World Going Mad...

...some will say even - and who am I to argue - that it is more gone than going mad this world of ours. But ever hopeful, as befits a clerk in holy orders, I will merely opine we are on our way to lunacy, rather than that we have arrived finally and irrevocably at the doors of that particular asylum.

One does though rather steam - and perhaps resistance is a healthier sign of struggle against the tide than abject acceptance - whenever one comes across an example of worldly - often political or corporate - insanity.

Shaking one's head in disbelief is hardly a sufficient response; sucking one's teeth in annoyance doing poor justice to the rank insult to sense or intelligence. Barking rage achieves nothing for resolution or repose; cackling laughter - though oft mooted - risks incarceration in the very place one seeks to avoid, white coated men arriving on the instant.

Announcing, therefore, the creation of an intended self-therapeutic series of 'WGM' posts with exigent examples given, as found, of the type of implausible yet rampant nonsense we all suffer.

I begin with not the worst, but one merely to hand today courtesy of Our Tel [World's Greatest Living Irishman] writing in The Sunday Telegraph. This may serve as a marker of what is to come. Readers of a nervous disposition may wish to look away now.

Man phones the Premium Bond people to inform them that he has moved address. (Well you would wouldn't you lest that precious life-changing cheque never reach you?)

He is, however, at once smartly told that 'for security reasons' [note that] said PB people cannot take such sensitive information over the telephone, but must do so using only the correctly sent and returned written form.

"But I have moved, that's the whole point. So how can you send me the form if you don't know my new address?" says the man. "Fair point well made," admits the PB person. "So will you tell me then your new address in order that I can send you the correct form?" (Thud! - a sound oft heard in this series - of head striking the desk in studied disbelief.)

More, much more, to come. It will make me feel better, I know it will.