This is not a meme

No, no, no. This is abso­lutely, most def­in­itely and com­pletely not a meme. Instead, this is merely some utterly point­less dis­place­ment activ­ity to save me from the worst bad mood I’ve exper­i­enced since my days try­ing to main­tain a Mr Whippy ice cream van in the fiery pits of hell, and because in my head I am cur­rently work­ing out charm­ing ways of put­ting people to par­tic­u­larly grisly death when I am Ruler Of The Entire Known World (Except Venezuela). Why does every­one seem to be so hor­rendously incom­pet­ent? All the time? And neither notice or care that they are?

Ahem. Any­way.

So no, this is not a meme. How­ever, a short while ago I was brows­ing through my per­sonal Gmail inbox — alarmed but, sadly, also faintly pleased at how immensely pop­u­lar I appeared to be on this gloomy Monday after­noon — and I began examin­ing the Sug­ges­ted Links that Google threw up for me hav­ing care­fully scanned the con­tents of each email. It was odd, to say the least; faintly alarm­ing, to say the most. Here are the res­ults from the first ten emails in my inbox. Oh God, I appear to have slipped into a state of utter, utter pointlessness.

1. Fold­ing Boxes
Art Prints Made Any Size
Need a Pug Lover Gift?
Gmail is try­ing to tell me: that the ulti­mate gift for the Pug lover in my life is a taste­ful art print of the delight­ful animal.

2. Shaggy’s New Song
Cliff Richard — Live DVD
Dog Music for dogs & you
Gmail is try­ing to tell me: that I should get to know many more singing shaggy dogs, prefer­ably ones that have duet­ted with Sir Cliff Richard. (No Olivia Newton-John jokes, please.)

3. Street­car
Recep­tion Party Venue
Meet Eton Road
Gmail is try­ing to tell me: that I should face the full hor­ror of my unhealthy addic­tion to The X Factor — although I have abso­lutely no desire to meet a third-rate boy band that didn’t even win the bloody com­pet­i­tion. I have stand­ards, you know.

4. Will your child be safe?
Rymax Fam­ily Toi­let Seat
Cows ‘n’ Things
Gmail is try­ing to tell me: that if I ever have a child, I should dis­miss any thoughts of employ­ing a fiercely growl­ing nanny or an expens­ive Swedish guard dog (um, those may need to be the other way round), and instead should just get the del­ic­ate babe looked after by a friendly moo­ing cow.

5. Poor Credit His­tory Loans
Blues Broth­ers Trib­ute
Awful Fre­quent Diarrhea?
Gmail is try­ing to tell me: that the last may be closely con­nec­ted with the first. Well, I blame all that wor­ry­ing over not being able to get a loan to buy a Rymax Fam­ily Toi­let Seat: “the toi­let seat the whole fam­ily can enjoy!” Which is lucky, as they will need to be using it Awfully Frequently.

6. Get Paid For Writ­ing
Xyron Cut­ting Sys­tem
Uni­ver­sity Essays UK
Gmail is try­ing to tell me: that this is one for all the cheat­ing, essay-cribbing stu­dents out there. I used to be one of your num­ber, and you might as well face the harsh truth now. You’re never going to get paid to writ­ing for a liv­ing. Such is the real­ity of things. Life’s hard, then you die. Get used to it.

7. Are you an Artist?
New Forest Poetry
Office Picasso Mas­ter­piece
Gmail is try­ing to tell me: that Pablo Picasso works in my office. Which is really quite impress­ive. I haven’t seen him come out of the sta­tion­ery cup­board yet, mind you. He’s prob­ably in there being cre­at­ive, mak­ing col­lages out of post-it notes.

8. Calab­ria Italy Research
Qual­ity Celtic Shop
Become a Lord or Lady
Gmail is try­ing to tell me: that I am almost cer­tainly har­bour­ing a deeply repressed desire to be a Scot­tish Lady. Then a Dame. Like dear, dear Judi or darling Mag­gie. Or my friend Sarah.

9. Newly Dis­covered Spe­cies
Write a press release
How To Write A Eulogy
Gmail is try­ing to tell me: that a eulogy is really noth­ing more than a glor­i­fied press release for someone who’s finally shuffled off this mor­tal coil to go and play harp on a cloud, albeit read in a rather more sombre voice. Both, how­ever, are just a pack of lies.

10. 16,500 miles, no engine
Holy Bible Evid­ence
Be A Fas­cin­at­ing Woman
Gmail is try­ing to tell me: that I should be read­ing the word of God much more closely, because within its pages lie the age old truths of how to become a fas­cin­at­ing woman. Like Eve, but not like Lot’s mis­sus. She got it all very wrong: con­di­ment is so not a good look, dear.

So has this helped my black mood? No, not really. Have the mys­ter­i­ous secrets of Gmail’s Sug­ges­ted Links, er, sug­ges­ted any great rev­el­a­tions to me? Well, other than that my path to true hap­pi­ness undoubtedly lies in becom­ing an ennobled female artist, mov­ing to Italy, and buy­ing a pet cow to mas­tic­ate (I said mas­tic­ate) on the front lawn, I’d say prob­ably not. Sadly, I’m still entirely in the dark vis-à-vis dra­matic, cloud-parting rev­el­a­tions. And am I now going to nom­in­ate some top A-list blog­gers to take up the chal­lenge of my excit­ing, new and ori­ginal meme? No, abso­lutely not. If you want to do it, you can, but all it will end up show­ing is that you’ve got far too much time on your hands.

Back to the grind­stome, then. I have an Entire Known World to run. Except Venezuela, of course. Those bloody Venezuelans are noth­ing but trouble.