24

 The number twenty four. First discovered after the number twenty three, the history of the number twenty four is connected deeply with our own. For example the Edinburgh Municipal Fire Brigade was founded in the year 1824 and a failed Soviet coup occurred in the year 1924. Even more strikingly, by the march of the year 2024 I will be 28 and if this wasn't enough evidence to back up the importance of the number 24, those born 4 years after myself will be 24 years old in the year 2024. Coincidence? I think not.

 However if it is not sheer chance then who has engineered it this way? Perhaps there exists some secret society, a covenant of 24 followers. A devout cult whose members pray to 24 24/7. And this secret organization has, today, spun me into their conspiratorial web for this is my 24th blog post! (I usually detest exclamation marks, trying to force their enthusiasm or surprise or excitement on the reader without any respect to his/her actual emotional response but today I'm making an exception on the account of it being a celebratory occasion!)

 Considering my long winded verbose writing style, these 24 blog post behemoths combined can probably create a good sized book to be sold in WHSmith alongside all the other deeply meaningless celebrity autobiographies (and mine would have the advantage in the celebrity autobiography market of actually being written by me, though this may be slightly outweighed by the disadvantage of myself not actually being a celebrity).

 

 

 Nonetheless, despite my best efforts, I still appear to have minimum readership. Zero followers. Twenty four posts, god knows how many words (or he would know if he existed which is a really rather murky grey area at the moment) and yet, zero followers. What? How? Why? Who? Where? When? With whom? These are questions I ask myself when I see my follower count (although the last four questions were possibly irrelevant but I ask them anyway because I am a thorough individual) which is still a colon followed by a solid stubborn zero, a combination of symbol and number that, incidentally, perfectly mirrors my shocked expression every time :0

 I have more than once discussed this issue with my underlings and the response I got was either that I should include more cute cats or cut down the words I waste in rambling. Ignoring the former as I refuse to bow down to the vulgarly low standards of internet popularity, the latter is a difficult suggestion. This is largely due to the fact that my posts are composed of nothing but rambling, cutting away the rambling would leave absolutely nothing behind which, might precisely be the source of all my problems. Namely that my blog, like a broken camera or a child with ADHD, has very little focus.

 With a clear focus comes a target audience, with a target audience comes an audience and with an audience comes readership. Therefore what I need is some subject for me to concentrate all my posts on. However I have no job, nothing of interest happens with any reliable regularity in my school or family life and I have no interests that could feasibly involve a blog such as botany or animal experimentation. One topic I could attempt to cover is some social injustice that enrages me, something I find absolutely unforgivable to the extent that I am willing to dedicate my blog to pursuing the injustice's demise. Like a knight fighting a terrible dragon, I could brandish my pen that is mightier than the sword and write aggressive campaigns against the said injustice.

  

 

 ....There is however, one problem. I really have no social injustice I would willingly dedicate this blog to. I am the sort of horribly cynical and unhelpful human being who, whilst being perfectly aware of the fact that there are a multitude of things wrong with the world as a whole, is too unempathic and lazy to feel even the slightest need to do anything. The only things that passionately enrage me are petty day to day issues such as casual Americanizations, blatant marketing, irritating adverts and mild illogical phrasings and ideas. I could make them the main focus of my blog but as social injustices go, they are less of a tremendous dragon to be fought by a courageous knight and more of an irritating worm to be cruelly crushed by some malicious child. There's really only so much I can milk from that petty topic before the metaphorical udders begin to bleed.

 Then, as it lies bleeding to death at my feet, where would I be? On the run from the metaphorical RSPCA for needless cruelty to a topic. Unplanned and frantically shoddy writings mindlessly fleeing from the pursuit of the police and the angry animal rights activists (who are exactly the sort of people capable of maintaining a blog about social outrage, spewing out a post per day on the cruelty of eating eggs or whatnot). Soon, apprehended and arrested, I will be forced to stand in a court of law, surrounded by stern animal lovers and bestial romantics.

 "And why, Mr Galanthus, did you milk the topic until it bled?" asks the judge sternly, glaring coldly at me from his majestically high oak podium.

 "For internet popularity," I mumble ashamedly, hurriedly adding, "your honour."

 "So you pushed a meager topic far beyond its capabilities for blog readership you say?" he affirms accusingly, an accusation in response to which I can only give a silent downcast nod, "Then," he announces, "you are indeed guilty."

