‘Is that Smiling Face with Open Mouth and Smiling Eyes Happy, or Grinning Face Happy, or Smiling Face with Open Mouth and Closed Eyes . . .’

Sophie hung up.

Monday March 19th

Something is definitely up at work: it’s been days since Janice has harangued me. People edge past me shiftily in corridors, half-smiling in sympathy.

I think it may be affecting my motivation levels. Instead of doing any actual work, I idled away the day in writing a series of ‘uninspirational quotes’, using Stuart as a kind of anti-role model:

1.    No matter how big the problem, it is never too late to run away.

2.    Every morning’s another chance to have an equally awful day.

3.    Hard work may be optional but mediocrity is inevitable.

4.    Nothing is impenetrable, the word itself says “I’m penetrable”.

5.    Inside every opportunity is a disappointment waiting to happen.

6.    Don’t be overawed by your ordinariness. Make it your passion.

7.    It’s not about winning or losing, it’s the falling apart that counts.

8.    Unless a trampoline breaks your fall, you’re unlikely to bounce.

9.    Keep your head in a puddle long enough, and you’ll drown.

10.  Life is like a parachute; it gets you down.

I have pinned it to my officle wall and taken another copy home to stick on the fridge door.

Tuesday March 20th

I’m a Celeriac Get Me Out of Here

A knobbly root vegetable

with a plan

and bravado

was able to escape

from the van

of Ocado.

Toby Salt has had a poem go ‘virile’ on Twitter, a technical term employed by users of social media to indicate a strong tweet with lots of energy.

It has been retweeted more than three thousand times and his follower count now nears four figures. It concerns the famine in East Africa and, according to one of his followers, reveals ‘a profound empathy that moves beyond political borders and teaches us what it is to be human’. As if. The closest Toby Salt has got to famine is when the Ocado van broke down and it was three hours late in delivering his rosemary and sea-salt focaccia.

Liz was amongst the retweeters. How noble of her, to put to one side the poem’s obvious flaws and failings, in order to raise awareness of this terrible situation.

Wednesday March 21st

I was liberating a Twix from the snack machine this afternoon, when I noticed the copy of Toby Salt’s poem pinned up next to it, underneath which was a bucket collecting money for the East African Famine Appeal. It is incredible to think about the power of poetry and how it can make a real difference to world events and people’s lives.

Thursday March 22nd