I have been laughed out of court.
Today, dear readers, is Comic Relief Day in the United Kingdom. As those of you who are not based in this green, unpleasant land may not know, once a year we are all invited to 'do something funny for money'. All funds raised are then used in various campaigns to take a few steps closer towards, as the charity's slogan puts it, 'a just world free from poverty'.
One very common way of raising money for the cause is wearing 'silly' clothes to work. This, then, is the day on which a simple trip to the bank becomes an encounter with the cast of Toy Story ('Your overdraft has just plunged to infinity and beyond!'), or buying a train ticket takes twice as long because every transaction must be accompanied by a song from the cast of The Sound of Music ('The hills are alive ... with the sound of an overpriced ticket that is the result of Thatcher's criminal privatization of the railways!')
While I have nothing against raising money for the cause in question, I do find this yearly ritual rather unsettling (and not just because I instinctively recoil from any injunction to have fun and be wacky). I autistically like things to be the same as they usually are, so suddenly having to buy my predictable lunch from someone dressed as an armadillo is deeply disturbing to me. Ink fact, I try not to go out at all on Comic Relief Day. Stay in the bunker. All this will pass, just like Christmas, royal weddings, and the Olympics.
This year, however, there is no escape. I normally work at home on Fridays, but today I have to go into the office. Worse still, we were informed earlier in the week that Baby Ink is expected to wear 'silly clothing' to nursery today, ideally in the colour of red (to match Comic Relief's famous 'red nose'). At 7.15am, then, he sat downstairs and ate his breakfast while wearing a (red) Welsh rugby shirt (because sport and nationalism are silly), a pair of trousers that are too short for his legs, and several Comic Relief stickers.
As I studied his strange appearance, I suddenly had a brilliant idea. 'Why', I said to the Inkette, 'don't we hang a biro around his neck? That would make him look really silly.'
The Inkette took a sip of her coffee, sighed, and said, 'There's no need. He's your son, so people will automatically know that he's an idiot to be laughed at.'
And thus I made my own special contribution to Comic Relief.
Inks in non-zany use today: Conway Stewart Blue; Sailor Brown.
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