 I sigh shakily and feel tears spill out from the corners of my eyes, my entire body sagging with depression as I await my sentence. The Judge continues, "Guilty of losing your way," an unexpected warmth enters the Judge's deep booming voice echoing around the courtroom, "Why do you need to gain popularity and readership? Why can you not do it just for your own creative entertainment? I for one, preferred it when you were just writing your pointless and unfocused, but nonetheless honest thoughts" With that he smiles slightly, a paternal reassuring grin and before I know it, I'm out of my own defendant box, legs propelling me towards my savior.

  Which is why I have decided that despite not having any readership, I will keep my writing style and subject entirely unchanged.

 I shall leave my blog completely unfocused, deeply shallow and thoroughly pointless. I will not cut down my long winded meaningless rambling, I will not display any pitiful pretence of social outrage and I will not bow down to compromise for the masses. It may be a lonely road but at least it's my road.

Lobotomy

 The date is the 19th of October 2012. The starting pistol is fired high into the air, simultaneously I spring forward athletically from my  braced crouching position, beginning my sprint down the long metaphorical road. My two fingers (because despite being of the new supposedly technology savvy generation, I never mastered touch typing and can still only competently type with two digits) dance swiftly across the keyboard, each aggressive tap of a key imprinting a pixel articulation of my thoughts onto the blank white screen before me.

 The clock ticks precious seconds away and as the ultimate countdown commences, to my relief I see that the end line, the deadline, lies just meters from my exhausted self. With a final burst of energy I propel myself forwards, the remaining few paragraphs flowing onto the page in a jumbled flood of words. The time is eleven fifty nine. Relieved I have made it, I click the beautifully vibrant button labeled "Publish". Feeling victorious, I close my eyes, I have successfully written and posted another bog within the day. Then as I open my tired eyes to look back onto the screen, a sudden ice age envelopes my heart and the exhausted yawn meets an untimely end half way up my throat. The red box stating "you are only allowed a maximum of twenty labels" lies smugly across the top of the page.

 Hurriedly I delete the one extra offensive treacherous miscreant of a label that now threatens to ruin everything I have worked towards. I frantically click "publish" again, the time is midnight, in the distance a clock presumably strikes twelve and I imagine for the few seconds it takes to load my online publication, the deep resonating mournful rings of the ominous metal bell. I grit my teeth in frustration and cast my eyes onto the screen in vain hope that blogger counts midnight, the barren no man's land between two days, to be the territory of the merciful today as opposed to under the occupation of the tyrannical tomorrow.

 I let out a slow sobbing sigh, the post is labeled as "20th of October".

 It has finally happened, on my last post, I failed to meet the deadline. I'm sure there is a meaning to the term "deadline". Presumably if you go past the deadline you become dead in some way, but as far as I know in most every day situations people aren't killed for late paperwork, unless there exists some evil organization skilfully covering up every unpunctual excel sheet or mildly tardy report related murder (Perhaps entitled League of Uncompromising Beaurocratic Employers or LUBE for short).

Therefore if you miss a deadline, you must be dead in some other slightly more subtle way. Perhaps you become dead to whoever set you the deadline. So as soon as you fail to meet the deadline, your employer or immediate superior or whoever it was that told you to hand in that file by six o'clock in the morning sharp, no longer looks at you with the level of burning passionate friendship that they used to. Instead your employer stares coldly at you, a certain emotional distance appearing between superior and subordinate, an invisible wall suddenly erected to severe the bond of mutual trust that had grown so strong between the two of you before that fateful six o'clock in the morning blunt.

 But in this instance I had set the personal deadline of one blog post a day for myself to keep and as much as I might try, it really is rather difficult to keep an emotional distance from yourself. Hence, if I want to become emotionally disconnected from myself, the only possible solution is to become generally emotionally unreceptive as a human being, this may perhaps be achieved by undergoing the great medical process of lobotomy.

 Goodbye dear meager wavering mirage of a readership whose existence is more than a little doubtful, the next time we meet, I may have become an empty emotionless husk of a human being but at least I would be a punctual empty emotionless husk.

Very Little

 Hold your mind firmly in one hand, tense your muscles and slowly draw back your arm, preparing for launch. Then very quickly turn one hundred and eighty degrees on the spot while strongly swinging your arm, releasing your grip as you do so. In this way, cast your mind back and perhaps you will remember, to the days of your childhood or young adulthood or just your adulthood (depending on what age you are at present) a certain particular juvenile tool of amusement.

