Giles Broadbent is killing time
When I'm feeling down and pointless - but not quite down enough to warrant something reckless like booze or self-harm - I play a little game to pitch me back across the five-bar gloom gate.
I call it the "Obitz" and the aim is to make a tally of your life's worth. Fun for all the family.
This is how it goes. Grab a paper. I choose The Times. Check out the obituaries. Then rewrite the published caption exchanging the published name for your own so you can accurately measure the distance between someone else's achievements and your own inadequacies.
You get 20 points for having done the thing (or its modern equivalent); four for having the potential to do it; one point for having the potential to do it but not the will or commitment; and minus five for something hopelessly beyond your physical and mental faculties.
Here's last week's caption rundown. "Giles Broadbent talking to one of his gardeners"; "Giles Broadbent was musical director of the first pop music show Six-Five Special"; "Broadbent just beaten by Gunder Hagg on July 1, 1943, in Gothenburg"; "Broadbent leaning in to his Schemp-Hirth Nimbus 4 high performance glider".
"Broadbent: he believed that certain dilemmas could never be resolved in a manner which would satisfy everyone"; "Broadbent: he was wounded in the D-Day landings but recovered to fight in Italy"; "Broadbent described himself as driven by a sense of inner compulsion"; "Giles Broadbent: A Gallup poll found that most people regarded him as more powerful than the prime minister."
Yeah, OK so that was a bad week, points-wise.
The after-game party (the "Inquest") is just as revelatory.
You get lairy, then truculent, then dismissive ("yeah, but that was back then when things were easier"), then weary, then furious again, then you make a list of things you need to achieve a positive score, then you sign up for a class, then you buy something improving from Amazon, then throw out all carbs from the fridge because it's your slow metabolism that makes you fatigued and defeatist.
Then you go to bed.
– Published on wharf.co.uk
