An Encounter With Ferpection

I was awakened early this morning by the ringing of the doorbell. Pausing only to drape my form in a Russian infantry officer's topcoat which I keep near to the bed for that purpose, I stumbled to the door. Outside was a man of Arabic appearance, holding a large bag in one hand and a trowel in the other. 'I've come to do your tiles' he said. Remembrance hit me like a well-aimed potato. Last night, in a drunken and self-important mood, I had made wild and extraordinary claims about the quality of my bathroom tiles to some of the Muted Slughorn's most august patrons, including a well known airline pilot and the wife of a local Tory councillor. Later, in a panic at the thought of my lies being discovered, I had begged the barman for the number of his own decorator, who enriched the lavatories of the Slughorn with fantastical and intriguing tessellations. The barman had smiled in a manner which I am coming to recognise, and told me that it would be arranged.
I showed the artisan to my bathroom, and helped him spread some old sheets over the floor. In no time at all he had my old avocado tiles pulled of the wall, and began to apply his own. As I watched him build up complex and wonderful patterns out of tiny tiles which he pulled casually from his open holdall, skilfully wielding his trowel with the confidence of a true master, I began to suspect his true identity. 'Are you, by any chance, a master tiler from medieval Morocco?' I asked him. He mutely nodded that this was true. Shaking my head at the vagrancies of fortune, I left the room, retiring to my study with a sheaf of periodicals and bottle of sherry.
I was still engrossed in the study of these papers a few hours later when I heard a cry of horror. Rushing to my bathroom, my topcoat flapping around my naked knees, I saw my decorator crouched outside the door in fear. I pushed to door open to see, to my surprise, the bathroom was decorated from floor to ceiling in tile work of the most extraordinary complexity and grace. 'Bravo!' I cried. 'You've done it! My bathroom will be famous from Swansea to Crewe.' He glared at me in anger. 'Foolish boaster' he hissed, 'do you not see? This bathroom is tiled so perfectly, so flawlessly, that it is an affront to God himself. Only he may create perfection.' As he spoke he pulled a tiny brass hammer from his overalls, and approached the polychromatic mosaic work around the base of my bath. He deftly tapped upon a tiny blue tile, as perfect as a jewel, and by bending over and peering at it I could see that he had mazed it with hairline cracks, invisible to all but the closest observer. This action calmed him somewhat, and we knelt to pray together on the dusty sheets. He left very soon after, and would take no money for his work.

Lux be lux

Help! If you make any attempt to reduce your energy consumption you will end up stubbing your toe in the dark, before succumbing to poisoning. Who will save us from energy efficient lighting? I hope this isn't the 'scaremongering' that spiked professes to despise so.

Confused young man: 'But it's useful...'

Tom Hodgkinson's critique of Facebook was replete with all the accoutrements of the worst kind of Guardian journalism: paranoia, misguided poetry, neanderthal anti-capitalism and total ignorance of subject matter. Calling it an 'ideologically motivated virtual totalitarian regime' as well as a 'takeover bid for the world', Hodgkinson champions in its stead 'real-world concepts such as art, beauty, love, pleasure and truth'.

'If I want to connect with the people around me, I will revert to an old piece of technology,' crows the Idler sarcastically. 'It's free, it's easy and it delivers a uniquely individual experience in sharing information: it's called talking.'

Further to that: The Idler, the blog of the magazine, edited by Hodgkinson, looks like a reasonably worthwhile state of affairs. Wallpapered with snails and containing some humorous anecdotes about pigs, it's definitely worth a visit. Unfortunately, the bolshy, stuffy PCness-gone-mad rubbish sours the sanguine charm of his writing. See, for example, the long complaint about not being allowed to slaughter his own pigs. It desperately wants to be a glorious panegyric to personal liberty, but it wanders into confusion after only a few sentences. A level attack against abattoirs would have been palatable. Not, however, feigned incredulity that the law chooses to intervene in the slaughtering of animals, which is clearly consistent with the existing laws against animal cruelty. Many people, perhaps not Hodgkinson, would botch the execution and cause the pig needless suffering.

Evidently, the man is an able raconteur and possesses a pointy wit. But in light of his total unwillingness to engage with his environment, choosing instead to scoff, Boris Johnson-style, at the unfamiliar and the innovative, I can only assume he comes from the 17th century, and has got lost.