 An arts and crafts type object given to children by parents in the vain hope of inspiring some creativity, basically consisting of a tube to blow through and a certain plastic paste which, when inflated with use of the aforementioned tube, formed a near (relative to normal soap bubbles) indestructible plastic sphere. This tough, thick, strong, rubbery, plastic, burst-proof bubble is the sort of bubble I mean when I say, "my school is an upper middle class social bubble."

 Nonetheless, even this seriously snobbish private school which proudly presents its self as at least in the top five if not one percent, still attempts to make some sort of gesture of compensation for the excessive use of wealth by organizing community service projects. There are many community service projects on offer, ranging from gardening to helping out at a disabled school to serving the aged and statistically close to death. However the one I have chosen to partake in this year, and which I also took last year, is possibly the least socially helpful of the lot.

 In no way does it give anything back to those less fortunate than us, at best it is the five percent being mildly helpful to the six percent in a patronizing and self indulgent manner. This most obsolete community service of all is "Minimus", teaching Latin to nine or ten year old children from a relatively wealthy background.

 Last year I was given the task of drumming a dead language into the minds of two nine year old girls, Anna and Mia, the former being a bright but irritatingly patronizing individual, the latter being a cheerful air headed snob in the making. To give an example of the difficulty in dealing with these malignant creatures, in the second week of teaching Latin to them (the lessons occur once a week every Friday), Anna, who had clearly not been impressed by my efforts in the first week, gave me a hand written ten bullet point list of "How To Be A Good Teacher". An outline of the skills that I had apparently been lacking, beginning with "be firm but kind" and ending on "Make the subject come alive!"

 However, despite my obvious sneering contempt of their existence and ever present insulting remarks which their juvenile brains could only hope to vaguely get the gist of, the two of them seem to have some affection for me. Hence this year, even though they can no longer be part of the Minimus course, they still send word to me via their friends who now attend the classes. It is through one of these friends that I learned something today which truly filled my heart with joy.

 Towards the end of the last year, the two children, Anna in particular kept insisting that I give some sort of present to them. Their pestering was so incessantly grating away at my sanity that I relented and, having quickly rummaged through my pockets, I lovingly gave Mia a well worn pencil (so internally fractured that it was probably beyond saving even with the full use of modern day medical technology) and Anna a rusted muddy bottle opener which I'd found on the ground that very day. Mia accepted the pencil as a sentimental gift and made no complaint, however Anna insisted that she deserved a better present. In order to keep her quiet, I sarcastically and dismissively told Anna that the bottle opener was magic and if she licked it, it would grant her three wishes.

 Today one of her friend's reliably informed me that Anna had in fact gone home and licked what was essentially a solid chunk of disease roughly sculpted into the shape of a bottle opener. This then directly leading to her skipping school for several days due to severe sickness. The friends accused me of being a malicious liar for telling Anna she would be granted three wishes but in my defense I would argue that, in the fashion of a self fulfilling prophecy, she probably did have her wishes granted. More specifically her wish that her temperature would go down, that her headache would secede and her nausea stop, which of course, after several days of pure sickening agony, it did.

 All things considered, I would say that I went above and beyond my call of duty as a teacher. Educating Anna not only about the Latin language but about some key principles in life as a whole, namely "don't unquestioningly lick things that a man tells you to because you will probably get a disease". Now thanks to my compassionate diligence and sheer excellence as a teacher, Anna is far less likely to get oral herpes.

Themes

 Quite recently I was invited to a party. That in its self is a noteworthy enough fact to deserve its own smug sentence (I briefly considered allowing that statement its own paragraph but I suspect that might just go past the realms of mildly milking my good fortune and straight into the chasm of simply pathetic boasting). The very opportunity to actually go to a party is, as you might have guessed, not one that presents its self to me very frequently. So much so that being allowed attendance to a party deserves its own party in celebration which would, in turn, deserve its own party until I would be trapped in an endless nightmarish loop of partying.

 However one thing that did come to my notice was the theme of the party. The dress code to which all party goers must adhere to (lest they experience the wrath of the host or the general disapproval of all other guests around them, silently criticizing them for not making an effort) was "cowboys and Indians". Now I am aware that cowboys and Indians is a common theme as well as a game that children often play, nonetheless it occurred to me how the realms of acceptability increase significantly over time because when historically considered, "cowboys and Indians" is a look back on the massacre of many native Americans by the invading settlers armed with far superior weaponry.

