The Reversal

Two issues in, and already a tradition. I had feared the second issue, which is where most periodicals reveal they had only one idea. I have no ideas, which is turning out to be a considerable advantage.

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This Week I Am Certain Of

I am certain, this week, that the group chat should be muted at once and left never. To mute is wisdom; to leave is war. A muted chat is a room one has quietly walked to the edge of, still nodding, no longer listening, present in the way a portrait is present. I am in four such rooms. I have not spoken in any of them since spring. They believe me to be thinking. I am, in fact, at the buffet.

My Last Reversal

Last issue, in a fit of character, I declared that the man who ignores his notifications is a coward hiding behind his own pocket. I have since ignored mine for six days and can report that I feel like a king. I withdraw the word "coward" and replace it with "sovereign." The pocket is not a hiding place. It is a moat.

The Register of Modern Indignities

The Register continues, as promised, and as threatened.

5. The email that opens "Hi again!" from a company to which I have never once said hello.

6. The subscription I cancelled on Monday, writing on Tuesday to say it misses me.

7. The loyalty card that has made me, without my consent, loyal.

Correspondence I Have Invented

A reader, Gerald, of no fixed address and no fixed opinion, writes to say that I contradict myself. I have read his letter twice and arrived at two different conclusions, which I feel proves his point and mine at once. I shall not identify Gerald further. He knows what he did. And so, increasingly, do I.

A Word From My Apostrophe

Gerald is not real. He is still right.

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Firmly, and until further notice,

Mr Fickle