The left shoe

Complete with ‘power disc’ – ideal for office relaxation. Simply tighten for more strenuous activities.

The right shoe

Classic simplicity, elegantly babouched to display a comely ankle. Plant pot featured in the foreground is part of the B&Q Basics range.

My filthy shoes

Have you noticed that we are currently bombarded with a wave of propaganda everywhere we look?

The current hysteria threatening to overwhelm us by sheer weight of media is sickeningly green in flavour: Recycle. Save the Polar bears. Only flush your toilet once a day. Turn off your computers and printers at night. Use energy saving light bulbs. Make a compost heap and dance round it to keep warm. Cycle to work. Holiday in eco lodges and grow your own tomatoes by eating salad and shitting in your own back garden. The options facing us all can sometimes be bewildering.

In my quest to ‘do my bit’ for future generations I have been recycling shoes. Finding a matching pair for under £1 has proven difficult but with persistence and a bit of compromise I have been blessed with a result that is not only functional but extremely stylish too.

If we could all lower our footwear standards, perhaps there would be no need for shoe banks or fuel guzzling cargo planes full of old sandals making return trips to Burkina Faso or wherever they are eventually dumped and set upon by famished natives who are ignorant of Western shoe fashions.

Let’s stop these wasteful exports to ungrateful third world countries and in doing so save our planet, our conscience and our exquisite shoe design heritage.

 

Shut ‘em down

I hate to divert you away from the pleasures of my arena for even a single moment – especially for such an undeserving cause – but check out filthymess.com for a seriously skewed version of reality. Just who are these haters? Civic-minded, overly conscientious do-gooders trying to foist their ignorance on others, that’s who.

“When your surroundings are a filthy mess someone is responsible” reads their website header. At least we are in agreement there, although I fear we will always be sitting on opposite sides of the table. I feel my fingernails digging into sweaty palms.

I decide to contact the editor of the website and do so as follows. Please note the deliberately friendly tone to catch him/her off guard:

“I’m thrilled to find this website!

It never occurred to me that I would find fellow afficionados of such a specialised subject. My own humble work in this field can be viewed here:
http://myfilthylife.wordpress.com/

Exposing this mess is absoultely essential.

Keep up the good work,

Frank Lee Mesi”

And their reply?

“This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification. Delivery to the following recipients failed…”

Whilst I am naturally disappointed by a missed opportunity to spread the gospel, I chuckle to myself as I picture their website collapsing under an avalanche of hatemail. I close my eyes and imagine the entire world’s waste, pouring out of a sluice pipe onto their shitty little website and it’s scrawny little editor, his eye sockets, emptied by rats, filling with the slime and bile of a million putrefying abattoirs.

An Easter egg for all you non-believers

The swiss roll. After it was relocated I buried it at sea. Well, actually in a cup of water inside the air-conditioning unit.

Attention all heretics

For those of you with no imagination #2

The West side

For those of you with no imagination #1

The East side

9.40am

I’m crushed this morning. My bin has been emptied. The green sticker is facing outwards on display to the room, my home made red artwork is staring at the wall like a disgraced child. This is exactly as I had left it, with one major exception: the contents of the bin have been spirited away during the night.

The only sweetener to be had here is that the arrangement  around the general bin area hasn’t been meddled with. Teabags, chewing gum and sweet wrappers are still arranged tastefully on the stained wood block flooring. The only sensible course of action comes to me in a flash. I will bypass the office refuse system altogether.

Elegant solutions to simple problems

I have made the duplicate bin sign. It is slightly larger than the original bright green sticker and I have coloured it red for added impact. It now looks like a proper warning. I have also catered for the eventuality of translation difficulties with the addition of a large ‘X’ at the top of the notice. I have attached it to the opposite side of the bin as planned.

The beauty of this new sign is that it’s easily removable – simply held in place by several bits of Blu-Tack. I’m excited because if it works in the office as predicted, I can take it home and try it on my dustbin there. I am the proud creator of a portable solution to unwanted waste removal intervention.