 I may have not done terrifically well in GCSEs where the subjects of physics, chemistry or biology were concerned. I may have taken Environmental Systems and Societies ( the racially confused child between biology and geography, considered the least actually scientific but nonetheless technically scientific subject you can take with the IB education system) as my science subject. However, in terms of curiosity, investigative desires and the peioneering spirit of an explorer, I am a scientist at heart. Therefore, when I first saw the party theme, the obvious question to ask and attempt to scientifically discern the answer to through experimentation was "If the realms of acceptability grow with time passing since the actual incident, where does the delicate boarder between offensive and inoffensive lie?"

 For example to what extent is it acceptable to historically update the party theme? If "Cowboys and Indians" are deemed a perfectly fine dress code; since its within the same over arching theme of morally dubious American historical exploits, would it be considered acceptable if I turned up at a party in a skin colored morph suit splattered with red and pink in parts, stained a dark charred black in others, dressed as the victim of a napalm bombing according to the theme of "Americans and Vietnamese"?

Similarity

 Shepherd's pie and cottage pie, tangerine and mandarin, Bruce Lee and Jacky Chan. The world is full of things that are so alike they are practically indistinguishable. Though this state of affairs is by and large fine, there are moments where such confusing likenesses can cause considerable harm, such as the similarity between "acceptable banter" and "unacceptable offensive insults" or "people who are capable of verbal battles" and "individuals who give the outward appearance of being able to handle a bit of verbal jousting but are in fact easily offended". These two examples especially, when mixed together, create the perfect cocktail of social awkwardness and disaster (the sort of cocktail that leaves you feeling the sickening rocking storm of extreme inebriation without first allowing you to experience the pleasant gentle drift of mild tipsiness).

 In terms of the former, I do confess that I have a tendency to lose sight of the metaphorical line in the sand occasionally, inadvertently stepping over it and tress passing in the lands of potentially serious emotional damage. Usually when people chide me, which they inevitably do, concerning whatever harmful statement I've just made, I either: take the attitude of the driver caught traveling at 80 miles per hour in a 20 miles per hour zone near a school (protesting my innocence by pointing out that there are no children out at this time of the day and even if they were I would merely be carrying out the socially helpful process of natural selection by running them over) or take an offensively defensive strategy(viciously chiding the victim of my verbal firing squad that he or she should have made clearer where the boundaries of acceptability lay by say, not just lazily drawing a line in the sand but building some sort of high towering fortress wall coated in anti-climbing paint). This habit tends to frequently lose me a vast percentage of friends out of an already frankly meager supply, hence I try to be careful in limiting and controlling the contents of my speech, monitoring what words or intentions are traveling from my brain towards my vocal cords with the vigilance of a censorship division working under a strict totalitarian regime.

 Now, Underling Salmon (though she still refuses to respond to that code name) with her generally withering attitude and bitingly sarcastic remarks, gives all the outward impression of someone capable of trading insults. A fellow human with whom I could exchange shipments of casually offensive yet entertaining remarks without fear of inadvertently straying across the boarders of lasting emotional damage and social awkwardness. However, when during a conversation, I made several insulting quips (to test what looked like relatively promising waters in terms of a verbal battle) the total contents of which, when combined, amounted to something along the lines of "You are a prostitute who, without the intelligence capable of adequately passing exams, must have slept with our spineless excuse of a headmaster in order to get a place in the school" (quips, that I might emphasize, were all made in the friendly spirit of jest) I was rather disappointed by her lack of witty response or fighting attitude, instead choosing to bitterly reference these insults once in a while as if her honor had been gravely wounded.

 When I expressed my disappointment in her lack of verbal sharpness and witticism, she claimed she was not yet reacting to or insulting those around her "because I'm in a hostile and unfamiliar environment. So I'm doing what all successful organisms do, observe and adapt."

 To this I mockingly replied that since a human being's only advantage over an animal is the human's ability to use creative skills in order to adapt the surrounding environment to his/her needs to a certain extent (by, for example, air conditioning), by attempting to adapt to the environment Underling Salmon had joined the ranks of the animals to be no better than a toad or woodlouse.

