wildean, and after scrawling some inane drivel on a napkin in their own shit they bounded off for another tea party prior to prolonged session of horrifying medical experiments.
Worse still, the pedestrian musings of these woeful simian shitklaxons is almost invariably sandwiched between funny, intelligent programmes like QI or Have I Got News For You. The contrast between the whimsical observations, disarming charm and knee-quiveringly smooth voice of Stephen Fry and the grating, screeching idiocy of these adverts is so jarring that I’d be amazed if it hasn’t contributed to at least one death. I expect the long term effects of exposure to this must be comparable in terms of permanent physical injury to gargling cocktail sticks or regularly bathing in Sabatier knives, and so the deaths are sure to come sooner or later.
Do you hear me, Cobra Beer executive types? Deaths! You have the blood of innocents on your hands! You have lured a nation into a bottomless pit of mental deterioration! You pigs! You swine! You diabolical fuckers!
The electric interfunt is the personal blog of Rodti MacLeary, a known internet reprobate who really should know better. The materials collated within the interfunt are clearly the deranged bawlings of a madman from whom Mr MacLeary would like to remain physically distant and legally distinct.
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