Personal Improvement Plan

So here we are. This is where a sense of humour
and ambivalence to the internet use policy
has got me. I would like to thank Oscar Wilde,
Dorothy Parker, Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks
for showing me the way. I would like to thank
Facebook, Buzzfeed and IMDb for using my time
productively. To every meme and e-card
on the internet, a debt of gratitude. To every
website that traffics in NSFW, a tip of the hat.

So here we are, me and some guy in a bad suit,
some guy who’s never read Dostoyevsky
or seen a film by Werner Herzog, who doesn’t
know Monet from a Google doodle, who never
rose as part of a standing ovation after Haitink
conducted Beethoven’s 9th. Me and some guy
who speaks in TLAs, his job title stanchioned
with the word ‘manager’. That guy. I sneak
a glance at my watch when I know he’s looking.


Neil Fulwood (UK)