 She then responded to this by stating that there is no difference between humans and other animals to begin with. Which, in a rather pleasant cyclical fashion brings the topic right back round to similarities and differences. What exactly is the difference between a human being and an animal, two extremely similar things which some would argue are in fact the same (just as shepherd's pie is supposedly the same as cottage pie according to Wikipedia). Indeed, she continued, if the difference between humans and animals was the ability to alter the environment then beavers would be classified as human since they can alter the environment due to the fact that they can create dams, thereby blocking rivers and altering the environment.

 Thus my definition of the difference between humanity and animals, which I had been quite confident was a sound argument that would be passed on as a profound word of wisdom, to run from generation to generation till far into the future,  had more or less fallen on the first hurdle constructed out of branches and felled trees by a creative beaver. So if this is not the difference between an animal and a human then what is? When I have asked this question in the past, the most common and memorable answer has been "The soul", an abstract spiritual essence of humanity that resides within humans but not in animals. However if I start believing in concepts such as the soul, then I can't help but get the feeling that other illogical concepts (the bastard children born between science and blind faith) like spiritual healing, auras and homeopathy will be just around the proverbial corner, waiting for me, their non-existent over priced arms wide open for a placebo embrace.

 This then leaves me with two options, either accept the existence of the soul and every other connotation such an admittance brings into my life with it (like unwanted disreputable associates of an ill-mannered friend, brought in as guests  by the single impolite friend who sees the invitation into your house as a simultaneous permission for everyone he knows to also be allowed free access to your abode) or welcome the beaver as a part of the human race. The choice is hard but I have to make it, and though I may come to regret it, henceforth I shall consider all beavers as equal to myself, treating them with the respect I treat other humans (which isn't much) and allowing them all the rights that I receive (which doesn't feel like much either). But if it becomes just too much, if the pressures of drastically altering my world views over night give me a headache, I can at least have the satisfaction of taking a pain relieving pill that is not in the least bit diluted.

Holiday

 If leaving things that need to be done as soon as possible till last minute were a crime, I would have been arrested and taken to court long ago. The news would show chalk or pastel illustrations of my downcast face as I stood before the judge, pleading entirely guilty to the charges of irresponsible work avoidance. In short, I am a self-confessed procrastinator. Because of this trait I am forever forcing myself into a metaphorical corner, backed up and cowering against the wall, surrounded by sinister looming mountains of tasks that should have been completed hours ago but quite inexplicably, aren't.
 Hence you might assume that the opportunity to take a break; to go on holiday; to flee from the menacing malicious parade of labor (seemingly forever in slow but definite pursuit) even if only for a few short weeks, would seem like my ultimate goal. A safe haven, my equivalent of the helicopter complete with ladder for the fleeing foiled villain atop a building, the beautiful oasis filled with water and vegetation for the weary desert camel rider or the inviting open toilet bowl for the severely inebriated guest in a house decorated with expensive carpets.
 However that is not the case. That is a case that belonged to me about three, possibly two years ago. A worn old case, its aged leather surface scratched and eroded with time, any colour it might once have had long since faded out save in a few faint patches which stubbornly stain their ground as the last crumbling bastion of dying vibrancy. But a case not without its charms for what it lacks in outward appearance, it more than makes up for in contents, packed full of dreams, hopes, adventures, aspirations and potential I saw in the world as a young child.
 Whereas my current case (the case here being a metaphor for my outlook on holidays generally) is a cold unfriendly coal black rectangle, its strong artificial geometry only emphasized by its viciously sharp clean cut corners. Polished and newly formed with a sparkling reflective surface like the back of a beetle, but for all the novelty it holds as a brand new object, it is entirely worthless due to its contents or rather a lack thereof. When its gold coloured clasps are unfastened with a precise click and its lid smoothly opened, it sits a gaping empty casket of hopeless nothingness.
 Recently I have begun to see holidays as nothing more than a depressing experience where one can agonizingly consciously experience the passing of time. Of course there are enjoyable moments, events and happenings to punctuate the dull monotone aimlessness of it all but these exactly that, mere moments ina  far longer sequence.
 Because when you're busy, the very act of excavating a free moment to do what you enjoy becomes a goal and a reward, like precious jewels occasionally discovered while hacking through a near endless tunnel with nothing but a rusty pick axe. However when the jewels begin to line the walls where before there was depressingly solid rock, after a very brief period of elation, the jewel market goes through a very rapid inflation and after a few days of hacking through nothing but vibrant beautiful jewels, all you want is too see some patches of dank depressing rock again. Soon you are driven solely by the desire to be reunited with boring old rocks and even begin to paint jewels black with tar just to convince yourself that its dull rock and not a stunning gem but in your heart of hearts you're aware of the fact it's just not the same.
 Perhaps its a trait shared by all humans generally or possibly it is just a trait held by me, a damning indicator of my weak psyche as a human unable to experience true freedom, that we cannot handle purposelessness for a prolonged period of time. Perhaps the fact I am dependent on the school to provide me with daily doses of purpose shows how poisoned I have been by the system as a whole, I have been turned an aim addict. Corrupted and enchained, unable to feel true liberation, a prisoner of my own mind, I am a victim of the system. Therefore I blame the world for the fact I cannot experience holidays with the pure innocent thoughtless joy that I once did, instead having to painfully endure the knowledge that I am doing nothing substantial with my time as I gradually waste away my holiday hours, feeling my conscience slowly decompose. In short, I blame society.

