Jack Daniels: “We work hard, we play hard”

Lynchburg: just by the name you can have a guess at the pastime of choice in times gone by. Life may trundle on at a slow pace, but thankfully even here things have changed.

“Everybody knows everybody here,” a generic meat-headed flannel shirt-clad hick drawls in the new Jack Daniels’ advert. Look – spot the ethnic minority. And it’s not just the non-white residents of the Tennessee town that these days get greeted with a great big bear hug – everyone’s invited. As long as they are male, mind.

Of the 361-strong population, can you spot one woman? Nope. Because Lynchburg is clearly one big hairy-bottomed gay commune. Bless. Just ask the village bicycle, “Big Goose”.

“Randy Baxter – everybody around here knows him as ‘Goose’.”

They sure do. And not just because of his waddle.

And what about Sammy?

“My Grandpa told me: ‘Sammy, I don’t want you off the ground any higher than your horse’s back and I don’t want you in water deeper than a bathtub.’”

Er.

All that’s missing is the afterhours disco. There's one for the Jack Daniels distillery suggestion box.

Is there anybody out there?

As opening lines go, Douglas Coupland's JPod takes some beating:

"Oh God. I feel like a refugee from a Douglas Coupland novel."

And now reading The Gum Thief – which considers a middle-aged alcoholic car crash of a man working in a branch of Staples while writing a novel about a middle-aged alcoholic car crash of a couple who swill Scotch, bicker wittily and encounter a young buck novelist who is writing a novel about a middle-aged alcoholic car crash of a man working in a branch of Staples, phew – I can't help thinking that this is sometimes Coupland's world, we just live in it.

Nope, I'm not middle-aged, alcoholic, a car crash or working in Staples. I just aspire to be.

Anyhoo, somewhere amongst the to-and-fro correspondence of its main players, an email address comes up:

blackchandelier@gmail.com

Out of interest, I've sent the following email to this address:

Do people actually write to email addresses they find in books?

(I'm sorry, it was the most Couplandesque thing I could think of.) Well, you've got to, haven't you, eh? I'm hoping this delivers goods, like Homer Simpson's email address, as once revealed (and spelled out) on The Simpsons. Acknowledgment would be nice and all. I'd settle for that.

Get some

I can't believe that I spent all day re-writing the rule book only to go and rip it up this afternoon...

If I could say a few words… I’d be a better public speaker

I’ll keep it brief.

Eighteen minutes. Slightly shorter if you were watching in China. That’s pretty sprightly. Even at that length, I was half expecting President Obama to whip out a Blackberry and start posting key points on Twitter.

It was certainly short enough for BBC commentators to shoehorn in a reference to the longest presidential inaugural address back in 1841. Before they had Facebook and MTV and shit and presumably when attention spans were longer than – ooo, a big crane! Sorry, where was I?

When William Henry Harrison took to office, he delivered a mighty 8,444 word beast. I’ve read shorter books. In fact, I haven’t read any longer books. It took nearly two hours to get through it, putting even my mum’s one-way telephone conversations to shame.

Legend has it that Harrison’s speech was so long that – stood out on a cold 4th March with no hat or overcoat – that he later contracted pneumonia and died some 30 days later. That’ll learn ‘im.

Rivers of piss

My local area is populated by me. Really. This is what UpMyStreet.com has to say about my postcode:

“Often, many of the people who live in this sort of postcode will be young, living in converted flats, in multi-ethnic areas.

“These young multi-ethnic communities are primarily found in London, with many living in houses which have been converted into flats.

“Most people are in their twenties and thirties and there are only a few, very young children. The population is diverse. On the whole they are well qualified. Many are in professional and managerial jobs, with good incomes. Others have lower level qualifications and are likely to be office and clerical staff.

“Public transport is by far the most popular method of travelling to work or study. Residents are also happy to walk, and only a minority see the need for a car. At this stage in their lives this type are not really thinking about investing their money. They will spend their spare money on travel, and will take long haul trips as well as European holidays.

“They like exercise and sport, as well as more contemplative pursuits such as the theatre, the arts and self-improvement classes. They are also very interested in current affairs and read The Guardian and Independent as they commute to work.”

I’m also a Taurean and my favourite colour is blue. I do however have to cut eye holes in my copy of The Guardian as I walk to work.

One person who didn’t get the memo is the dude I walked past at about 4pm on Saturday, who was stood on the pavement outside a nearby block of flats, idly shooting the breeze with a mate, flies undone, pissing into the street. He looked like a Telegraph reader to me.

The Tetris Diet: A Square Meal

It’s grey, it’s January – you’ve made it through the Most Depressing Day of the Year only to be smacked in the face with a Tuesday that’s only saving grace is that it’s 24 hours closer to the weekend. A weekend where you can’t afford to do anything, only wallow in your own self-pity, which you'll still be charged for. Sigh. And if you’re not reaching for your crack pipe, chances are you’re binge-eating crushingly cheap MSG-laced fatty snacks fashioned from the gristle and fluff swept off an abattoir floor. Stop moping, blubby – it’s time to starve yourself. But which is the right fad diet for you?

Fuck Atkins, the 2009 eating disorder of choice is The Tetris Diet. And it works like this:

Imagine your stomach is like a 8bit monochrome grid (or think of it in a 16-colour palette if you want to be fancy). Food falls through your faceflap and collects at the bottom. This means if you eat food that slots together, you can cram more in – get it in a row and it cancels itself out, meaning more food can be shoved in through your head hatch.



So here’s the basics to get your head round:
- Stick to cubed or square food. Biscuits are a good staple.
- If you really must eat fruit, cut it into the right shape or try special groomed square Japanese delicacies. Fit in as many square meals as you can.
- After eating, jiggle your body to get food to fall into the appropriate slot.
- Listen to tinny Russian music while digesting.
- Long foods are at a premium – get them in the right slot and you can cancel out four whole rows of food.

It’s that easy, fatso. Don't just stand there inertly, flab rippling in the airflow - stuff some more crap into your mouth, anything to stop your feeble twittering. Just make sure it’s square – got it? Sweet.