Sandwich Bored

A BBC reporter did a vlog entitled My Lunch Hack. Do they inhabit a magical realm so divorced from the real world that they think everybody has the same difficulties with modern life that they do? A ‘hack’ he called it, for which a cursory definition search produced the following:

• cut with rough or heavy blows.
• gain unauthorized access to data in a system or computer.
• to manage successfully, e.g. [neg] ‘just couldn't hack the new job’
• to play inexpert golf

Also, in journalism hack is a ‘pejorative term for a writer who is paid to write low-quality, rushed articles or books "to order", often with a short deadline.’ Ah, got it, though you’d think the BBC would prefer loftier content.

Or maybe they thought it was clever parody of something or other? A dig at people who think that by rebranding what we used to call tips as ‘life-hacks’ somehow makes your existence a marvel of triumph over a frustrating and mundane reality. Whereas we used to call it ‘getting on with it’ nowadays people must ‘reinvent’ themselves, have what they call life makeovers and openly flaunt their inane solutions to problems which didn’t exist, as if they have discovered some Holy Grail or fountain of eternal youth. In case you missed the point, the guy made his own sandwich.

So, here’s my transport hack; feel free to share it, make it an Internet sensation and like the fuck out of it across the social media diaspora. Are you ready? Prepare to be amazed: It was a minor miracle when, with a sense of wonderment I discovered that the two spindly appendages beneath my fat arse could employed, were I willing, as an actual means of propulsion. For years I got around in my bath chair, as befits a man of my exalted position, but one day I just thought to hell with it. Dismissing my manservant I unsteadily rose to balance atop those self-same limbs and... woah!

Freed of the gravitational bonds of arse-bound inertia, I discovered that with a little persistence it was possible to swing those oddly knuckled props one at a time and actually make forward progress. Within a few hours I was getting as far as the front door all by myself and by the end of the week I was able to leave the house (on foot!) and make it to a thing you may have seen by the side of the road, called a ‘bus stop’. I’ve christened this marvellous perambulatory action ‘walking’ and I think it could even catch on... if only the ordinary people could be persuaded to abandon their chauffeurs and dismiss the help for the day.

In case you think this was one of those lucky happenstance one-offs, I have a dozen more hacks in the pipeline. Coming up in my new series of instructional videos I am going to show you: how to stay out of debt by not spending money you don’t have: how to stay slim and healthy by not eating food that is basically made of shit: how to earn the respect of your peers by not whining for help at the first hurdle: and how to grow up by not buying fidget spinners... because they are not made for you, they are made for children!