“How are you?”

WHEN SOMEONE asks me ‘How Are You?’ I always reply automatically: ‘Fine thanks, how are you?’ That’s what they want to hear. I bend to the whims of social etiquette.

NO LONGER! The beast within shall rear its ugly head and when someone asks me ‘How are you?’ I shall say:

Well, I’ve got a cold and my sinuses are blocked which gives me a splitting headache so that I can’t concentrate on work for long so I haven’t managed to fill the gaps in my schedule and the money’s running out what with a house, family and several bad habits to support, honestly I think I’m working for the taxman and I can never find a pair of trousers with the right leg length and the work I do is purely for the money although it’s much better than working down the sewers I dare say so I get a bit depressed occasionally wondering about the point of it all and whether my dandruff will ever go away, not necessarily according to my doctor who I avoid as much possible, doctors actually make me ill.

And you’re asking how I am?

I’ve never been skiing or hang-gliding, never seen the Hanging Gardens of Babylon nor have I played in a rock band; never built a house with my bare hands, never been propositioned by a supermodel, never eaten an oyster, never made a million pounds, never swum the channel, never brought anyone back to life with CPR and I’ve never been the centre of a national controversy. I’ve never been thrown out of a pub, never really eaten all I can eat at Pizza Hut, never won a competition, never been stranded on a desert island and I’ve never ridden a motorbike. I have carefully avoided performing brain surgery, I’ve never been good-looking and have always been hard-of-hearing, I’ve never thrown a TV set out of a hotel window or driven a Rolls Royce into a swimming pool, I’ve never driven a Rolls Royce.

And you want to know how I am?

Why am I deaf yet yearn to sing like Michael Stipe? Because when I sing Everybody Hurts, everybody hurts. You can’t get on a bus at night without being jeered at by some brainless teenagers who think they invented the world, the products of a failing educational system which doesn’t give much hope for the future what with increasing lawlessness. Gates labelled with ‘this gate must never be opened’, things must be bad if even shop doors are alarmed, men coming out of toilets without washing their hands, hand driers that don’t work, women squeezing avocados before buying them and then not buying them, cars, car parks and car park attendants engulfing the globe, shopping centres not in the centre anymore, but on the outskirts of town with the same shops you get in every town, Tesco, Dixons, The Officers Club, Barclays Bank, Dorothy Perkins, Burger King, Ann Summers – what more do you need – oh yes – Wetherspoons – and that’s called a town, close circuit TV cameras filming my bald spot wherever I go, tattooed, body-pierced monsters wearing that emblem of wit and sophistication, FCUK, driving to the gym, getting drunk, going home and demanding sex, and that’s just the women. Dear old ladies reading The Sun, Why?!!? Daily Mail headlines ‘House prices crash and we’re all going to DIE!’, Independent Headlines: ‘Where have all the flowers gone?’, a justice system hampered by political correctness from a small clique of self-serving politicians whom we supposedly elected who are getting fat fees from multinationals to push drugs and weaponry, killing thousands of people and receiving a benign whitewash by so-called ‘Inquiries’, fuel emissions are destroying the atmosphere, public toilets are always locked and I have to go the dentist AGAIN.

How are YOU?

But then, I remember the good things which are so easy to forget

How am I?

I have a wife and children I actually get on with, they forgive me my multitude of sins, my work isn’t that bad, it’s an entertainment to other people, I like making people laugh, I have friends who pretend to despise me in that English way of hiding their real emotions, so I pretend to despise them back, I swim because it’s nearest thing to flying and I have enjoyed very good health despite my hypochondria, I haven’t been mugged, I haven’t been burgled, the roof hasn’t caved in, I haven’t been in debt, I haven’t been a refugee, I haven’t known hunger, I haven’t been addicted, I haven’t had anal sex, I haven’t worn a shell suit or a ring in my ear, I haven’t shaved my head, I haven’t pierced my nipples, I haven’t been to Warrington and, praise the Lord, I haven’t met Cliff Richard!

So it’s not all bad. I think next time it’ll be much simpler to say

‘Fine thanks, how are you?’

Simon Ellinas
Cartoons and Caricatures
Topical Humour and Satire