Doughnut

 I'm certain most people have had the experience of a disappointing doughnut. Obviously I've just made the gross assumption that whoever, out of my very meager readership, is currently unenthusiastically running their bored eyes through this block of text, lives in an area of the world where doughnuts are readily accessible. That is to say, you, the reader, are not at present living in some impoverished mud hut situated within a third world country, clicking the computer mouse with starved twig like fingers and sitting on a chair more three dimensional than you are. However if that is the case, I would recommend that you sell the computer and use the money to buy yourself food, get something nice like some doughnuts. I'm honored that reading my blog is that important to you but would suggest that staying alive is perhaps ever so slightly more vital.
 To the other relatively non-impoverished majority of readers, I call upon you to recall a disappointing doughnut. In particular, a jam doughnut. It may be difficult, it may be painful, but try to remember that traumatic moment you felt thoroughly emotionally let down by a piece of confectionery. Close your eyes, let your mind wander back. In fact open your eyes since the act of closing your eyes must have prevented you from reading the proceeding instructions unless your eyelids are somehow translucent like the flesh of a jellyfish. Now, close one eye but keep the other eye open to read the instructions (unless you are the jellyfish man in which case your translucent eyelids allow you to see the instructions near perfectly without your eyes necessarily being open) then relax, think pleasant calming thoughts and allow your mind to drift back like a dead body down a river.
 You are a child again, your mind is pure, untainted and innocent. Words like "systematic", "infant" and "abuse" still hold no meaning for you and consequently you would be unable to accurately describe the games you play with your uncle when your parents are out, even if you wanted to. However that is not important at present, you must focus your mind on some doughnuts. Some round jam doughnuts which you assumed are packed full of sweet jam. No, not your uncle's two jam doughnuts, that is a different story for a different time, possibly involving a judge, jury and an anatomically accurate doll which you will be asked to point precisely at.
 Back to the jam doughnuts. Spherical balls of fried dough with a fine snow like sprinkling upon its golden coloured surface. You take one in your hand and bringing it to your mouth and imagining the delicious explosion of sugary flavor that will spread through your mouth as the jam breaks free of its floury confines, you bite down on it. Only to find that it tastes of nothing more than slightly sweet bread. You take a second bite, quickly followed by a desperate third, panicked and frantic like a mother looking for her lost child, you search in vain for the luxurious treasure trove of jam that was promised to you from the name "jam doughnut". Finally you find it, not a treasure trove, not a medium sized storage box, not even a shoe box but barely a scientific spatula full of jam.
 The unappealing globule of slightly sweet scarlet gel, the same colour and texture as congealed blood, lies sullenly, like some severely angst filled teenager sitting knees up to his chin, in a tiny corner of the doughnut. The same air of vague depression that is being emitted from the pathetic section of jam soon permeates your head, darkly filling the void left behind by the happy expectations which dissolved the moment you took your first hopeful bite. Feeling thoroughly let down by the supposed treat turned traitor, you cannot help but think to yourself, "Is that really it? After all that seemingly important build up, there's so little actual meaningful substance there!"
 That feeling, the sensation of surprise, betrayal and vague disappointment, is probably what most of my readership feel at the end of one of my long winded articles and it is more than likely the precise reason why I am yet to gain any followers.